[sarex] Expedition 11 Will Welcome Discovery to Station

["ARTHUR Z. ROWE" <N1ORC@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Submitted by Arthur N1ORC - AMSAT A/C #31468

Expedition 11 Will Welcome Discovery to Station

Highlights of the new Expedition 11 International Space Station crew's 
mission include welcoming the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery on its 
STS-114 mission, the first Shuttle flight since the Columbia accident. 
Discovery crewmembers will conduct three spacewalks at the Station, 
deliver several tons of equipment and supplies and return to Earth with 
equipment and scientific experiments and trash from the Station.

Sergei Krikalev, 46, and John Phillips, 54, will receive extensive 
handover briefings from their Expedition 10 predecessors, and will get 
training on the Station's robotic Canadarm2.

They also may see the addition of a third crewmember to the Station this 
summer brought to the Station by Atlantis on the STS-121 mission. Plans 
call for them to do two spacewalks, the first in August from the U.S. 
Airlock Quest in U.S. spacesuits, and the second, in September, in 
Russian spacesuits from the Pirs Airlock. The spacewalkers will continue 
outfitting the Station's exterior and work with scientific experiments.

Expedition 11 Commander Krikalev and NASA ISS Science Officer Phillips 
also will welcome the arrival of two Progress unpiloted supply vehicles. 
ISS Progress 18 is scheduled to reach the Station in June and ISS 
Progress 19 should be launched near the end of August.

In August, Krikalev and Phillips will move their Soyuz spacecraft from 
the Pirs docking compartment to the Zarya docking port. That will permit 
use of the Pirs Airlock for spacewalks.

Krikalev is a veteran of five previous spaceflights, including two 
missions to the Russian space station Mir and two Shuttle flights. He 
was a member of the first Station crew, serving aboard a much smaller 
ISS from Nov. 2, 2000, to March 18, 2001. He has spent a year, 5 months 
and 10 days in space. This flight should see him become the world's most 
experienced space traveler.

Born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia, he graduated from what 
is now St. Petersburg Technical University in 1981 and then joined NPO 
Energia, the Russian organization responsible for human spaceflight. He 
was selected as a cosmonaut in 1985.

Record or not, just being in space isn't what’s important, Krikalev 
says. "The job itself is very interesting for me, being there and being 
able to look back on Earth, to do something challenging." He said he 
probably hasn't paid enough attention to that record.

Phillips was born in Fort Belvoir, Va., and considers Scottsdale, Ariz., 
his home. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1972 and became a Naval 
aviator. After leaving the Navy in 1982, he earned a masters and 
doctorate in geophysics and space physics from the University of 
California in 1984 and 1987. He did postdoctoral work at the Los Alamos 
Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico.

He was selected as an astronaut in 1996. He was a member of the STS-100 
crew of Endeavour in 2001. On that mission he coordinated two spacewalks 
at the Station to install Canadarm2.

Phillips has wanted to return to the Station ever since. "It was a 
wonderful place to be," he said. "The crew was doing a great job; they 
were having a good time." He wanted to stay longer then. Now he'll have 
about six months there.

Krikalev and Phillips are the Station's fifth two-person crew. After the 
Columbia accident on Feb. 1, 2003, the ISS Program and the international 
partners determined that because of limitations on supplies the Station 
would be occupied by two crewmembers instead of three until Shuttle 
flights resume.

The 11th crew will continue science activities, initially with 
facilities and samples already on the Station, but later with 
experiments scheduled to arrive at the Station aboard Discovery.

The science team at the Payload Operations Center at the Marshall Space 
Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will continue to operate some 
experiments without crew input and other experiments are designed to 
function autonomously.

Krikalev and Phillips are scheduled to spend about 180 days on the 
Station, returning to Earth in October, a little over a week after the 
arrival of their Expedition 12 successors.
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