Malenchenko and Lu arrive at the launch site Sunday. Photo: NASA/Scott Andrews

The two men who will make the first space launch since the Columbia tragedy flew to the Baikonur Cosmodrome Sunday to begin final preparations for their upcoming blastoff aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule.

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, commander of the seventh Expedition to the international space staiton, and NASA science officer Ed Lu traveled from their training base in Star City to the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan.

Liftoff is scheduled for 0354 GMT Saturday (11:54 p.m. EDT Friday) for the two-day flight to the orbiting station. Docking with the outpost is expected around 0556 GMT (1:56 a.m. EDT) next Monday.

The Expedition 7 crewmembers will spend several days in handover briefings with the station's current resident crew -- Expedition 6 commander Ken Bowersox, flight engineer Nikolai Budarin and science officer Don Pettit.

The Expedition 7 crew will launch aboard the Soyuz TMA-2 spacecraft. Photo: NASA/Bill Ingalls

The aging Soyuz capsule that has been docked to the station since late last year -- the first Soyuz TMA -- will ferry Expedition 6 back to Earth on May 4, with touchdown in Kazakhstan around 0203 GMT (10:03 p.m. EDT May 3).

Malenchenko and Lu are likely to spend a half-year living on the station, performing maintenance and housekeeping chores to keep the outpost operating. A number of science investigations are also planned.

Construction of the station remains on hold in the wake of the shuttle accident February 1. Expedition 7 had been slated to ride aboard the next shuttle flight to the station, allowing Expedition 6 to return on that same orbiter. But with shuttles not expected to resume flights before the end of 2003, NASA and its international partners developed the plan to switch out the Expedition crews on Soyuz missions.

Expedition 6 has been living on the station since late November, having been delivered on the last successful shuttle mission before Columbia.

Video coverage for subscribers only:
   VIDEO: EXPEDITION 7 CREW PRE-FLIGHT NEWS CONFERENCE QT
   VIDEO: PRIME AND BACKUP CREWS SIGN COSMONAUTS BOOK QT
   VIDEO: PHOTO OPPORTUNITY IN GAGARIN MUSEUM QT
   VIDEO: CREWMEMBERS VISIT RED SQUARE WITH FAMILIES QT
   VIDEO: NEWS BRIEFING ON EXCHANGE OF STATION EXPEDITIONS QT
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