SB SPACE @ ARL $ARLS002
ARLS002 Fifth civilian to visit ISS

ZCZC AS02  
QST de W1AW  
Space Bulletin 002  ARLS002
From ARRL Headquarters  
Newington, CT  April 5, 2007
To all radio amateurs

SB SPACE ARL ARLS002
ARLS002 Fifth civilian to visit ISS

The fifth civilian to visit the International Space Station will
accompany the station's Expedition 15 crew into space Saturday,
April 7. Amateur Radio on the International Space Station reports
that software pioneer and aviator Charles Simonyi, KE7KDP, plans to
talk with students at four schools during his ISS stay, one in his
native Hungary and three in the US. He also may make casual
contacts.

A client of Vienna, Virginia-based Space Adventures Ltd, Simonyi,
58, will be the third passenger aboard a Soyuz ''taxi mission'' that
will carry Expedition 15 Russian cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin,
RN3FI, and Oleg Kotov, to the ISS. Simonyi is paying an estimated
$25 million for the privilege.

Upon arriving at the ISS, the two cosmonauts will join US astronaut
Suni Williams, KD5PLB, whose duty tour will span Expeditions 14 and
15. Yurchikhin and Kotov will spend about six months aboard the ISS,
while Williams will return home in June. Simonyi will come back to
Earth with Expedition 14 crew members Mike Lopez-Alegria, KE5GTK,
and Mikhail Tyurin, RZ3FT, aboard the Soyuz that's now docked to the
ISS.

The Soyuz TMA-10 will launch from Kazakhstan at 1731 UTC on April 7.
It is scheduled to dock with the ISS at 1903 UTC on April 9. A
footnote from NASA: On April 3, Lopez-Alegria set a US record for a
single flight of 196 days in space.

Simonyi is a one-time Microsoft application developer and reputed
billionaire. He follows in the footsteps of private space explorers
Dennis Tito, KG6FZX, Mark Shuttleworth, Greg Olsen, KC2ONX, and
Anousheh Ansari.
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