BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan A U.S. and Russian crew due to be the first men to inhabit the $60 billion International Space Station arrived at the Baikonur cosmodrome on Wednesday to inspect the craft on which they are due to fly.
Bill Shepherd of the United States and Russians Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalyov will take off for the ISS at the end of October, crowning an effort fraught with delays over several years.
They will fly to the ISS on a Russian Soyuz TM-31 rocket currently being prepared for the flight.
A standby crew also arrived, including American Kenneth Bowersox and Russians Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin. All six men have been undergoing training for the flight at Star City near Moscow.
Nikolai Zelenshchikov, first vice president of Russia's Energiya Corp., which built the long-running Mir space laboratory as well as the Soyuz rocket, said the final date for the launch had still to be fixed.
"The U.S. space shuttle visiting the ISS will correct its orbit," Zelenshchikov told Reuters. "Once this is done, ballistic experts will be able to fix the exact date of the launch. It will be October 30 or 31." He was referring to the U.S. shuttle Discovery which is on an 11-day mission to add new segments to the ISS. A similar mission was undertaken by U.S. Atlantis last year to restore the flagging orbit of the ISS.
The two crews will visit Baikonur's launch pad 254 on Thursday, where the Soyuz stands.
They will try on their spacesuits and test the seats into which they will be strapped during takeoff, officials said.
The men fly back to Star City later on Thursday to return to Baikonur a few days before takeoff. Baikonur is Russia's main space base which it rents from neighboring Kazakhstan.
(Reuter)