Three Station Crew Members Prepare To Return Home on Tuesday

Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight Engineers T.J. Creamer and Soichi Noguchi will end their stay on the International Space Station as Expedition 23 crew members on Tuesday. They will enter the Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft and undock for the ride back to Earth and land in Kazakhstan.

Remaining behind will be new station commander Alexander Skvortsov and Flight Engineers Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Mikhail Kornienko. Joining them in two weeks and beginning the Expedition 24 increment will be Flight Engineers Doug Wheelock, Fyodor Yurchikhin and Shannon Walker.

Expedition 23 Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi, representing the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, tries on the Russian Sokol pressurized spacesuit he will wear when he rides the Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft back to Earth on Tuesday. Noguchi gave the suit demonstration inside the Kibo laboratory module. Credit: NASA TV

They will launch to their new home in space from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on June 15 in the Soyuz TMA-19 spacecraft.

With the new Rassvet Mini-Research Module-1, the International Space Station is now nearly complete.

Space shuttle Atlantis delivered the Russian module during the 12-day STS-132 mission that ended Wednesday, May 26, with a landing at Kennedy Space Center.

On Friday, Skvortsov and Kornienko continued checking out and unloading the Rassvet module. Kotov stowed gear in the Soyuz TMA-17 and readied for his Tuesday departure.

Caldwell Dyson worked on a small incubator, known as KUBIK, in the Columbus laboratory’s European Drawer Rack science facility.

Creamer worked in the Columbus lab replacing filters on the Biolab, another science rack, and prepared for his departure. Noguchi was in the Japanese Kibo lab performing clean up and maintenance and trying on his Sokol spacesuit for his return home on Tuesday.