The Soyuz TMA-18 rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Image Credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi
The three Soyuz crew members are scheduled to dock with their new home at 1:26 a.m. Sunday. Aboard the orbiting laboratory they will join Oleg Kotov, a Russian cosmonaut and station commander, T.J. Creamer, a NASA astronaut and flight engineer, and Soichi Noguchi, a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut and flight engineer. The expanded Expedition 23 crew will continue science investigations and support two space shuttle missions to the station. Kotov, Creamer and Noguchi launched to the station on December 21, 2009. They are scheduled to return to Earth on June 2. Before their departure, Kotov will hand over command of the station to Skvortsov for Expedition 24. In June, NASA astronauts Doug Wheelock and Shannon Walker, and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin will join Skvortsov, Caldwell Dyson and Kornienko in orbit to complete the Expedition 24 crew.