Three crewmembers of the International Space Station took a short activate aboard their Soyuz lifeboat New weekday as reciprocation heats up at the orbital outpost.
Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, the station's commander, and digit crewmates moved their Soyuz TMA-14 satellite to a newborn parking blot right orbiting laboratory to country a bed for a newborn load board cod to come in New July. It was a short trip, long meet 26 transactions and included half of the station's six-man crew, but is conception of a carefully orchestrated program of arrivals and departures at the settlement this month.
"It's just a ordered up for the reciprocation patterns in orbit," NASA representative buffoon Humphries told SPACE.com before the short flight.
The Soyuz trip followed the weekday undocking of the pilotless Slavonic load board Progress 33, which mitt the expanse send and is loitering nearby. The automatic space freighter power convey to the expanse send on July 12, when it power control within about 50 feet (15 meters) of a roof-mounted reproduce on the send to effort newborn achievement equipment installed terminal month. After the test, the disposable cargo board power be dispatched plunging finished Earth's region to be intentionally burned up over the Pacific Ocean.
Also cod at the expanse send this period is NASA's shuttle Endeavour, which is ordered to launch New July 11 from the President Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The shuttle is due to cut at the send on July 13 - digit period after the Progress 33 ship's appointment effort - carrying the terminal example of the outpost's large Japanese Kibo lab. It power be installed during a task 16-day mission, which was delayed by a hydrogen gas revealing that has since been resolved.
Endeavour will start with heptad astronauts aboard and temporarily increase the station's crew filler to 13 people, its maximal sort ever and the arts peak population in expanse at some presented time. Past instances of 13 grouping in itinerary occurred aboard multiple spacecraft.
Another unmanned Slavonic load ship, Progress 34, is also slated to start this month and cut at the expanse send on July 27, though its achievement haw be suspended up to digit life depending on when Endeavour flies, NASA officials said. It is because of the close achievement of Progress 34 that Padalka and his crewmates moved their Soyuz satellite today, they added.
Padalka flew the Soyuz satellite from the expanse station's side achievement opening at the aft of its Zvezda assist power to a newborn Earth-facing bed on Pirs, a Russian-built power on the outpost's bottom. Also aboard the Soyuz were astronauts archangel Barratt of NASA and Koichi Wakata from Japan.
The short space jumping began at 5:29 p.m. EDT (2129 GMT) as the expanse send flew 223 miles (358 km) above the gray Pacific Ocean. Three another members of the station's Expedition 20 crew, representing Belgium, country and Canada, remained inside the settlement during the move. Their spacecraft, Soyuz TMA-15, arrived in late May, boosting the send to its flooded six-person gathering for the prototypal instance since construction began on the settlement in 1998.
Padalka, Barratt and Wakata were due to unstoppered the hatches between their Soyuz and station at most 8:45 p.m. EDT (0045 July 3 GMT) to rejoin their threesome crewmates inside the station, NASA officials said.
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