TORONTO – The International Space Station (ISS) is expecting an unusual arrival: the Olympic torch.
On Friday, Expedition 37 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineers Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano will head into their Soyuz spacecraft and move it to another docking location in order to prepare for the arrival of three more new crewmates, NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata and Soyuz commander Mikhail Tyurin of the Russian Federal Space Agency.
The new crew – part of Expedition 38 – is scheduled to arrive on Nov. 7. It will join Yurchikhin, Nyberg, Parmitano as well as flight engineers Oleg Kotov, Sergey Ryazanskiy, and Mike Hopkins.
Among the cargo the crew will bring is the Olympic torch (unlit, of course), which will be the longest leg of its relay for the 2014 Winter Olympics to be held in Sochi, Russia.
Kotov and Ryazanskiy will bring the torch outside of the station during a symbolic spacewalk on Nov. 9.
The arrival of the new crew will mark the first time since May 2009 that there has been a crew of nine aboard the ISS without a space shuttle docked.
On Nov. 10, the torch will head back to Earth when Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano head back to Earth after spending more than five months in space.
The torch will be used to light the Olympic flame at the Fischt Stadium in Russia in February.
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