Launch from Baikonur; landing 68 km northeast
of Arkalyk.
ISS
Expedition 11;
"caretaker" crew. Following a two day solo flight the Soyuz docked to
ISS on
17.04.2005.
Krikalyov and
Phillips replaced the
expedition 10 crew.
Vittori performed scientific experiments as part of the
European ENEIDE program.
The crew performed routine maintenance,
repairing work (for example a faulty restraint cable on the exercise
treadmill), scientific research, as
FOOT-experiment
(Foot/Ground Reaction Forces During Spaceflight experiment) the Miscible Fluids
in Microgravity (
MFMG)
investigation and so on, practicing photography techniques with digital
cameras; this techniques were used to capture high resolution images of Space
Shuttle Discovery before docking on the station to control the heat shield of
the Shuttle.
On June 18, 2005 the unpiloted
ISS Progress
18 docked on the Station to deliver more than two tons of food, fuel, oxygen,
water, supplies and spare parts including repair efforts on the Elektron oxygen
generation system. The Elektron, one of multiple sources of oxygen available on
the Station, derives oxygen from water. The system had been inoperable for a
few months. As the Progress approached the Station, Commander Sergei
Krikalyov had to take over manual control of the docking of
the Progress due to a Russian ground station problem that prevented commands to
be uplinked to the cargo ship for its final approach for an automated docking.
On July 18, 2005 the crew relocated their Soyuz return spacecraft from
one docking port to another to free up a Russian airlock for a future
spacewalk.
On July 28, 2005 the Space Shuttle Discovery (
STS-114) docked on the Station after doing
a planned back flip so Station crewmembers could photograph its thermal
protection system, there were some damages. Undocking of
STS-114 was on 06.08.2005.
EVA by
Krikalyov and
Phillips on 18.08.2005 (4h 58m) to change out a Russian
biological experiment, retrieve some radiation sensors, remove a Japanese
materials science experiment, photograph a Russian materials experiment,
install a television camera and relocate a grapple fixture.
Vittori performed several scientific experiments during the
Eneide-mission.
