'Expedition 13' (2006), the 13th expedition to the
International Space Station (ISS), launched at 02:30 UTC on
March 30,
2006. The Expedition used the
Soyuz TMA-8 spacecraft, which will stay during the entirety of the expedition for emergency evacuation.
Astronaut
Marcos Pontes launched together with Expedition 13 on the Soyuz TMA-8 spacecraft and became the first
Brazilian in space. He returned with
Expedition 12 on
Soyuz TMA-7 after a nine-day mission.
Thomas Reiter, from the
European Space Agency, became part of the Expedition 13 crew in July 2006. Reiter was launched with the second Return to Flight mission on ''
Discovery'' (
STS-121) on
July 4,
2006. Reiter became the first European long-duration crew member on the International Space Station when he officially joined the crew of the ISS at 1413 CST on
July 6,
2006 upon the complete installation of his
Soyuz spacecraft seat liner, allowing him to return to Earth aboard the docked Soyuz craft.
His arrival restored the station crew to three members for the first time since May 2003. Crew size was reduced to two and shuttle flights were put on hold after the
Space Shuttle Columbia disaster of
February 1,
2003.
Crew
★
Pavel Vinogradov (2) Commander -
★
Jeffrey Williams (2) Flight Engineer -
★
Thomas Reiter (2) Flight Engineer -
ESA
(#) number of spaceflights each crew member has completed, including this mission
'Back-up Crew'
★
Michael Fincke Commander and NASA Science Officer -
USA
★
Fyodor Yurchikhin Flight Engineer and Soyuz Commander -
Russia
★
Léopold Eyharts Flight Engineer -
ESA France
Mission parameters
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Perigee:'
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Apogee:'
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Inclination:'
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Orbital period:'
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Docked':
★ 'Undocked':
★ 'Time Docked':
Mission objectives
Spacewalks
EVA 1
The first spacewalk for Expedition 13 occurred on
June 1,
2006.
It was originally scheduled to include a
golf shot off the space station but this was postponed at least to
Expedition 14, because NASA is still evaluating the risks.
[1]
The spacewalk ran behind schedule, requiring an extra 50 minutes to be added to the length in order to complete the camera replacement. The EVA began 23:48 UTC and ended at 06:19 UTC, taking 6 hours and 31 minutes. Other tasks during the walk included repair of a vent for the station's oxygen-producing Elektron unit, and retrieval of experiment results.
External links
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Expedition 13
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NASA's Expedition 13 page
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Video from the ISS Expedition 13, taken by Thomas Reiter