Liftoff Scheduled October 10
Commander Peggy Whitson and
Cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko of the 16th International Space Station
crew are scheduled to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan at about 0920 EDT on October 10, to begin a six-month
stay in space.
With them will be spaceflight participant Sheikh Muszaphar
Shukor. He is a Malaysian flying under contract with the Russian
Federal Space Agency.
Shukor will return to Earth with Expedition 15 crew members,
Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov, October
21. Expedition 15 launched to the station April 7.
Expedition 16's Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft is scheduled to dock at
the station a little after 1050 EDT Friday, October 12.
Expedition 16 crew members will be welcomed by the Expedition 15
crew, including astronaut Clay Anderson, the third Expedition 15
crew member. He launched to the station aboard the STS-117 mission
of Atlantis June 8. He joined Expedition 15 in progress and will
provide Expedition 16 with an experienced flight engineer for the
first few days of its increment.
Whitson, 47, is on her second mission to the station. She served
as a flight engineer on the Expedition 5 crew, launching June 5,
2002, and returning to Earth December 7, after almost 185 days in
space. She holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Rice University in
Houston. She began working for NASA as a research biochemist in
1989 and was selected as an astronaut in 1996.
Malenchenko, 45, a Russian Air Force colonel, is making his
third long-duration spaceflight. He spent 126 days aboard the
Russian space station Mir beginning July 1, 1994, and commanded the
two-person station crew on Expedition 7, spending 185 days in space
beginning April 26, 2003. He also was a member of the STS-106 crew
of Atlantis on an almost-12-day mission to the station beginning
Sept. 8, 2000. He is a graduate of the Kharkov Military Aviation
School and the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy.
Anderson, 48, holds a master's degree in aerospace engineering
from Iowa State University. He was selected as an astronaut in
1998. This is his first spaceflight.
Astronaut Daniel Tani is scheduled to launch aboard the STS-120
flight of Discovery to replace Anderson as a flight engineer during
Expedition 16. Tani, 46, holds a master's degree in mechanical
engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was
selected as an astronaut in 1996 and flew on Endeavour's STS-108
mission in December 2001. He will be making his second
spaceflight.
Two Expedition 17 crew members are expected to arrive next
spring to replace Whitson and Malenchenko.