Wed, May 03, 2006
Expedition 14 To Include Two Veterans, First-Timer
A veteran of three
spaceflights will be joined by a resident of the International
Space Station, and an astronaut making her first flight into space
when Expedition 14 lifts off later this year, NASA officials
announced Tuesday.
CNN reports that Expedition 14 commander Michael Lopez-Alegria
is scheduled to lift off aboard a Soyuz spacecraft bound for the
ISS in September, along with flight engineer and capsule commander
Mikhail Tyurin -- a cosmonaut who also lived onboard the station as
part of the Expedition 3 crew. They will be joined later by flight
engineer Sunita Williams, who will travel to the station onboard a
future space shuttle mission.
It will be the first spaceflight ever for Williams.
Lopez-Alegria first rode aboard Columbia into space in 1995 as part
of STS-73. He later flew aboard Discovery on STS-92 in 2000, and
STS-113 onboard Endeavour in 2002. His last flight also took him to
the ISS, although he was "only" a visitor on that trip.
Lopez-Alegria also has some impressive spacewalk time under his
belt. According to his NASA bio, Lopez-Alegria performed two EVAs
on STS-92 totalling 14 hours and three minutes, and three EVAs
totalling 19 hours and 55 minutes while part of STS-113.
The station's current occupants, Expedition 13 commander Pavel
Vinogradov and US science officer Jeffrey Williams, are currently
awaiting the arrival of their third crewmember. Thomas Reiter of
the European Space Agency is scheduled to join them on the ISS in
July when he flies aboard Discovery.
Reiter's arrival will mark the return of three crewmembers to
the ISS. The station's capacity was reduced to two when the space
shuttle fleet was grounded in the aftermath of the 2003 Columbia
tragedy.
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