Shift Change: New Two-Ham Crew, First Female Civilian Visitor on Way to ISS

(L-R): Anousheh Ansari, cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, RZ3FT, and Expedition 14 commander Michael Lopez-Alegria, KE5GTK, answer questions from the media in Baikonur prior to their launch. [NASA Photo]

The Expedition 14 logo/patch reflects the past, present and future of human space exploration, including future lunar and Mars missions. The letters top and bottom are the English and Russian abbreviations for the International Space Station (Международная Космическая Станция in Russian). [NASA Graphic]

US astronaut Sunita Williams, KD5PLB, will join Expedition 14 "in progress" later this year. [NASA Photo]

NEWINGTON, CT, Sep 18, 2006 -- The next International Space Station crew plus the first female civilian visitor to the ISS lifted off from Kazakhstan early today. NASA astronaut and Expedition 14 crew commander Michael Lopez-Alegria, KE5GTK, and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, RZ3FT, will take over for the Expedition 13 crew of astronaut Jeff Williams, KD5TVQ, and cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, RV3BS. Along for the ride as a paying passenger aboard the Soyuz TMA-9 "taxi flight" is US businesswoman Anousheh Ansari, who will visit the ISS for about 10 days under a contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency.

The Soyuz rocket carrying Expedition 14 and Ansari took off at 0409 UTC today from Baikonur Cosmodrome. The trio should arrive at the space station early on September 20. This will mark Tyurin's second time as a space station crew member. He was part of ISS Expedition 3 in 2001.

US astronaut Sunita Williams, KD5PLB, is expected to join Expedition 14 in progress. She'll arrive at the ISS on the next NASA shuttle mission, STS-116, scheduled to visit the station as early as December on her first space flight. She'll replace European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter, DF4TR -- already aboard the ISS -- whose duty tour is scheduled to span part of two expeditions, 13 and 14--the first time that's happened in the history of the ISS. Williams will remain aboard the ISS into part of Expedition 15.

Anousheh on the Air

The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program says Ansari, 39, will attempt some Amateur Radio contacts during her stay in space. A tentative schedule calls for her to speak with students at George Washington University, her alma mater, on Friday, September 22. Jeff Williams will serve as a control operator for that event.

In addition, ARRL ARISS Liaison Rosalie White, K1STO, says Ansari wants to speak with US-licensed school children in random QSOs. Using the RS0ISS call sign, Ansari is expected to be on the air at various times from Thursday, September 21, until Tuesday, September 26.

The worldwide downlink frequency is 145.800 MHz. The FM voice uplink is 144.49 MHz in ITU Regions 2 and 3 (the Americas and the Pacific) and 145.20 in Region 1 (Europe, Central Asia and Africa). Ansari, who's standing in for Daisuke "Dice-K" Enomoto as the fourth private citizen to fly to the ISS, has been trained in use of the ARISS gear but was unable to get her license because of her accelerated training schedule. Space Adventures Ltd handled arrangements for Ansari's mission.

Joint Ops

Over the weekend, the Expedition 13 crew concluded a busy week of joint operations with the six-member space shuttle Atlantis STS-115 crew, which arrived September 11. Atlantis undocked at 1250 UTC Sunday. STS-115 was the first construction mission to visit the ISS since late 2002. During the mission, shuttle and ISS crews used robotic arms to install the P3/P4 truss and its solar arrays on the station. The shuttle crew then conducted three spacewalks to prepare the additional hardware for operation. The new solar arrays will double the amount of electrical power available onboard the ISS. The PCSat 2 Amateur Radio payload was retrieved from the exterior of the ISS during one of the spacewalks.

Crew Members Investigate Odd Odor

Earlier today, the ISS Expedition 13 crew reported an odor in the Zvezda Service module and manually activated an alarm to begin emergency procedures. NASA says the smell was traced to an apparent leak of potassium hydroxide in the station's Elektron oxygen-generation system. Potassium hydroxide, or caustic potash, can be an irritant to crew members, but is not classified as a life-threatening toxin. The crew donned surgical masks, goggles and gloves for protection from the apparently small leak, NASA said, and measurements of the atmosphere onboard the ISS indicate very low levels of any contaminants. NASA says the crew plans to "scrub the air" onboard to ensure no potassium hydroxide vapors remain.

Previous: ARRL Granted Experimental License for 500 kHz Research by Radio Amateurs

Next: Apologetic Radio Jammer Jack Gerritsen Gets Seven Years, Fines