International Space Station Expedition 8 Crew Leaves Earth

The next crew of the International Space Station is on its way to its orbital home away from home.

Expedition 8 Commander and NASA Station Science Officer Michael Foale, Flight Engineer Alexander Kaleri and European Space Agency Astronaut Pedro Duque rocketed toward the outpost at 1:38 a.m. EDT on October 18, 2003 aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Expedition 8 is slated to dock with the Station on October 20, meeting up with the Expedition 7 crew — Commander Yuri Malenchenko and NASA Station Science Officer Ed Lu. After 10 days of joint activities and experiments, the Expedition 7 crew, along with Duque, return to Earth on October 27.

Once the Expedition 7 crew undocks, Foale and Kaleri will settle down to work, beginning a more than six-month stint focused on Station operations and maintenance.

During their stay, Foale and Kaleri will monitor the arrival of three Russian Progress resupply cargo ships filled with food, fuel, water, new research experiments and supplies. They will also upgrade the software in the on-board Station computers work with the robotic arm to observe the Station’s exterior and check out the robotic system’s performance in orbit.

Expedition 8 is also set to devote nearly 200 hours to U.S., Russian and other partner research, including microgravity studies in life sciences, physics and chemistry as well as extensive Earth observations.

The pair may also perform a spacewalk to swap out experiments on the Zvezda Service Module, and prepare Zvezda for the planned arrival next year of the European Space Agency’s Automated Transfer Vehicle, which will deliver equipment and supplies.

Commander Foale was born and raised in England, but moved to the United States to pursue a career in the space program. He joined NASA in 1983 and was selected as an astronaut four years later.

“When we look back fifty years to this time,” Foale says, “we won’t remember the experiments that were performed, we won’t remember the assembly that was done, we may barely remember…any individuals. What we will know was that countries came together to do the first joint international project, and we will know that that was the seed that started us off to the moon and Mars.”

Foale is a veteran of long-duration spaceflight aboard the Russian space station Mir, as well as multiple Space Shuttle missions. In 1997, Foale joined cosmonaut crewmate Anatoly Solovyev in a spacewalk to inspect the damage to Mir, after a collision with the Russian Progress resupply vehicle caused the station’s Spektr module to depressurize. In total, Foale has logged over 178 days in orbit.

Kaleri, the Soyuz commander and Space Station flight engineer for Expedition 8, is also a veteran of long-duration spaceflight, with 416 days in space to his credit. He has flown international missions with German and French cosmonauts, as well as American astronauts Shannon Lucid, John Blaha and Jerry Linenger.

“The International Space Station is a very good step forward, and it’s a very good experience for us that can show us how to work together in the future,” says Kaleri. “If we put this task in front of ourselves and learn how to operate very difficult scientific projects, we’ll be able to reach much more in the future. We can go together on Mars, we can go to other planets. At least I would like to believe that.”

Duque, who is flying as part of a contract between the European Space Agency and the Russian space agency, is making his second trip into space, having flown aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1998. That nine-day mission was dedicated to research in weightlessness and the study of the Sun, and was also the flight on which U.S. space pioneer John Glenn returned to space.