The basic crew has two on it-Russia's Salizhan Sharipov and the USA's LeRoy Ciao. They will stay at the station for 180 days. Yuri Shargin, to accompany them, will spend ten days at the ISS. He is a first-ever Russian Space Troops officer to appear at the station. He is coming back, October 24, with the 9th crew of Russian Gennadi Padalka and American astronaut Michael Finck, the informant said to RIA Novosti.
Experts demanded the Soyuz TMA 5 launch put off for technical reasons on two occasions-from October 9 to 11, and then to 14, says Vyacheslav Davidenko, official spokesman to Russia's Federal Space Agency.
The Soyuz is to automatically dock the ISS, October 16, says Valeri Lyndin, official spokesman to the Mission Control Centre.
As he added for RIA Novosti, spacecraft of Russian design and manufacture-Soyuz manned ships and Progress cargo-have been the only to get to the International Space Station since the USA suspended its Shuttle programme with the Columbia tragedy of February 1, 2003, when a blast killed its crew of seven.
