The next generation arrived at the space station

The 18th crew and the 17th space tourist docked yesterday at the space station, where the toilets once again broke down * In a rare coincidence, two second-generation astronauts, the space tourist Garriott and the XNUMXth crew commander Volkov, will be in space at the same time

Space Station 18 Crew Commander Mike Pinky and Flight Engineer Yuri Valentinovich Lonchakov docked yesterday (Tuesday) at 04:26 EST, 10:26 AM Israel Time with their Soyuz TMA-13 ​​spacecraft at the Zarya component of the space station , and together with them came the sixth space tourist, video game mogul Richard Garriott. The hatches between the Soyuz and the station were opened about an hour and a half later, and later a ceremony was also held to welcome the new members to the station.

Pinky and Luchankov will stay on the station for six months, Garriott will return to Earth together with the members of the 17th crew - Sergiy Volkov and Oleg Kononnekt in their spacecraft, Soyuz TMA-12 on October 23. Garriott is the son of American astronaut Evan Garriott who manned the Space Lab in the 17s and later flew on the space shuttle Columbia. By an unusual coincidence, two second-generation people will be in space at the same time - also the commander of the XNUMXth crew, Sergey Volkov, is the son of cosmonaut Alexander Volkov, and he was the first of the second-generation members to fly into space, now Garriott is also joining him.

Also staying at the station is the American Gregory Chaimtoff who arrived at the station on the space shuttle Discovery, on the STS-124 mission that was launched on May 31 this year. He will continue for a short time with the 18th crew, before being replaced on the next shuttle mission, STS-126 in early November with astronaut Sarah Magnus, who will also be replaced during the 18th crew at Japan's Koichi Wakata who will arrive in early 2009 on the STS-119 mission.

Pinky already served on the station as the flight engineer of the ninth crew from April to October 2004. Lonchakov has participated in two space missions so far - STS-100 to the space station in April 2001, and a short flight to the space station in October-November 2002.

The International Space Station is far from being the Ritz even in its best days, so now it's in trouble again. The main toilet facility is out of order, which requires the astronauts to use the worst facility in the Soyuz spacecraft (luckily, there are currently two of these on the station).

The pump that activates the unruly service facility already broke down last June, and Oleg Kononenko had to perform plumbing work on the track to replace the pump that separates the gas and liquids. It seems that again, three months later, an almost identical malfunction occurred, and the crew would have to consult with Kononenko before he returned to Earth, exactly how he went about fixing the toilets.

For information on the Universe Today website