Current Space Station Residents Heading for Home

The Soyuz TMA-2 will lift off Saturday from the baikonur cosmodrome, initiating the first manned space flight since the Columbia broke up February 1; but the launch is special in many ways.

Cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko (right) and American astronaut Edward Lu (below) are heading to the International Space Station, to relieve Americans Kenneth Bowersox and Donald Pettit, and Russian cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin, who have been orbiting for six months, after having been dropped off on the last Atlantis flight.

The three will return in another Soyuz capsule, in May rather than on a Shuttle trip, as originally planned.

...and Then There Were Two

The ISS will be manned by just two 'nauts now, as consumables at the ISS need to be stretched, pending reinitiation of the Shuttle flights. In the meantime, Russia has ramped up its space program, taking up some of the slack, and keeping the ISS missions going -- even if at 'sustenance' levels.

Of course, the launch is dependent on a number of factors, including weather; but Sergei Gorbunov, chief spokesman for the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, is optimistic and says, "Everything is ready to go."

FMI: www.nasa.gov