The rotation was originally planned for mission STS-118, but this was postponed to August, so it will be performed on Atlantis flight STS-117 in June
Sunita Williams on the International Space Station
The members of the 15th crew of the International Space Station have completed their first week alone on the station since the departure of the previous crew on April 21. Station Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and his deputies Oleg Kutov and Sunita Williams performed medical examinations, scientific experiments, emergency practice and maintenance work at the station.
On Thursday, Williams, who has been on the station since December, was informed that she will return to Earth with the STS-117 crew on the space shuttle Atlantis, scheduled for launch on June 8. In this mission, a replacement astronaut, Clay Anderson, will arrive at the station, who will serve as the station's flight engineer.
The exchange between Anderson and Williams was originally planned for the STS-118 mission whose launch was postponed according to current plans to August, however this flight, initially intended for June, had to be postponed due to the damage to the external fuel tank of Atlantis that caused the postponement of the STS-117 mission.
Other operations carried out this week at the station - on Wednesday maneuvers were carried out during which the engines of the Zvezda service component were ignited to adjust the station's trajectory for the arrival of the cargo spacecraft Progress on May 25 and Atlantis in June. This was the first ignition of a Zvezda component since it arrived at the station in 2000.
The members of the 14th crew, the American Miguel Lopez-Alegria and the Russian Mikhail Tyurin are currently staying at the Gagarin training camp in Star City, near Moscow for a series of routine checks that are carried out after the space station crews return to Earth.
