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2003
Report #18 
11:30 p.m. CDT, Friday, April 25, 2003
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas 
 
A major step in assuring the continued permanent human presence in
space aboard the International Space Station was realized tonight
with the flawless launch of an a cosmonaut and astronaut aboard a
Russian rocket. 

Expedition 7 Commander Yuri Malenchenko and Flight Engineer Ed Lu,
who will become the NASA ISS Science Officer, lifted off from the
Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, at 10:54 p.m. CDT. They are now
bound for a docking with the orbiting complex at 12:58 a.m. CDT
Monday. After a six-day handover of responsibilities aboard the
station, Malenchenko and Lu will take over duties from the Expedition
6 crew of Commander Ken Bowersox, Flight Engineer Nikolai Budarin and
ISS Science Officer Don Pettit. Bowersox, Budarin and Pettit have now
been in orbit for 154 days.

Bowersox, Budarin and Pettit will undock from the complex at
5:40 p.m. CDT May 3 en route to a landing at 9:03 p.m. CDT in
Kazakhstan that same day. They will travel home in a Soyuz spacecraft
that has been docked to the station for six months. Malenchenko and
Lu will remain aboard the station conducting a series of scientific
and educational activities until October.

Early Saturday morning, Malenchenko and Lu will oversee two engine
firings by their spacecraft that will adjust its course toward the
Monday docking. On Sunday, another engine firing will be performed to
further refine its course. Aboard the station, the Expedition 6 crew
will spend Saturday with a quiet slate of activities that includes
participating in planning teleconferences with the ground, off duty
time and a series of "Saturday Morning Science" hobby
activities conducted by Pettit. Information on the crew's activities
aboard the space station, future launch dates, as well as station
sighting opportunities from anywhere on the Earth, is available on
the Internet at: 

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/

Details on station science operations can be found on an Internet
site administered by the Payload Operations Center at NASA's Marshall
Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., at: 

http://scipoc.msfc.nasa.gov/

The next International Space Station status report will be issued
following the Expedition 7 docking early Monday. 

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