Expedition 20 is to launch at the end of this month on Soyuz TMA-15; they will join Expedition 19 to make the first 6-person crew. Keeping track of comings and goings will be much more complicated from this year!
There is a NASA preflight interview with cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, who will be making his first flight. He, like Sergei Volkov (Expedition 17) is a second-generation cosmonaut (son of Yurii Romanenko). He gave some details about the next Russian module to be launched this year, MIM-2, МИМ-2:
Q: According to the plan currently, shortly after your arrival there is a pair of spacewalks planned for Gennady and Mike to make. Tell me about what they’ll be doing outside the station, and what you will be doing inside to support that work.
A: Yes, during our increment there will be a lot of EVA activities; in other words, spacewalks. In addition to two Russian scheduled EVAs, there will be seven or eight EVAs by the shuttle crew members. They will need to perform a lot of tasks. However, the main objective for all EVAs is to outfit the ISS with all those elements and modules and hardware units that will ensure successful operation of a six-person crew on board the ISS. EVAs that will be performed by Gennady and Mike Barratt, those EVAs will also address the tasks of outfitting the Russian segment with the new Mini Research Module #2, delivery of which is scheduled for this year. We’re hoping that we will receive this module during our mission; it is scheduled for delivery at the end of summer, beginning of the fall. It will dock to the Russian segment and Gennady, during his EVA with his U.S. colleague, will have to route cables in order to ensure docking of this module.
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Q: Another new component for the Russian segment of the space station is due to arrive before the end of the year. It’s called the Mini Research Module 2. Can you describe what that is for us and what that will add to Russian segment operations?
A: I think that this new module will be slightly larger than the Docking Compartment. However, it will provide additional vole for various experiments on the Russian segment. It may also be used as the additional airlock for EVAs, or a connecting module for subsequent addition of a larger, another larger module to the Russian segment. The reason why the name of this new module is Mini Research Module is due to the fact that this new addition to the station will house a number of scientific experiments that will be performed under the Russian space agency science program.
Progress M-66 undocked yesterday at 15:18 UTC, and will deorbit on 18/5 after performing the Plazma-Progress geophysical experiment this week.
