spacetoday.net: Soyuz docks with ISS

Posted: Wed, Sep 20, 2006, 7:40 AM ET (1140 GMT)
Soyuz TMA-5 approaches the ISS (NASA)

A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two members of the next International Space Station crew and a commercial passenger docked with the ISS early Wednesday. The Soyuz docked with the aft port on the Zvezda module of the ISS at 1:21 am EDT (0521 GMT), and hatches separating the spacecraft and station opened about three hours later. On board the Soyuz are two members of the Expedition 14 crew, commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin, as well as commercial passenger Anousheh Ansari, widely billed as the first female space tourist. The arrival of the Soyuz was unaffected by a chemical leak from an Elektron oxygen generating unit on Monday that prompted the three people on the ISS at the time to don protective gear while the spill was cleaned up. Ansari will return to Earth on September 28 with two members of the Expedition 13 crew, Pavel Vinogradov and Jeffrey Williams. The third member of the Expedition 13 crew, German astronaut Thomas Reiter, will remain on the station until relieved by NASA astronaut Sunita Williams on a shuttle mission scheduled for launch in December.