INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS REPORT: SS06-016

April 8, 2006

Joe Pally
Headquarters, Washington
(202) 358-7239

James Hartsfield
Johnson Space Center, Houston
(281) 483-5111

STATUS REPORT: SS06-016

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS REPORT: SS06-016

After orbiting Earth more than 3,000 times during six months on the
International Space Station, Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur
and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev returned to the planet Sunday
morning in Kazakhstan. With them was Marcos Pontes, Brazil's first
astronaut.

The Soyuz spacecraft with McArthur, Tokarev and Pontes landed in
central Kazakhstan, about 30 miles northeast of Arkalyk, at 7:48 p.m.
EDT, Saturday. The crew's families will greet them at Star City,
Russia, near Moscow, early Monday. McArthur and Tokarev will remain
in Star City for post-flight debriefings before returning to Houston
later this month. McArthur and Tokarev launched from the Baikonur
Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Sept. 30, 2005.

They spent 189 days, 18 hours and 51 minutes in space. During their
mission, they conducted two spacewalks and relocated their Soyuz
spacecraft twice, becoming the first ISS crew to dock to every
Russian docking port on the complex. They also became the first
two-person station crew to conduct a spacewalk in both Russian and
U.S. spacesuits. Pontes flew to the station with the Expedition 13
crew last week as part of a commercial agreement with the Russian
Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos. He spent eight days on the station
conducting experiments.

The new station crew, Expedition 13 Commander Pavel Vinogradov and
Flight Engineer and NASA Science Officer Jeff Williams, will have
light duty for the next few days as they rest from a busy handover.
They will remain in orbit for six months. The crew plans to perform
two spacewalks and greet two space shuttle crews during their
expedition.

Joining them during their stay on the station will be Thomas Reiter, a
European Space Agency astronaut from Germany, also flying under a
commercial agreement with Roscosmos. Reiter is scheduled to come to
the station on the Space Shuttle Discovery's STS-121 mission,
targeted for a July launch.

Reiter will be the first non-Russian, non-U.S. long-duration crew
member on the station. His arrival will bring the station crew size
to three for the first time since May 2003, when the crew size was
reduced to conserve supplies in the wake of the Columbia accident.

Shuttle Atlantis' STS-115 mission is also scheduled during Expedition
13 and will resume major assembly of the station. The shuttle and
station crews will work together to add another set of batteries and
solar arrays to the complex.

Information on the crew's activities aboard the space station, future
launch dates, and station sighting opportunities are available at:

www.nasa.gov/station

The next status report will be issued Friday, April 14, or earlier if
events warrant.


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Jacques :-)

www.spacepatches.nl