low graphics version | feedback | help | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
You are in: Sci/Tech | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Monday, 5 March, 2001, 20:43 GMT
Relief crew prepares to launch
Expedition Two, the second crew to live on the International Space Station (ISS), is preparing for lift-off.
The replacement team of three includes the first woman to inhabit the platform, American astronaut Susan Helms. She will share the station, dubbed Alpha by its current crew, with American colleague Jim Voss and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev. The Russian spaceman will act as the commander. Expedition Two is scheduled to lift off on Thursday aboard the US space shuttle Discovery, along with four other astronauts who will deliver another module to the evolving space platform. Discovery will also bring home the Expedition One - Bill Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev. The three men have been on board the ISS since the beginning of November. Expedition Two The new residents are due to spend four months in space. Susan Helms will become the second American woman, and only the sixth in the world, to live on a space station.
"We're ready to go up to the International Space Station, get first-hand information from the Expedition One crew, take over and stay there for four-and-a-half or five months," said Jim Voss, when he arrived at Kennedy Space Center late on Sunday night. The replacement crew will be joined on the flight by Discovery commander James Wetherbee, pilot James Kelly and mission specialists Andrew Thomas and Paul Richards. Delay likely Discovery is scheduled to take off on Thursday at 12:47 GMT. But shuttle weather officer Ed Priselac said on Monday that there was a 30% chance that low temperatures could delay the flight. The concern is that ice build-up on the external fuel tank could break off during launch and strike the shuttle. As well as delivering a replacement crew for the space station, Discovery will carry up an Italian-built module, Leonardo. The new component is loaded with experiments for the newly installed Destiny science lab. The shuttle crew will install Leonardo on the International Space Station, unload its contents and then return it to Earth. The shuttle astronauts are due to carry out two spacewalks during their 13-day mission.
|
See also:
Top Sci/Tech stories now:
Links to more Sci/Tech stories are at the foot of the page.
|
Links to more Sci/Tech stories
|
^^ Back to top News Front Page | World | UK | UK Politics | Business | Sci/Tech | Health | Education | Entertainment | Talking Point | In Depth | AudioVideo ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To BBC Sport>> | To BBC Weather>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © MMIII | News Sources | Privacy |