International space station crew members Valery Tokarev and Bill McArthur successfully relocated their Soyuz spacecraft, mission control reported Monday. Commander McArthur and flight engineer Tokarev, wearing Russian Sokol launch and entry suits, undocked the Soyuz from the Russian Zarya science module, at 1:49 a.m. Eastern Time, then redocked to the aft end of the Zvezda service module at 2:11 a.m.
The two docking ports are about 80 feet apart, but to complete the maneuver, Soyuz commander Tokarev had to back the capsule about 115 feet away from the station, then maneuver to a point about 80 feet behind Zvezda. In all, the Soyuz traveled a little over 200 feet relative to the station. In the 22 minutes they remained undocked, the orbit of the capsule and station, at an altitude of about 200 miles (320 kilometers), crossed about 10,000 miles (16,000) of Earth’s surface.
The crew began preparing for the maneuver last Thursday by testing the Soyuz thrusters, and on Sunday they placed the station’s systems in unmanned configuration, in case the Soyuz could not redock. If that had occurred, the crew would have had to return to Earth.
The relocation maneuver makes way for the arrival of Expedition 13 crewmembers in their Russian Soyuz 12 spacecraft on March 31.
The Expedition 13 crew wrapped up their stay at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, on March 18, and departed for final launch preparations at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Commander Pavel Vinogradov, flight engineer Jeff Williams and Brazilian astronaut Marcos Pontes are scheduled to launch March 29 at 9:30 p.m. Eastern Time.
Pontes will depart the orbiting facility with McArthur and Tokarev in the relocated Soyuz and the trio is scheduled to return to Earth on April 8.
