A little over three hours later, at 9:07 p.m., the Expedition 6 crew, Commander Ken Bowersox, Flight Engineer Nikolai Budarin and NASA ISS Science Officer Don Pettit, is scheduled to land in northern Kazakhstan. Their return will end a mission that began with their launch on Nov. 23 and their docking to the orbiting laboratory two days later. Weather for the landing area is predicted to be acceptable.

Expedition 7 Commander Yuri Malenchenko and Flight Engineer and NASA ISS Science Officer Ed Lu spent much of the week learning the ropes aboard their new home, where they are to remain for about the next six months. They also unpacked gear and equipment.

On Thursday, the station’s file server went down. The event was not a serious impediment to crew activities, though flight controllers and computer experts on the ground and the crew did spend time working to restore the server. The server was up and running again by Friday morning. As a result of the incident, the Expedition 7 crew got a quick review on how the server and the station computers function.

Bowersox and Lu did a handover session on Friday with the Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) in the U.S. laboratory Destiny. Both the CDRA and the Vozdukh carbon dioxide removal system in the Russian Zvezda Service Module are operating because of five crewmembers being on the station. On Thursday Budarin had temporarily shut down the Vozdukh to install new power cables. Normally only the Vozdukh or the CDRA is running.

On Friday the Expedition 7 crew got familiarization training with the Canadarm2, the station’s robotic arm. That and the CDRA activity were, in contrast to the rest of the week, among the few familiarization periods today. Much of the day was devoted to stowing materials on the station and packing Expedition 6 gear in their Soyuz.

Information on the crew's activities aboard the space station, 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://scipoc.msfc.nasa.gov/

The next International Space Station status report will be issued on Saturday, May 3, after the Expedition 6 crew lands.

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