Roskosmos, NASA, JAXA heads ask new ISS crew to care of station.

Roskosmos, NASA, JAXA heads ask new ISS crew to care of station.

21/12 Tass 9

BAIKONUR, December 21 (Itar-Tass) - Head of the Russian Federal Space
Agency (Roskosmos) Anatoly Perminov wished luck to the crew of the Soyuz
TMA-17 spaceship that was blasted off to the International Space Station
(ISS) on Monday - Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, NASA astronaut American
Timothy Creamer and JAXA astronaut Japanese Soichi Noguchi, Itar-Tass
reported from the launch site.

All the works at the launch complex and fuelling of the carrier rocket
were going in schedule, Perminov said. He wished the cosmonauts luck and
thanked them for the good preparation for the flight.
Head of the Cosmonauts' Training Centre Sergei Krikalyov for his part
told the crew ahead of the blastoff that "I am sure that you have
undergone good training and wish you a good flight and may everything go
according to the plan!"
Head of the Japan aerospace research centre JAXA Keiji Tachikawa
congratulated the cosmonauts and withed them a good flight. "Your flight
is going to be a great success," he stressed.
Deputy NASA head Bill Gerstenmeier asked the cosmonauts to "take care
of the station."
General Designer Vitaly Lopota warned the crew that they have a "great
work ahead." "It will be one of the most busy expeditions," he said
promising to "add work for the station's operation procedure." "The
continuation of the ISS work will depend on you," he added asking the crew
to spend at least 2-3 hours on the work. Addressing the flight commander
Lopota asked Oleg Kotov "to keep everything in check and as a military
doctor, monitor the crew's health condition."
RF presidential administration head's aide Yekaterina Popova who was
also present at the launch site wished the crew "efficient work in orbit."
The spaceship's commander Oleg Kotov in response expressed gratitude
to all who contributed their knowledge to the preparation of the crew and
spacecraft for the flight.
NASA astronaut Timothy Creamer said in Russian "we knew we will have
much work to do and we are ready for it."
JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi admitted that he is "proud to be
launched into space from the same launch site as Gagarin 48 years ago."
"Well done," Perminov praised the Japanese astronaut's command of the
Russian language. "The station is huge, the work at it is nearing
completion and more and more research is conducted on it," he noted.
"There will be five of you soon, you have much work ahead and the
programme is busy," he added.
The Roskosmos head told the backup cosmonauts that "We hope that the
second crew will be ready to fulfil this task in full."
Russian Oleg Kotov, NASA's Timothy Creamer and Japan's Soichi Noguchi
lifted off from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan as planned, at
00:52 Moscow time (21:52 GMT on Sunday). "Attention, spaceship Soyuz
TMA-17, successfully reached its designated orbit," said an announcer at
mission control to the applause of control workers and officials from the
Russian, US and Japanese space agencies. After the first nine, most
critical minutes into the flight, the Soyuz reached the targeted orbit at
altitudes between 200 km and 242 km above earth.
According to NASA, NASA astronaut and Expedition 22 Commander Jeff
Williams and Russian cosmonaut and Flight Engineer Maxim Suraev are
currently the sole residents on the station, having arrived October 2
aboard their Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft. Creamer, Kotov and Noguchi will
complete the Expedition 22 crew when they dock to the station on December
22.
Creamer, 50, a US Army colonel from Upper Marlboro, Md., will be
making his first spaceflight. Assigned to NASA's Johnson Space Centre in
1995 as a space shuttle vehicle integration test engineer, he supported
eight shuttle missions as vehicle integration test team lead and
specialized in coordinating the information technologies for the Astronaut
Office. Selected as an astronaut in 1998, Creamer worked with hardware
integration and robotics and was a support astronaut for Expedition 12.
Kotov, 44, a physician and Russian Air Force colonel, will be making
his second space flight and serving his second tour aboard the station.
Selected as a cosmonaut in 1996, he trained as a cosmonaut researcher for
a flight on the Soyuz and as a backup crewmember to the Mir-26 mission. A
former lead test doctor at Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre, he served as
a flight engineer and Soyuz commander on the Expedition 15 mission in
2007. He will be a flight engineer for Expedition 22 and assume the duties
of Expedition 23 commander when Williams departs in March 2010.
Noguchi, 44, an aeronautical engineer from Chigasaki, Kanagawa, Japan,
will be making his second space flight. He was selected by the National
Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA), now JAXA, as an astronaut
candidate in 1996 and trained at Johnson Space Centre. After completing
his astronaut training, he supported development and integration of the
station's Japanese Kibo experiment module. Noguchi flew on the STS-114
return-to-flight mission of Discovery in 2005. He has logged nearly 14
days in space, including more than 20 hours of spacewalks to test new
procedures for shuttle inspection and repair techniques.
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