Station Crew Moves Soyuz Spacecraft

Station Crew Moves Soyuz Spacecraft

11.18.05


The 25-minute trip early Friday took the spacecraft to a docking port about
45 feet from where it started, but during the move the capsule and crew
traveled about 5,500 miles.

Space station Commander Bill McArthur and Cosmonaut Valery Tokarev relocated
their Soyuz TMA spacecraft from the station's Pirs docking compartment to
the Earth-facing port of the Zarya module.


The move was made to clear Pirs, which also serves as an airlock, for a
spacewalk by Tokarev and McArthur in Russian spacesuits.

The Soyuz undocked from Pirs at 3:46 a.m. EST. The station crewmembers,
wearing their Russian Sokol launch and entry suits, reached Zarya's nadir
docking port at 4:05 a.m.

Preparations for the move began Thursday with McArthur and Tokarev putting
station systems in unmanned configuration. That was done to prepare for the
unlikely eventuality that the Soyuz could not redock at the station. If that
had occurred, the crew would have had to return to Earth.



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Jacques :-)

www.spacepatches.info