MOSCOW, March 24 (UPI) -- The next crew of the International Space Station started a pre-flight examination session Thursday, Russian space authorities said.
NASA astronaut John Phillips, Russian Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and the European Space Agency's Roberto Vittori are planning to take off from the Baykonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan April 15, according to Roskosmos, the Russian space agency.
Krikalev, 46, and Phillips, 53, will spend six months on the station, replacing NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao and Russian cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov. Vittori is to return a week later.
The new crew will help monitor the safety of the first U.S. space shuttle scheduled to rendezvous in May after more than a two-year hiatus following the loss of shuttle Columbia and its seven astronauts on Feb. 1, 2003.
"Additional work awaits us in the mission related to the coming of two shuttles, including photography of maneuvers of Discovery that will make an experimental flight in May or June," Krikalev said.
Krikalev and Phillips will carefully photograph with two long-range cameras a somersault maneuver Discovery will perform as it approaches the ISS to see if the surface of the craft was damaged.
