Soyuz Launches First Long Term Crew to International Space Station

A Soyuz U launched successfully at 0753 UTC (11:53 p.m. PST, October 30) October 31 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with the International Space Station’s (ISS) Expedition 1 crew. The station is currently in an orbit of 375 x 394 km (202 x 213 nmi), inclined at 51.6 degrees. It is possible that Oct. 31, 2000 may be the last day there are no humans present in space. Mir was launched on February 19,1986 by the Soviet Union, with the first crew arriving in March 1986, then being inhabited almost continuously until August 1999. NASA plans to keep the International Space Station staffed with rotating crews for at least the next 10 to 15 years, and possibly longer, barring emergencies or major malfunctions.

President Reagan first proposed building a U.S. space station during his 1984 State of the Union address. NASA’s original plan was to have a station in orbit by 1994 at a cost of US$8 billion, not including transportation costs. Space station assembly began November 20, 1998, with the launch of the Russian-built Zarya module atop a Russian Proton rocket and the Boeing-built Unity node on December 4 aboard the space shuttle.

The first planned tasks on the Expedition One crew's schedule will be to activate Zvezda and Zarya, to set up food preparation and heating equipment and to complete activation of the Zvezda module's toilet. The crew then will begin work to set up and activate the lab's Vozdukh carbon dioxide removal system and an Elektron oxygen generator. Because two of Zvezda's eight batteries are not working, resulting in tight power margins, the Elektron will not be turned on full time until after the P6 solar arrays are attached and providing power to U.S. and Russian modules. Until the P6 arrays are in operation, the crew will rely on Russian "oxygen candles" to generate their air. The solid-fuel oxygen generators (SFOGs), generate oxygen as a by-product of a chemical reaction. Three candles a day will be burned, inside a special housing. After the P6 arrays are on line, the Elektron, which uses a kilowatt of power to operate, will take over. The solar arrays will be included as part of the cargo aboard the November 30 shuttle flight. A Progress supply ship is scheduled to arrive in two weeks. The Progress will carry about 50 kilograms of fresh oxygen, along with additional SFOGs.

The Progress M1-3 spacecraft is currently attached to the aft docking port of the Zvezda module. The final stores of propellant are being transferred from the Progress to fuel tanks on the station's Zarya module. The Progress will be commanded to undock from the station on November 1, to clear the way for the crew's arrival. The Soyuz spacecraft carrying the Expedition 1 crew will dock at the same aft Zvezda port. After it is undocked, the Progress will be commanded to reenter the Earth's atmosphere, to be destroyed during its descent. Four NASA space shuttle missions have previously visited the station, stocking it with some 6300 kg (14,000 lbm) of supplies and equipment for the Expedition One crew.

In a 1998 report, the U.S. Government Accounting Office estimated that NASA would spend more than US$50 billion on the station through assembly complete in 2006. It is estimated that the European Space Agency (ESA), Japan and Canada will contribute another US$12 billion. There are no reliable cost estimates for Russian hardware and services.

Crews will work to a fairly standard schedule, using Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) (sometimes also known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)), to denote time. A typical day in space will begin with a crew wakeup at around 0600 UTC. Two-and-a-half hours are scheduled for breakfast and morning hygiene. Then at 0730, the crew will begin to check the news, catch up on their email and review the daily schedule of events. At 0800 each day, the crew will participate in a planning conference with flight controllers on the ground. The day's formal schedule of activities will begin about 15 minutes later, with a scheduled end around 1815 UTC. After reviewing the next day's flight plan and checking in with mission control for any updates, the crew will have two hours for dinner, work preparations for the next day and hygiene. Each crew member is scheduled to spend two hours a day exercising. Crew sleep will usually be scheduled for 2130 UTC. The crew will get Sundays off.

On the ground, flight controllers will follow a four-day planning cycle. Four days in advance, U.S. and Russian flight controllers will exchange final inputs on upcoming activities and events. Each day's flight plan will be sent to the crew 24 hours in advance to provide time to make changes if necessary.

The Expedition One crew is comprised of American astronaut Commander William Shepherd and Russian cosmonauts Soyuz Commander,Yuri Gidzenko and Flight Engineer, Sergei Krikalev .

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