WASHINGTON — NASA Television will provide live coverage March 13-15 as three crew members aboard the International Space Station end almost five months at the orbiting laboratory.
Expedition 34 Commander Kevin Ford of NASA, Russian Soyuz Commander Oleg Novitskiy and Russian Flight Engineer Evgeny Tarelkin will undock their Soyuz spacecraft from the station at 8:30 p.m. EDT, March 14, heading for a landing in Kazakhstan northeast of the remote town of Arkalyk at 11:57 p.m. (10:57 a.m. Kazakh time March 15). They will have spent 143 days in space since launching from Kazakhstan Oct. 23.
When the Soyuz undocks, Expedition 35 will begin aboard the station under the command of Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency. Hadfield will be the first Canadian commander. He and his crewmates, NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, will tend to the station for two weeks until the arrival of three new crew members: NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin.
NASA TV coverage will begin Wednesday, March 13, with a change of command ceremony in which Ford will hand station command to Hadfield. Coverage will continue March 14 and 15 with Expedition 34 landing and post-landing activities. The coverage includes:
Wednesday, March 13:
5:10 p.m. — Expedition 34/35 change of command ceremony
Thursday, March 14:
4:45 p.m. — Farewells and hatch closure (hatch closure scheduled at
5:15 p.m.)
8:15 p.m. — Undocking (undocking scheduled at 8:30 p.m.)
10:45 p.m. — Deorbit burn and landing (deorbit burn scheduled at
11:04 p.m.; landing scheduled at 11:57 p.m.)
Friday, March 15:
2 a.m. — Video File of hatch closure, undocking and landing activities 2 p.m. — Video File of post-landing activities and interviews
For NASA TV schedule and video streaming information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv
For information on the International Space Station and its crew members, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station
