International Space Station Takes on New U.S., Russian Crew

By Cheryl Pellerin, Washington File

Space participant Gregory Olsen will return to Earth with Expedition 11 crew

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying Expedition 12 Commander William McArthur, Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev and American businessman Gregory Olsen arrived at the International Space Station in the early hours of October 3 after a two-day journey.

McArthur and Tokarev are beginning a six-month mission aboard the orbiting laboratory. Olsen will spend eight days there conducting scientific and photography experiments under a commercial agreement with Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency.

"I'm having a great time," Olsen said during an October 4 press briefing from the space station. "This is a dream come true. Just to float down the space station is an indescribable experience. I'm getting everything I wanted out of it."

The 60-year-old Olsen, co-founder of New Jersey-based infrared camera maker Sensors Unlimited, is the third paying passenger to visit the space station. American Dennis Tito traveled to the station in 2001, and South African Mark Shuttleworth made the trip in 2002.

"I think floating in space and watching the Earth go by are the two most powerful things here," he said.

Olsen, who reportedly paid nearly $20 million for the trip, is scheduled to return to Earth October 10 with Expedition 11in the Soyuz spacecraft docked to the station's Zarya module. That crew, Commander Sergei Krikalev and NASA Science Officer John Phillips, has been on the orbiting lab 169 days.

During the press briefing, Phillips said Expedition 11's accomplishments since April included taking good care of the space station and carrying out a limited science program.

"We're leaving the station in better shape than we found it in a variety of ways," he said, "much of which has to do with the flight of the space shuttle Discovery a couple of months ago."

Discovery launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center July 26, ending a 2.5-year wait for the return-to-flight mission. The STS-114 mission included in-orbit shuttle maneuvers, tests of new equipment and procedures and a first-of-its-kind spacewalking repair.

"That was a major step in building up our spares, our supplies, some interior outfitting with scientific equipment and also our control-moment gyros," Phillips said. "And of course we were there to help make that happen."

On October 3, with Tokarev at the controls, the Soyuz automatically linked up to the international space station's Pirs docking compartment.

After systems checks, hatches between the Soyuz and the station opened and Krikalev and Phillips greeted their colleagues with handshakes, hugs and the traditional Russian welcome offering of bread and salt.

Shortly after entering the space station, the Expedition 12 crew and Olsen had a safety briefing on emergency escape procedures. They will transfer Olsen's custom-made seat liner to the Soyuz he will use to return home.

The crews will also move cargo from the newly arrived Soyuz to the space station.

After nearly six months in space, Phillips and Krikalev are happy to be returning to Earth.

Phillips said he is looking forward to seeing his family and also to the "experience of nature. Up here we get to look at the beautiful earth go by ... but it's kind of a sterile environment being in a laboratory all day long.

"I want to experience some weather, the smell of the trees, even the sound of cars going by," he added, "something that's more like the real world I live in at home."

Although Phillips said he and Krikalev have had a good variety of food on the space station, when he gets home he "would love to have a hot steamin' pizza and a big cold mug of beer."

Krikalev is looking forward to a cup of coffee and fresh fruit and vegetables. "When you have coffee in a cup when you drink it, you smell it," he said. "When you drink the same coffee but from a plastic bag, you lose part of the flavor."

This week McArthur and Tokarev are familiarizing themselves with station systems and stowed equipment, conducting robotics training with the Canadarm2 robot arm and receiving detailed briefings from Expedition 11 about scientific payloads.

McArthur, who has flown on three space shuttle flights and visited the space station in 2000, said the station is much bigger now.

"At that time there was no lab and we weren't allowed to go into the service module," he said, "so it's nice to see that it's a functional orbiting laboratory now."

Information about crew activities, future launch dates, previous status reports and station sighting opportunities is available on NASA's Web site.

Source: U.S. Department of State

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