The new two-ham crew of Expedition 8 Commander and NASA ISS Science Officer Mike Foale, KB5UAC, and Russian Cosmonaut and ISS Flight Engineer Alexander “Sasha” Kaleri, U8MIR, officially took over the reins of the International Space Station this week. A formal change-of-command ceremony took place Friday, October 24.
The contingent of space travelers aboard the ISS expanded to five this week with the arrival of the Expedition 8 crew and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Pedro Duque, KC5RGG, who accompanied them into space. Duque, who spent the week aboard the ISS, conducted two Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) http://www.rac.ca/ariss/ contacts with school groups in his native Spain using the special call sign ED4ISS. He’ll return to Earth October 27 with Expedition 7 Commander Yuri Malenchenko, RK3DUP, and NASA ISS Science Officer Ed Lu, KC5WKJ, aboard the Soyuz transporter that’s been docked with the ISS. Malenchenko and Lu have been aboard the ISS since April.
The Expedition 8 crew, which left Earth from Russia October 18, will spend the next six months on the ISS. The two teams have been conducting crew hand-over activities during their eight days of joint operations. Duque, who flew under a commercial agreement between the Russian space agency Rosaviakosmos and the ESA, also conducted a series of scientific studies during his ISS stay. This mission mark Duque’s second space flight.
The Expedition 7 crew chalked up several human spaceflight milestones. During its tour, the crew marked the 1000th day of ISS habitation on July 29, Lu’s 40th birthday on July 1, and Malenchenko’s marriage by proxy on August 10 to Ekaterina Dmitriev, a native of Ukraine who now lives in Texas. Upon his return, the couple reportedly plans a church wedding in Russia.
Expedition 8 Commander Foale, 46, is a veteran of five space flights and has spent a total of nearly 180 days in space–including more than four months on the Russian Mir space station in 1997. During his Mir stay, Foale found ham radio a valuable supplement to conventional Russian and NASA communication systems after the station was damaged in a collision with an unmanned Progress cargo rocket. Kaleri, 47, flew on three Mir missions and has logged 416 days in space.–information provided by NASA was used in this report