April 7, 2007
John Yembrick
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0602
John Ira Petty
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-4934
STATUS REPORT: SS07-18
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS REPORT: SS07-18
HOUSTON - Two Russian cosmonauts and a space flight participant
launched aboard a Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan at 12:31 p.m. CDT Saturday for a two-day flight to the
International Space Station.
Less than 10 minutes after launch their spacecraft reached orbit and
its antennas and solar arrays deployed. The Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft
is scheduled to dock at the station at a little after 3 p.m. Monday.
Once they arrive at the station, Cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin,
Expedition 15 commander, and Oleg Kotov, Expedition 15 flight
engineer, and spaceflight participant Charles Simonyi, a U.S.
businessman, will be greeted by the station’s current crew,
Expedition 14 Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and flight engineers
Mikhail Tyurin and Suni Williams.
Simonyi, flying under contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency,
will return to Earth on April 20 with Lopez-Alegria and Tyurin, who
have been aboard the station since September 2006.
Flight Engineer Suni Williams, who has served as an Expedition 14 crew
member since December, will remain on the station joining the
Expedition 15 crew. She is scheduled to return home aboard space
shuttle Endeavour this summer.
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:
-end-