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Space station crew prepares to relocate Russian spacecraft

RIA Novosti

16:41 25/06/2010 MOSCOW, June 25 (RIA Novosti) - The crew of the International Space Station (ISS) will move on Monday a Russian spacecraft docked with the Zvezda module to the Rassvet research module, a Russian Mission Control official said.

The Soyuz TMA-19 will undock from the Zvezda module at 21.55 Moscow time [17.55 GMT] and dock with the Rassvet (MIM-1) module after a 28-minute maneuver.

"The [TMA-19] crew, comprising Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and U.S. astronauts Douglas Wheelock and Shannon Walker, is carrying out a three-hour training session today in preparation for the maneuver," the official said.

The Russian cosmonaut and American astronauts joined other members of the ISS crew - Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Korniyenko, and U.S. astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson - on June 18 when the Soyuz TMA-19 docked with the orbital station.

The Soyuz-TMA is the most recent model in the famed Soyuz spacecraft family.

The TMA, or "anthropometric," model was designed under the U.S.-Russian joint program on the ISS.

NASA paid $50 million to the Russian Energia Corporation to make the upgrades, mostly aimed at allowing taller crewmembers to fly the Soyuz and increasing docking procedure safety.

The first Soyuz-TMA spacecraft flew to the ISS in 2002.