Space Station Crew Taking Short Trip to Move Soyuz

International Space Station Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev will briefly vacate their orbiting home March 20 to move a Soyuz spacecraft.

NASA TV airs live coverage of the move starting at 1 a.m. EST. Tokarev will undock the Soyuz at 1:45 a.m. EST. The crew will make about a 35-minute flight free of the station, moving the Soyuz from the Zarya module docking port to the aft docking port of the Zvezda living quarters’ module.

The maneuver frees the Zarya port for the March 31 arrival of the Soyuz carrying the next station crew, Expedition 13 Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineer Jeff Williams. The new crew launches March 29 with Brazilian Space Agency astronaut Marcos Pontes. He will spend about a week on the station and return with McArthur and Tokarev.

NASA TV’s Public, Education and Media channels are available on an MPEG-2 digital C-band signal accessed via satellite AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude, transponder 17C, 4040 MHz, vertical polarization. In Alaska and Hawaii, they’re on AMC-7 at 137 degrees west longitude, transponder 18C, at 4060 MHz, horizontal polarization. For digital downlink information on the Web, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For information about the International Space Station, its missions and crews, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station