Soyuz shuffle Saturday

Friday, February 23, 2001

Houston--Crewmembers on the Expedition One mission aboard the International Space Station will be taking a short weekend drive away from the station on Saturday morning. The trip is necessary in order to move the Soyuz rescue/backup return spacecraft from its docking port to make room for a Progress supply ship to be launch from Russia.

NASA (www.nasa.gov) plans coverage on NASA Television beginning at 3 a.m. EST from the control room at the Johnson Space Center. Starting a 5:08 a.m., Soyuz Pilot Yuri Gidzenko, accompanied by Mission Commander Bill Shepherd and Flight Engineer Sergei Krikalev, will undock the spacecraft from the aft facing docking port of the Zvezda Service Module. He'll then fly the Soyuz around the station and redock at the Earth-facing port on the Zarya Control Module. The entire maneuver is expected to take 30 minutes to complete.

This repositioning will allow the resupply ship to dock at the Zvezda aft port on February 28. It will be carrying supplies for the next Expedition crew set for Shuttle launch to the station in March. After more than four months in orbit, the Expedition One crew will return to Earth on the same Shuttle mission.