At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Expedition 23 Flight Engineers Tracy Caldwell Dyson, Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko made final preparations Thursday for their launch aboard the Soyuz TMA-18 spacecraft to the International Space Station. Their two-day journey to the station will begin with a launch set for 12:04 a.m. EDT Friday.
Launch coverage from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan will air live on NASA TV beginning at 11:15 p.m. Thursday.
Expedition 23 Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight Engineers T.J. Creamer and Soichi Noguchi are currently the sole residents on the station, having arrived Dec. 22 aboard their Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft. Caldwell Dyson, Skvortsov and Kornienko will complete the Expedition 23 crew when they dock to the station Sunday.
Meanwhile aboard the station, Kotov, Creamer and Noguchi continued preparations for the arrival of their crewmates and the STS-131 crew aboard space shuttle Discovery. They also had time for their regular science, maintenance and exercise activities.
Discovery and the STS-131 crew are set to launch April 5 from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, and dock with the orbital laboratory April 7. Discovery is delivering new science racks and ammonia tanks. While there, two shuttle astronauts will perform three spacewalks to switch out ammonia tanks on the station.
A leak was detected in the Water Processing Assembly following inspections made by the crew and specialists in Mission Control this week. A replacement Water Processing Assembly, which provides the final purification for water recycled by the station’s Water Recovery System, will be delivered on Discovery. The leaking catalytic reaction component will be returned to Earth for servicing by Discovery. The crew will set up an alternative method to deliver water for drinking using a hose system and collapsible water containment bags hooked up to the Potable Water Dispenser. They also resumed processing urine through the Urine Processing Assembly, and will store the partially treated water in containers until it can be routed through the replacement Water Processing Assembly once it is installed.
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