Like the last three crews, Chiao and Sharipov will be short one person, a practice adopted to save supplies after shuttle flights were suspended following the Feb. 1, 2003 Columbia accident.
NASA had hoped the Expedition 10 crew would welcome the first post-Columbia shuttle crew in orbit in March 2005. The agency, however, last week delayed the shuttle's return to flight until at least May and possibly July due to hurricane damage at the shuttle's launch site in Florida.
The three remaining orbiters, as well as billions of dollars of space station components awaiting launch, survived the storm unscathed. But the hangar where the shuttles are attached to their booster rockets and fuel tanks was pummeled in back-to-back hurricanes that hit the Kennedy Space Center area between Aug. 13 and Sept. 5.
Like the caretaker crews before them, Chiao, 44, and Sharipov, 40, primarily will be concerned with just keeping the station running. One of the station's gyroscopes, which are used to properly position the outpost, has failed and a balky oxygen generator has forced station crewmembers to break into their backup supplies of oxygen-generating candles to survive.
The Russian-made oxygen machine, called an Elektron, has been periodically out of service for nearly a year. Two weeks ago, the current station crew rigged the machine, which works by separating waste water into oxygen and hydrogen and dumping the hydrogen overboard, to a different vent valve, which temporarily corrected the problem.
The system runs only while the station crew is awake, however, as it needs to be checked hourly. Chiao and Sharipov will be bringing a sensor with them that should allow the Elektron to operate automatically.
"Our goal right now is to keep that laboratory going," Chiao, 44, said in a preflight interview. "(We'll) do a little bit of assembly until we can get the shuttle flying again and resume construction, until we get the laboratory finished."
The station has been short on supplies since shuttle flights to the outpost were canceled after the Columbia accident. Currently only the Russian Soyuz rockets and Russian unmanned Progress cargo ships can fly to the outpost and the amount of supplies those vehicles can carry is much more limited than the shuttle.
Two cargo ships are scheduled to arrive during the Expedition 10 crew's time in orbit. Even so, Chiao and Sharipov will have to dip into their 45-day reserve supplies for about a week to tide them over until the first cargo ship arrives on Dec. 25. The men are scheduled to remain aboard the outpost until April 25.
"We're watching, as always, our consumables closely," NASA's space station operations manager Mark Geyer said during a preflight briefing.
The Expedition 10 crew originally was slated to launch Oct. 9, but was delayed twice due to problems with ground support equipment for the Soyuz rocket. First, an explosive bolt unexpectedly fired during ground testing. Engineers then had to repair a fuel leak.
"The fact that they were able to get those (problems) identified quickly and turned around and ready for launch is a testament to their ability," said Geyer.
During their stay on the station, Chiao and Sharipov are scheduled to make two spacewalks using the Russian Orlan spacesuits.
The first outing will be to work on the Russian Service Module and to install an experiment jointly sponsored by Russia and the European Space Agency.
During the second spacewalk, the crew will outfit the station for arrival of the first European cargo transporter, which is scheduled to begin service to the station in October 2005. The gear includes GPS navigation antennas, a space-to-space radio system, a television camera and cables.
Chiao and Sharipov, who are scheduled to blastoff at 11:06 p.m. ET Wednesday, will fly with rookie cosmonaut Yuri Shargin. Shargin will spend a week aboard the outpost and return home with the current station crew, commander Gennady Padalka and flight engineer Michael Fincke.
Russia had hoped to fly a tourist in the third seat, but substituted in Shargin after the tourist candidate was taken off the flight due to a health issue.
Padalka and Fincke have been on the station since April. They are scheduled to return to Earth on Oct. 23.
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