New space station crew poised for launch

By Tariq Malik

updated 2:11 p.m. ET April 7, 2008

Two rookie cosmonauts and South Korea's first spaceflyer are poised to ride a Russian rocket into orbit early Tuesday on a mission to the international space station.

The Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft carrying cosmonauts Sergei Volkov, Oleg Kononenko and South Korean engineer So-Yeon Yi is set to lift off atop a Russian booster at 7:16 a.m. ET from the Central Asian spaceport of Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The spaceflyers are due to dock at the station on Thursday during a 10-day crew change.

"Actually, we are ready for all the scheduled events of our flight," said Volkov, who is the first second-generation spaceflyer to launch and will command the station's Expedition 17 mission, in an interview.

Volkov and Kononenko, a flight engineer, plan to spend six months aboard the space station during their mission, which will feature the addition of a tour bus-sized Japanese laboratory and at least one spacewalk. The cosmonauts will relieve the station's current core crew — Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson of NASA and Russian flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko — and join their third crewmate, U.S. astronaut Garrett Reisman, who is already aboard the station.

Yi, South Korea's first astronaut, is flying a 10-day spaceflight under a commercial agreement between her country and Russia's Federal Space Agency. She will join Whitson and Malenchenko when they return to Earth on April 19.

Like father, like son
For Volkov, 35, rockets and space stations are all in the family. His father is Alexander Volkov, 59, a veteran cosmonaut who spent 391 days in space during three spaceflights, one to Russia's Salyut 7 station and two to the subsequent Mir Space Station, during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

"I think I'm (a) cosmonaut of another generation," Volkov said in a NASA interview. "For me, spaceflights were sort of a common thing."

It wasn't until attending summer camp in his youth, when those around him peppered him about his father — who was named a Hero of the Soviet Union and awarded the Order of Lenin — that he realized there might be more to life as a cosmonaut.

NASA Russian Federal Space Agency cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, right, Expedition 17 flight engineer, dons a test version of a U.S. spacesuit with the aid of cosmonaut commander Sergei Volkov.

Born in Chuguyev in the Kharkov region of Ukraine, the younger Volkov is married to wife Natalia and has a seven-year-old son. Unlike some other cosmonauts, he grew up in Star City — home of Russia's Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center — and served as a pilot and engineer in the Russian Air Force before qualifying as a test cosmonaut in 1999.

"To be a cosmonaut was my personal decision," Volkov said, adding that his father was unaware of the fact until he was told. Like his father, Volkov trained for long-duration spaceflights and was named Soyuz and Expedition 17 commander in 2006.

Volkov has since discussed his coming spaceflight with his father, who gave him tips for life in Earth orbit and on the finer points of spacewalking.

"For me personally, to be a second generation astronaut it's pretty hard and there's a lot of pressure," Volkov said, adding that he expects comparisons between his first spaceflight and his father's legacy. "My goal is to be at least as (good) as my father."

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