SB SPACE @ ARL $ARLS006
ARLS006 Three Radio Amateurs on their Way to the ISS

ZCZC AS06  
QST de W1AW  
Space Bulletin 006  ARLS006
From ARRL Headquarters  
Newington, CT  April 20, 2004
To all radio amateurs

SB SPACE ARL ARLS006
ARLS006 Three Radio Amateurs on their Way to the ISS

Following a successful early-morning launch Monday, April 19 (UTC),
three Amateur Radio operators are on their way to the International
Space Station (ISS) in a Russian Soyuz vehicle. ISS Expedition 9
crew members Gennady Padalka, RN3DT, and Mike Fincke, KE5AIT,
accompanied by European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Andre Kuipers,
PI9ISS, of the Netherlands took off into space from Baikonur
Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz is due to dock with the ISS just
after 0500 UTC on Wednesday, April 21.

Padalka and Fincke will relieve Expedition 8 crew members Mike
Foale, KB5UAC, and Sasha Kaleri, U8MIR. During his nine days aboard
the space outpost, Kuipers will conduct a couple of Amateur Radio on
the International Space Station (ARISS) school group contacts and
carry out scientific experiments under a commercial agreement
between the ESA and Russia. He'll return to Earth April 29 with
Foale and Kaleri aboard the Soyuz vehicle now attached to the ISS.
Foale and Kaleri have been on the space station since last October.

Padalka, 45, will serve as Expedition 9 commander and Soyuz
commander, while Fincke, 36, will be the NASA ISS science officer
and flight engineer. They have been training together as a space
station crew for nearly two years. This marks Fincke's first space
flight and Padalka's second. Padalka lived aboard the Russian Mir
space station for 198 days in 1999.
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