Expedition 6 was the sixth expedition to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...

(25 November 2002 - 3 May 2003). It was the last three-man crew to reside on the station until the arrival of

STS-121 STS-121 was a 2006 NASA Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by . The main purposes of the mission were to test new safety and repair techniques introduced following the ''Columbia'' disaster of February 2003 as w ...

. The crew performed two spacewalks in support of maintenance and assembly of the

Crew

Mission parameters

Perigee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any ellip ...

: 384 km *

Apogee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any ellip ...

: 396 km *

Inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a Plane of reference, reference plane and the orbital plane or Axis of rotation, axis of direction of the orbiting object ...

: 51.6° *

Period Period may refer to: Common uses * Era, a length or span of time * Full stop (or period), a punctuation mark Arts, entertainment, and media * Period (music), a concept in musical composition * Periodic sentence (or rhetorical period), a concept ...

: 92 min

Mission objectives

The Station's sixth crew was launched to the Station aboard Space Shuttle ''Endeavour''

STS-113 STS-113 was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by Space Shuttle '' Endeavour''. During the 14-day mission in late 2002, ''Endeavour'' and its crew extended the ISS backbone with the P1 truss and exchanged the ...

in November 2002. The mission was planned to be a four-month mission that was to end in March 2003 when ''Atlantis'' STS-114 was to fly to the Station with the

Expedition 7 Expedition 7 was the seventh expedition to the International Space Station. Crew Planned crew before ''Columbia'' disaster Mission parameters *Perigee: 384 km *Apogee: 396 km *Inclination: 51.6° *Period: 92 min Mission objec ...

crew. The ''Columbia'' disaster, which occurred during the mission on 1 February 2003 and resulted in the indefinite suspension of Shuttle flights, led to a change of plan such that the crew stayed on the station until May 2003. They returned to Earth on

Soyuz TMA-1 Soyuz TMA-1, also catalogued as Soyuz TM-35, was a 2002 Soyuz mission to the International Space Station (ISS) launched by a Soyuz FG launch vehicle with a Russian-Belgian cosmonaut crew blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Thi ...

, and a reduced

crew with just two members was delivered to the ISS on

Soyuz TMA-2 Soyuz TMA-2 was a Soyuz (Russian Союз ТМА-2, ''Union TMA-2'') mission to the International Space Station (ISS) launched by a Soyuz FG launch vehicle. The spacecraft docked with the ISS on April 28, 2003 and undocked on October 10, 2003. ...

. The Space Shuttle was expected to be grounded for up to two years. Ongoing logistical support for the ISS would have to be carried out by Soyuz and Progress flights until the Space Shuttle returned to flight. The sixth crew of the International Space Station returned to Earth just after 10 p.m. EDT on 3 May 2003, the first time U.S. astronauts landed in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, though a U.S.

space tourist Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. During the period from 2001 to 2009, seven space tourists made eight s ...

Dennis Tito Dennis Anthony Tito (born August 8, 1940) is an American engineer and entrepreneur. In mid-2001, he became the first space tourist to fund his own trip into space, when he spent nearly eight days in orbit as a crew member of ISS EP-1, a visitin ...

, had done so in 2001. Russian Mission Control reported at approximately 2:45 a.m. on 4 May that the support helicopters had reached the crew and all three astronauts were in good health. The capsule touched down approximately 276 miles (444 km) from its planned landing zone. Originally scheduled to fly on the Expedition 6 Crew in place of Don Pettit was Donald A. Thomas.

Spacewalks

The Expedition Six crew conducted two spacewalks during its stay at the International Space Station. Both were based out of the Quest Airlock, and the spacewalkers used U.S. spacesuits, which are called Extravehicular Mobility Units, or EMUs. The crew was originally scheduled to conduct only one spacewalk, but a second was added to the manifest for 8 April in order to prepare for future assembly missions. The two Expedition Six extravehicular activities bring the total number of spacewalks conducted in support of ISS assembly and maintenance to 51. Of those 51 EVA's, Twenty-six have been based out of the station, with 17 staged from Quest. Bowersox and Pettit accumulated 13 hours and 17 minutes of spacewalking time at the station.

Cultural references

Expedition 6 is the subject of the book ''Too Far From Home: A Story of Life and Death in Space'', by Chris Jones. A dramatised account of Expedition 6 is told in ''Expedition 6'', a play by actor/playwright

Bill Pullman William Pullman (born December 17, 1953) is an American actor. After graduating with a Master of Fine Arts degree in theater, he was an adjunct professor at Montana State University before deciding to pursue acting. He made his film debut in ''R ...

. The play was scheduled to run at San Francisco's Magic Theater through 7 October 2007.''Bill Pullman's theatrical space odyssey''
www.collectspace.com, 20 September 2007

References

External links

{{Use British English, date=August 2010 Expedition 06 2002 in spaceflight 2003 in spaceflight