Expedition 14 To Include Two Veterans, First-Timer

A veteran of three spaceflights will be joined by a resident of the International Space Station, and an astronaut making her first flight into space when Expedition 14 lifts off later this year, NASA officials announced Tuesday.

CNN reports that Expedition 14 commander Michael Lopez-Alegria is scheduled to lift off aboard a Soyuz spacecraft bound for the ISS in September, along with flight engineer and capsule commander Mikhail Tyurin -- a cosmonaut who also lived onboard the station as part of the Expedition 3 crew. They will be joined later by flight engineer Sunita Williams, who will travel to the station onboard a future space shuttle mission.

It will be the first spaceflight ever for Williams. Lopez-Alegria first rode aboard Columbia into space in 1995 as part of STS-73. He later flew aboard Discovery on STS-92 in 2000, and STS-113 onboard Endeavour in 2002. His last flight also took him to the ISS, although he was "only" a visitor on that trip.

Lopez-Alegria also has some impressive spacewalk time under his belt. According to his NASA bio, Lopez-Alegria performed two EVAs on STS-92 totalling 14 hours and three minutes, and three EVAs totalling 19 hours and 55 minutes while part of STS-113.

The station's current occupants, Expedition 13 commander Pavel Vinogradov and US science officer Jeffrey Williams, are currently awaiting the arrival of their third crewmember. Thomas Reiter of the European Space Agency is scheduled to join them on the ISS in July when he flies aboard Discovery.

Reiter's arrival will mark the return of three crewmembers to the ISS. The station's capacity was reduced to two when the space shuttle fleet was grounded in the aftermath of the 2003 Columbia tragedy.

FMI: www.nasa.gov