WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan -- Building 254, Soyuz Integration Facility. Astronaut Edward T. Lu, NASA ISS science officer and flight engineer for Expedition Seven, has a leak check performed on the Russian Sokol suit. Veteran Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and veteran NASA astronaut Ed Lu have been named as the primary crew for the planned April 26, 2003, launch of a Russian Soyuz TMA-2 spacecraft to the International Space Station. Malenchenko and Lu will be called the Expedition 7 crew. Russian cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri and NASA astronaut Michael Foale are the backup crewmembers to Malenchenko and Lu. Expedition 6 Commander Ken Bowersox, Flight Engineer Nikolai Budarin and NASA Space Station Science Officer Don Pettit will return to Earth aboard the Soyuz TMA-1 craft in May 2003. The three Expedition 6 crewmembers were launched on Nov. 23, 2002. They have been aboard the Station since November 25. They were originally scheduled to return in March aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis during the STS-114 mission. Malenchenko and Lu will continue to operate the science payloads already on board, as well as maintaining the Station.