Science, Assembly Preparations Continue on ISS

The 13th Expedition to the International Space Station (ISS) will resume three-person operations when they welcome the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery to their home in orbit. Two space flight veterans, Russian Cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov and U.S. Astronaut Jeffrey Williams, will spend six months aboard the orbiting laboratory, which has seen continuous human presence since November 2000.

Expedition 13 lifted off aboard Soyuz TMA-8 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 29, 2006. Traveling with Vinogradov and Williams was Brazilian Astronaut Marcos Pontes who spent eight days on the Station under a contract with Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency.

After 10 days in space, Pontes returned to Earth on the Expedition 12 Soyuz with William McArthur and Valery Tokarev.

The six-month stay by ISS and Soyuz Commander Vinogradov and ISS Science Officer Williams will focus on Station assembly preparations, maintenance and science in microgravity. The crew will work with experiments across a wide variety of fields, including human life sciences, physical sciences and Earth observation, as well as education and technology demonstrations.

Many Space Station experiments are designed to gather information about the effects of long-duration space flight on the human body in preparation for future exploration missions to the moon or Mars.

Plans call for Vinogradov and Williams to be joined during Expedition 13 by European Space Agency (ESA) Astronaut Thomas Reiter of Germany. His arrival with the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery will mark the first time a long-duration crew has three people working on board since May 2003.

Reiter will also be the first non-American or non-Russian long-duration crewmember on the Station. He will fly under a commercial agreement between ESA and Roscosmos.

In addition to delivering Reiter to the ISS, the crew of STS-121 will deliver more supplies and cargo for future Station expansion.

The following Shuttle mission, STS-115, also is scheduled during Expedition 13 and will resume the major assembly of the Station. Station assembly work will include preparation for expansion of the ISS main truss and installation of additional solar arrays.

Vinogradov and Williams’ tour of duty will end in September 2006 when they will be replaced by the Expedition 14 crew. Reiter will return on STS-116 for a future Soyuz mission.

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Science, Assembly Preparations Continue on ISS

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