March 29, 2006 Katherine Trinidad Headquarters, Washington (202) 358-3749 James Hartsfield Johnson Space Center, Houston (281) 483-5111 STATUS REPORT: SS06-013 INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS REPORT: SS06-013 The 13th crew of the International Space Station roared away today from Kazakhstan into orbit atop a Russian Soyuz rocket. Expedition 13 Commander Pavel Vinogradov, NASA Science Officer and Flight Engineer Jeff Williams and Brazilian Space Agency astronaut Marcos Pontes will dock to the station late Friday. Vinogradov and Williams will spend six months on the complex during Expedition 13. Pontes, flying under a commercial agreement with the Russian Federal Space Agency, will stay on the station for eight days. The 162-foot tall Soyuz rocket launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 9:30 p.m. EST. About 10 minutes later, the Soyuz was in orbit with its solar arrays and antennae extended. Docking is planned for 11:19 p.m. EST Friday. Vinogradov, Williams and Pontes will open hatches at about 12:30 a.m. EST Saturday to join Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev inside the space complex. NASA TV will broadcast the activities on Friday starting at 10 p.m. EST. The five space fliers will be available for a crew news conference at 10:55 a.m. EST Monday. Reporters at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, Kennedy Space Center, Fla., and the Russian Mission Control Center in Korolev, Russia, may ask questions. The two crews will spend about a week handing over operations of the station, and Pontes will conduct a series of research investigations. McArthur, Tokarev and Pontes return to Earth April 8. At landing, McArthur and Tokarev will have spent almost 190 days in space. Earlier this week, McArthur found a supply of lithium hydroxide canisters used to scrub carbon dioxide from the air in Russian space suits during a spacewalk. The find ensures Russian suits can be used if a spacewalk is needed. The next status report will be issued after docking. Information about crew activities, future launch dates and sighting opportunities is available on the Web at: www.nasa.gov/station NASA TV's Public, Education and Media channels are available on an MPEG-2 digital C-band signal accessed via satellite AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude, transponder 17C, 4040 MHz, vertical polarization. In Alaska and Hawaii, they're on AMC-7 at 137 degrees west longitude, transponder 18C, at 4060 MHz, horizontal polarization. For digital downlink information, visit: www.nasa.gov/ntv -end- To subscribe to the list, send a message to: hqnews-subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To remove your address from the list, send a message to: hqnews-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
