Expedition 13
First Brazilian in space; crew restored to three members.
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Expedition 13 was the 13th expedition to the International Space Station, launching on 30 March 2006 aboard Soyuz TMA-8. Marcos Pontes became the first Brazilian in space during this expedition, and Thomas Reiter became the first European long-duration crew member on the ISS. Reiter's arrival in July 2006 restored the station crew to three members for the first time since May 2003.
Spacewalks
Expedition 13’s first spacewalk, carried out by Pavel Vinogradov and Jeffrey Williams, started on June 1, 2006, and wrapped up the following day. A planned golf shot from the station was pushed back to Expedition 14 while NASA assessed potential hazards. The walk fell behind schedule, needing an extra 50 minutes to finish swapping out a camera. It kicked off at 23:48 UTC on June 1 and concluded at 06:19 UTC on June 2, totaling 6 hours and 31 minutes.
Additional work included fixing a vent for the station’s oxygen-generating Elektron unit and picking up experiment packages. The second spacewalk for the crew took place on August 3, 2006, with Jeffrey Williams and Thomas Reiter handling the duties. It ran from 14:04 UTC to 19:58 UTC, lasting 5 hours and 54 minutes. During that outing, the pair installed the Floating Potential Measurement Unit, two Materials on Materials International Space Station Experiment containers, and a controller for a thermal radiator rotary joint.
They also replaced a computer, put in a starboard jumper and spool positioning device, checked and installed a radiator beam valve module, added a port jumper and SPD, tested an infrared camera, mounted a light on the truss railway handcart, swapped out a faulty GPS antenna, installed a vacuum system valve, moved two articulated portable foot restraints, photographed a scratch on the airlock hatch, and retrieved a ball stack from PMA-1 for inspection.
More in Expeditions to the International Space Station
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Expedition 13 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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