An American astronaut, Russian cosmonaut and billionaire American space tourist are spending their final day on the International Space Station before returning to Earth early Wednesday. We'll have live coverage of their departure starting today at 8:30 p.m. EDT. Click on the NASA TV still image on the right side of the page to launch a viewer, and refresh the page for updates.
The coverage starts with a farewell ceremony for Expedition 18 commander Mike Fincke, Expedition 18 flight engineer Yury Lonchakov and spaceflight participant Charles Simonyi.
After the brief ceremony, the trio is scheduled to enter their Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft and close a hatch behind them around 8:45 p.m.
Coverage picks up again at 11:30 p.m., shortly before the crew's planned 11:52 p.m. undocking from the station.
After a deorbit burn scheduled at 2:24 a.m. Wednesday, the crew is expected to land in southeastern Kazakhstan at 3:16 a.m.
Later, NASA TV will run video replays of landing site activities (1:30 p.m.), and a crew news conference and welcoming ceremonies at Chkalovsky Airfield in Star City, Russia (3 p.m.)Russian flight controllers on Friday postponed the crew's departure from the station by one day and shifted the landing site because of soggy conditions at they original location further north in Kazakhstan.
Ficke and Lonchakov launched from Kazakhstan on Oct. 12, 2008, and docked at the station two days later. They conducted two spacewalks. At different stages, their expedition 18 crew also included astronauts Greg Chamitoff and Sandra Magnus, who returned home on space shuttles. Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata transferred to Expedition 19.
Simonyi, a former developer of Microsoft Office software who paid a reported $35 million to fly up to the station, was making his second visit.
He flew up with cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and astronaut Michael Barratt, arriving March 28. Pedalka and Barratt will remain on the station with Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata to run Expedition 19.
They'll help kick of a planned May expansion of long-duration station crews to six people.
You can read more about Expedition 18 in this official NASA press kit.
IMAGE NOTE: On March 26, 2009, NASA astronaut Michael Fincke (left), Expedition 18 commander, and cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov, flight engineer, attired in their Russian Sokol flight suits, pose for a photo in the International Space Station's Unity node. On March 29, U.S. spaceflight participant Charles Simonyi floats in the station's Harmony node.
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