[sarex] EXP 12 CREW DOCKS WITH ISS

["ARTHUR Z. ROWE" <N1ORC@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC - AMSAT A/C #31468

New Station Crew Docks With Space Station

    10.03.05

The Soyuz spacecraft with the 12th international space station crew, 
Commander William McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev, docked 
with the orbiting laboratory at 1:27 a.m. EDT Monday.

With them was American Greg Olsen, the third private citizen in space, 
flying under a contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency. He will 
spend about eight days on the station.

Soyuz approaches station They launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in 
Kazakhstan just before midnight on Friday.


Olsen will conduct scientific experiments on the station, and then 
return to Earth with Expedition 11. That crew, Commander Sergei Krikalev 
and NASA Science Officer John Phillips, has been on the orbiting 
laboratory since April.

They will undock Oct. 10 in the Soyuz TMA that brought them to the 
station April 16. Landing is scheduled for 9:08 p.m. EDT that day in the 
steppes of Kazakhstan, winding up their 180-day increment.

McArthur, 54, a retired Army colonel, is a veteran of three shuttle 
flights, including one to the station and one to the Russian space 
station Mir. Tokarev, 52, a colonel in the Russian Air Force, is a 
veteran of one spaceflight, to the international space station aboard a 
space shuttle.

Shortly after boarding the station, they will get a safety briefing from 
the Expedition 11 crew. In extensive handover briefings during their 
eight days together, they will get training on systems and experiments 
on the station and on the Canadarm2 robotic arm.

During their six months on the station McArthur and Tokarev will do two 
or three spacewalks. The first, from the Quest airlock in U.S. 
spacesuits, is planned for early November. Tasks include installation of 
a camera group and retrieval of the station's floating potential probe.

That will be McArthur's third spacewalk and the first for Tokarev.

About two weeks later the crewmembers will board their Soyuz spacecraft 
and move it from the Pirs docking compartment to a docking port on the 
Zarya module. That will clear the Pirs for use of its airlock in a 
spacewalk using Russian Orlan suits in December.

That spacewalk will focus on retrieving scientific experiments and 
photography of a micrometeoroid monitoring system and the Soyuz descent 
module's multilayer insulation.

Soyuz launch A third spacewalk early next year in U.S. spacesuits is 
under consideration.


McArthur and Tokarev also are scheduled to welcome an unpiloted Progress 
cargo craft to the station, just in time for Christmas. That Progress 
will bring fuel, equipment, supplies, water, oxygen and air to the 
station. Docking is planned for Dec. 23.

Station maintenance will occupy considerable time. They will continue 
scientific investigations aboard the orbiting laboratory, as well as a 
program of scientific education activities and Earth observations.

Their replacements, the 13th crew of the station, are scheduled to 
arrive in March.
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