Crew Prepares for Soyuz and Shuttle Dockings

With a Soyuz spacecraft and a space shuttle on tap to arrive at the International Space Station in early April, the Expedition 23 crew continued to pack items for return to Earth, review timelines and tackle the usual workload of science and station maintenance Tuesday.

Flight Engineers Soichi Noguchi and T.J. Creamer began their day by conducting a periodic health status evaluation. The results from these routine physical examinations are downlinked to researchers who are charting any changes to crew health that could be due to the long-term exposure to weightlessness.

Later, Commander Oleg Kotov joined Noguchi and Creamer for a review of items to be transferred to and from the station when space shuttle Discovery arrives. They also conducted an audio conference with logistics specialists in Houston to discuss the choreography involved in the transfers. The STS-131 crew of Discovery is scheduled to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 5, bringing a multi-purpose logistics module filled with science racks for the station’s laboratories.