Blogger Note: The International Space Station partnership is poised to make history with the launch of three space pioneers who will boost crew size on the outpost to six - a long-awaited milestone that comes more than a decade after construction in low Earth orbit began in late 1998. You can watch the launch live here in The Flame Trench beginning at 5:45 a.m. EDT Wednesday. Simply click to NASA TV box on the right hand side of this page to launch our NASA TV viewer, and be sure to refresh this page for periodic updates. Liftoff is scheduled for 6:34 a.m. Also: Check out our front page story about the launch of Expedition 20:
The crew of the International Space Station will double in size this week, a long-awaited milestone that will triple the amount of scientific research that can be done on the $100 billion orbiting outpost.For more than a decade now, spacewalking astronauts have been in an assembly mode, piecing together the growing station in a construction zone 220 miles above Earth, while resident crews focused on simply keeping it flying safely.
On Wednesday, a Soyuz spacecraft carrying a Russian, a Belgian and a Canadian is scheduled to launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and then dock at the station Friday -- eight years, six months and 29 days after an inaugural crew of three opened the outpost for business.
They'll join a Russian, an American and an astronaut from Japan, forming the first full six-person crew to live and work aboard the complex, which is as large as an American football field.
"We've been looking forward to getting to this increment for a long, long time," said Dan Hartman, NASA's manager for station integration and operations.
With the move to six-person crews, station residents finally will be able to turn their attention toward scientific research, logging up to 600 hours of experimentation during the next six-month expedition.
They plan to shed light on the adverse effects of spaceflight on the body, knowledge critical to gearing up for human expeditions to the moon, Mars and other celestial destinations.
And they hope to break new ground in fields ranging from the development of disease-fighting drugs to meteorology and climate change.
Adding to the excitement: The first six-person crew includes a representative of all the nations and agencies involved in the space station.
"We will have Russian and U.S. crew members, but also Japanese, European and Canadian crew members, all together in one single crew, and this is really the intent of the International Space Station," said Belgian astronaut Frank De Winne, who will be flying on the Soyuz as a representative of the European Space Agency.
The station is a joint venture of the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan and 11 European nations: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Astronauts and cosmonauts linked the first two station building blocks -- the Russian Zarya space tug and the American Unity module -- in late 1998.
And from there, it grew.
Spacewalkers from seven nations -- the U.S., Russia, Canada, France, Japan, Germany and Sweden -- ventured into the deadly vacuum of space 123 times to build the station, tallying 775 hours -- almost 32 days -- on the job.
The Russian Zvezda command and control module, which also serves as a laboratory and crew quarters, was added in the summer of 2000, and the first three-man crew floated into the outpost on Nov. 2, 2000.
Next came the U.S. Destiny lab, which was added in 2001. It's designated a "national laboratory" with the same status as Los Alamos.
The European Columbus laboratory was delivered in 2008, and the third and final segment of the Japanese Kibo science research facility is scheduled to arrive in June.
Four massive American solar wings, each of which stretch 240 feet from tip to tip, generate the electrical power required to run the labs. The wings are mounted on the port and starboard ends of a 335-foot girder-like truss, which serves as the station's metallic backbone.
Still awaiting launch along with the last Kibo segment: the final American module, Tranquility, two Russian mini-research modules, a dome-shaped European cupola and tons of scientific gears and supplies.
NASA plans eight more station assembly missions. The last payload flown before shuttle fleet retirement: a large particle physics experiment called the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.
Construction of the 334-ton station has not come without problems.
All three command and control computers on the U.S. side of the station failed during a 2001 shuttle mission to delivery a Canadian-built robot arm.
The 2003 Columbia accident grounded NASA's shuttle fleet, shutting down station assembly and a critical supply line for almost three years.
All crew exchange missions from February 2003 to July 2006 were carried out by Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and crew size was reduced to two to conserve limited supplies.
Station crews have struggled at times with recurring shutdowns of a Russian oxygen-generation system, and a smoke alarm triggered by fumes from the system prompted fears of a potential fire in 2006.
Russian command-and-control computers crashed during an assembly mission in 2007; a torn solar array required spacewalking surgery that same year, and a 10-foot-diameter joint that enables the station's starboard solar wings to rotate broke down in 2007, too.
"Building a space station with as much capability as we currently have in the harsh working environment of space is something very difficult, so it makes me very proud to be with five other crewmates who represent all of the space station partners," said Bob Thirsk, a Canadian flying up to the outpost.
The first resident crew of six, some of whom will be swapped out midway through a half-year expedition, also will include De Winne and second-generation Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko.
They will join Russian commander Gennady Padalka, U.S. astronaut Michael Barratt and Koichi Wakata of Japan, who are already onboard.
The experience, De Winne said, "is going to be a tremendous learning lesson for us and is going to be a great step for future exploration of humankind."
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