Soyuz Heads For Space Station
By Frank Morring, Jr. 
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, Houston - International Space Station (ISS) flight controllers here are turning their attention from the STS-119/15A mission of the space shuttle Discovery, which ended March 25 with a "$100 billion photograph," to the arrival of the station's next crew on March 28.
Soyuz TMA-14/18S launched at 7:49 a.m. EDT March 26 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with ISS Expedition 19 Commander Gennady Padalka, Flight Engineer Michael Barratt and two-time space tourist Charles Simonyi, setting up a docking at 9:14 a.m. EDT March 28.
Expedition 18 Commander Mike Fincke and Flight Engineer Yuri Lonchakov planned to take March 26 off after eight days of hosting Discovery's crew, and then begin packing to return to Earth April 6. Japan's Koichi Wakata, the third member of Expedition 19, arrived on Discovery.
Discovery sent down high-definition video of the almost-complete station after astronaut Tony Antonelli, the mission pilot, flew the orbiter around the outpost at a range of 400-600 feet before separating to begin preparations for landing March 28.
While the main purpose of the flyaround video, and of digital still photography by Discovery's crew, was to evaluate the condition of the station's exterior, it also gave flight controllers here their first look at the $100 billion orbiting facility in what is essentially its final configuration. Although Japan's Kibo laboratory will receive a large external platform in June, with the addition of the fourth and final solar array wing during the mission the station has all of its main elements in place.
"To essentially see the space station as it was always designed to be is really just incredible," said Kwatsi Alabaruso, lead ISS flight director for the mission. "It's almost indescribable."
Alabaruso, who has worked on the ISS since he was a college student in the early 1990s, said his flight control team dubbed the first images that came down from the shuttle "the $100 billion photograph" in recognition of the huge cost of the outpost. But Dan Hartman, ISS mission integration and operations manager, said with installation of the final 240-foot-long solar array wing "it's getting to feel like we're really getting ready to turn this thing over to the research community" for the unique science possible in microgravity.
The new array will double the electric power available to drive the experiment racks in the station laboratories to 30 kilowatts. Discovery also delivered a replacement for a failed urine distillation assembly for the water recycling system that will be needed to support a crew of six, planned to arrive in May.
The orbiter is bringing back about four liters of recycled water for toxicology testing on the ground. While early samples were promising, the six-person crew can continue to use water generated by shuttle fuel cells until the fleet stops flying at the end of next year.
Shuttle Discovery photo: NASA
