International Space Station Status Report #02-49 
1:00 a.m. CST, Friday, November 1, 2002 
Expedition Five Crew

A Russian-Belgian cosmonaut crew arrived at the International Space
Station in the wee hours this morning in a newly modified Soyuz capsule
after a flawless two-day flight following launch from the Baikonur
Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. 

Russian “taxi crew” Commander Sergei Zalyotin, European Space Agency
Flight Engineer Frank DeWinne from Belgium and Russian Flight Engineer
Yuri Lonchakov docked their new Soyuz TMA-1 capsule to the Russian Pirs
Docking Compartment of the ISS at 11:01 p.m. Central time last night (501
GMT Nov. 1) as the two craft flew 230 statute miles over central Russia,
linking up to the ISS along side an older Soyuz TM-34 return vehicle
which has been at the station since April. Zalyotin, DeWinne and
Lonchakov will depart the ISS in the older Soyuz on Nov. 9. 

A fresh Soyuz is delivered to the ISS every six months to provide an
assured return capability for station residents in the unlikely event a
problem would force them to come home prematurely. The new Soyuz is
designed to accommodate larger or smaller crewmembers, and is equipped
with upgraded computers, a new cockpit control panel and improved
avionics. 

The Expedition 5 crewmembers – Commander Valery Korzun, NASA ISS Science
Officer Peggy Whitson and Flight Engineer Sergei Treschev – monitored the
arrival of their new visitors from the Zvezda Service Module to which the
Pirs docking port is attached. 

After conducting leak checks between the Soyuz and the ISS, hatches swung
open between the two spacecraft at 12:26 a.m. Central time (626 GMT),
enabling the six crewmembers to greet one another and receive
congratulatory calls from Russian and European dignitaries gathered at
the Russian Mission Control Center in Korolev, outside Moscow. 

The visiting “taxi” crew will spend eight days on the ISS. During that
time, DeWinne will conduct a host of scientific experiments, some of them
in the Microgravity Glovebox housed in the station’s Destiny Laboratory. 

The arrival of the “taxi” crew sets the stage for the launch of the
shuttle Endeavour Nov. 11 to bring a new crew of residents to the ISS to
replace Korzun, Whitson and Treschev, who have been in space since June.
Endeavour’s crew, led by Commander Jim Wetherbee, will also deliver the
Port One (P1) truss segment to the ISS, the fourth of 11 such trusses
which form the backbone for the ISS for the addition of new modules and
power-producing solar arrays. 

-MORE Details about the final days of the work on orbit by the Expedition
Five crew and the progress of the Soyuz “taxi” flight to the station will
be offered in an ISS Mission Status Briefing to be held at the Johnson
Space Center, TX on Tuesday, Nov. 5, at 1 p.m. CST. 

Information on the crew's activities, future launch dates, as well as
station sighting opportunities from anywhere on the Earth, is available
on the Internet at: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov Details on station
science operations can be found on an Internet site administered by the
Payload Operations Center at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in
Huntsville, Ala., at: http://www.scipoc.msfc.nasa.gov The next ISS status
report will be issued on Friday, Nov. 8, or sooner, if developments
warrant.