New residents arrived at the International Space Station at 12:01 a.m. CDT (0501 GMT, 9:01 a.m. Moscow time) Wednesday. Docking of the Expedition 9 Crew’s Soyuz spacecraft (ISS Soyuz 8 / TMA-4) initiated a nine-day handover and science operation by a visiting European Space Agency researcher.

International Space Station Status Report #04-20
11 p.m. CDT, Sunday, April 18, 2004
Expedition 8 Crew
The Soyuz launched flawlessly at 10:19 p.m. CDT from the Baikonur
Cosmodrome, Kazakstan, and is on course to dock with the Station at
12:04 a.m. CDT Wednesday, April 21.

Hurricane photography took its place alongside other science, maintenance, and education on the International Space Station this week, where Expedition 7 Commander Yuri Malenchenko and NASA ISS Science Officer Ed Lu completed a busy week on orbit.

Progress-M48 was launched from Baykonur on 29.08.03 at 01.47.59UTC for a flight of 2 days to the ISS and docked to the ISS on 31.08.03 at 03.40.45UTC so somewhat earlier than planned. The approach and docking took place under supervision of TsUP-Moscow. The only activity of Malenchenko was a check of the TORU, the system for manual remote control from inside the station.

This week the Russians execute some important operations to secure the operational continuation of the International Space Station.
This involves the replacement of 1 of the 2 freighters which are now docked at the ISS.....

During the period in which the pass of the ISS over the Netherlands occurred during the night hours, I did not pick up any voice communications via this channel. After 21.07.03 the passes gradually took place during the evening hours and now and then VHF-1 is in use for short comm. sessions to discuss technical and operational matters.

The Expedition 7 crew, Commander Yuri Malenchenko and NASA International Space Station Science Officer Ed Lu, continued work this week with unique microgravity science experiments and maintained the operating systems of the orbiting lab.

Last Monday the crew focused on medical experiments and an inventory by Malenchenko of 44 Russian medical, food supplement and ointment kits, about a two-hour task. Tuesday saw additional medical tests and Mission Control Moscow continued testing a new satellite navigation system antenna.

Lu, Malenchenko Prepare for CSLM-2, Replace Battery Thursday was a day full of science and maintenance tasks aboard the International Space Station, and it also marked the 28th anniversary of the first link up of U.S. and Russian space vehicles.

The International Space Station Expedition 7 crew of Commander Yuri Malenchenko and NASA Science Officer Ed Lu began their third month aboard the Station this week, wrapping up a week that included a personal milestone and continued experiment work.