NASA astronaut Jeff Williams and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Skriprochka and Alexey Ovchinin finish their training in Star City in preparation for launch aboard the Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome to the International Space Station on March 18.
Mission Reports
Russians launch Progress supply ship to space station
Nine hours after a spectacular launch failure that destroyed a U.S. supply ship bound for the International Space Station, the Russians successfully launched a Progress cargo craft from snowy Kazakhstan carrying 5,793 pounds of rocket fuel, water, air, crew supplies and other equipment needed aboard the lab complex.
Mission Reports
Complex spacewalk repair work begins Friday
After four years of brainstorming, custom tool development and training, two astronauts plan to venture outside the International Space Station Friday for the first of four spacewalks to repair a $2 billion cosmic ray detector. The excursions are considered the most challenging since work to service the Hubble Space Telescope.