Five astronaut-hams now occupy the International Space Station and one of them – ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter (DF4TR) – has officially joined the Expedition 13 crew for the remainder of its duty tour and will remain on board for about half of Expedition 14's tour, or six months in all, according to NASA.
His arrival marks the first time since May 2003 that the ISS has had a three-member crew. Reiter and two other astronauts who also are hams – mission specialists Stephanie Wilson (KD5DZE) and Lisa Nowak (KC5ZTB) – arrived July 6 aboard space shuttle Discovery.
There to greet the newcomers when they came aboard the station were Expedition 13's commander Pavel Vinogradov (RV3BS), and flight engineer and NASA science officer Jeffrey Williams (KD5TVQ).
The shuttle and ISS crews will spend the next week conducting joint operations, including two spacewalks and the transfer of cargo to the orbiting outpost.
Later this year, NASA astronauts Michael Lopez-Alegria (KE5GTK) and Sunita Williams (KD5PLB), and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin (RZ3FT), have been named as the 14th ISS crew, marking the first time the entire station crew will be manned by amateur radio operators.
The remaining STS-121 crew includes commander Steven Lindsey, pilot Mark Kelly and mission specialists Michael Fossum and Piers Sellers, who performed the first of three scheduled spacewalks on July 7.
NASA is pinning its hopes on a successful Discovery mission, since the space shuttle is the only vehicle capable of transporting the components remaining to complete the ISS, including the ESA's Columbus module, which has been outfitted to accommodate amateur radio.
