Press Release

Space Station Crew-return Vehicle Activities Carried on NASA TV

By SpaceRef Editor
October 25, 2002
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The arrival to the International Space Station (ISS) of a modernized
Russian Soyuz crew return vehicle will be covered live on NASA Television Oct.
31-Nov. 1. The undocking of the currently attached crew-return vehicle will be
carried live on Nov. 9.

Soyuz vehicles are ferried to the ISS every six months to provide an
assured crew-return capability for station residents.

Russian Soyuz 5 Commander Sergei Zalyotin, European Space Agency Flight
Engineer Frank DeWinne of Belgium and Russian Flight Engineer Yuri
Lonchakov are scheduled to be launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan at approximately 10 p.m. EST October 29. They will spend
approximately eight days conducting joint scientific activities with
Expedition Five Commander Valery Korzun, NASA ISS Science Officer Peggy
Whitson and Flight Engineer Sergei Treschev, who have been on board the
ISS since June. There will no coverage of the launch on NASA
Television. NASA will issue a status report once the Soyuz reaches
orbit.

Commentary will originate from the ISS flight control room at NASA’s
Johnson Space Center, Houston, on Oct. 31 prior to the docking of the
Soyuz and its crew to the station’s Pirs Docking Compartment, beginning
at 11 p.m. EST, with available downlink television from cameras on the
station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm. Docking is planned at approximately
midnight EST Oct. 31. Coverage will extend through hatch opening and
the greeting between the Soyuz crew and the Expedition Five crew,
expected around 1:40 a.m. EST Nov. 1.

NASA TV also will provide live coverage and commentary of the Nov. 9
departure of the Soyuz crew in the return vehicle currently docked to
the ISS beginning at 3 p.m. EST, with available downlink television
from cameras on the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm. Undocking of the
older Soyuz vehicle is expected around 3:30 p.m. EST. There will be no
coverage of landing.

NASA TV is available on GE-2, Transponder 9C, vertical polarization at
85 degrees West longitude, 3880 MHz, with audio at 6.8 MHz.

Additional information on the ISS is available on the Internet at:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov

SpaceRef staff editor.