May 7, 2003

May 7, 2003: On April 28th this spaceship approached the International Space Station ... and docked. It's a Soyuz TMA-2--the best way to get to the ISS while NASA's shuttle fleet is grounded. Onboard were Yuri Malenchenko and Edward Lu, arriving to replace outgoing ISS crewmembers Ken Bowersox, Nikolai Budarin and Don Pettit. Malenchenko is the new commander of the space station. Lu is the new science officer. Together they'll keep the ISS going for the next 6 months.

Bowersox, Budarin and Pettit left the station on May 3rd in a nearly-identical Soyuz spacecraft. They landed on the flat steppes of Kazakhstan in central Asia on the same day--off-course but safe.