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 Previous: Texas Antenna Case Shows PRB-1 is No Paper Tiger |  Next: New ARRL Antenna Book Receives Major Revision |
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NEWINGTON, CT, Oct 20, 2003--The contingent of space travelers now aboard the International Space Station (ISS) expanded to five early Monday, October 20, with the arrival of the Expedition 8 crew and a European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut who accompanied them into space. Expedition 8 Commander and NASA ISS Science Officer Mike Foale, KB5UAC, and Russian Cosmonaut and ISS Flight Engineer Alexander Kaleri, U8MIR, and ESA Astronaut Pedro Duque, KC5RGG, joined Expedition 7 Commander Yuri Malenchenko, RK3DUP, and NASA ISS Science Officer Ed Lu, KC5WKJ, after their Soyuz TMA-3 transporter docked with the ISS above Russia.
The Expedition 8 crew, which left Earth from Russia October 18, will spend the next six months on the ISS. NASA says the two teams will conduct crew hand-over activities during their eight days of joint operations. The formal change of command takes place October 24. The Expedition 7 team of Malenchenko and Lu has been aboard the ISS since April.
Duque, who's flying under a commercial agreement between the Russian space agency Rosaviakosmos and the ESA, will spend the week conducting a series of scientific studies before returning to Earth with the Expedition 7 crew. He's also scheduled to conduct two Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contacts with school groups in his native Spain.
ARISS Vice Chair Gaston Bertels, ON4WF, credits the Union de Radioaficionados Espanoles (URE)--Spain's International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) member-society--with working to obtain the special call sign--ED4ISS--assigned for Duque to use. The ESA launched a competition among all of Spain's schools, and winners will get the chance to interview Duque via ham radio. Bertels says the ESA has established a special Web site (in Spanish) to document Duque's ARISS activities. (Click "El Concurso" and then "¿Qué es una comunicación por radio?")
This mission mark Duque's second space flight, following his mission on the shuttle Discovery on the STS-95 mission in 1998.
Malenchenko, Lu and Duque are scheduled to depart for Earth October 27 aboard the Soyuz vehicle now attached to the ISS. During his duty tour, Malenchenko was married by proxy to Ekaterina Dmitriev, a native of Ukraine who now lives in Texas. Upon his return, the couple reportedly plans a church wedding in Russia followed by a honeymoon in Australia. Malenchenko is 41; Dmitriev, who lives in the Houston area, is 26.
The Soyuz, which carries a crew of three, will remain the prime crew transport system. Russian Progress rockets will transport needed supplies.
Foale, 46, is a veteran of five space flights and has spent a total of nearly 180 days in space--including more than four months on the Russian Mir space station in 1997. During his Mir stay, Foale found ham radio a valuable supplement to conventional Russian and NASA communication systems after the station was damaged in a collision with an unmanned Progress cargo rocket. Kaleri, 47, flew on three Mir missions and has logged 416 days in space.--information provided by NASA was used in this report
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