Vice President Dick Cheney offered his congratulations to the
International Space Station Expedition Six crew just hours after the
three crewmembers safely landed Saturday night in Kazakhstan.
The Vice President spoke by telephone with Expedition Six
Commander Kenneth Bowersox, and he offered his appreciation for
the crew’s dedication and willingness to extend their mission in the
wake of the Space Shuttle Columbia mishap.
Bowersox, NASA Space Station Science Officer Donald Pettit, and
Russian Flight Engineer Nikolay Budarin are doing well and have
been reunited with their families in the Russian cosmonaut-training
center, Star City, near Moscow.
The Expedition Six crew spent about five-and-a-half months in orbit
onboard the International Space Station. Originally slated to return to
Earth in March on a NASA Space Shuttle, the crew used a Soyuz
TMA spacecraft instead. Russian spacecraft will be used to re-supply
the Station and for Expedition crew exchange until the NASA Space
Shuttle fleet returns to flight status. Although the crew landed safely,
the Soyuz spacecraft landed almost 300 miles short of the intended
touchdown area. A joint NASA-Russia investigation team begins work
this week to determine the cause of the landing error.
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