Expedition 8 was the eighth expedition to the

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

Crew

Planned crew before ''Columbia'' disaster

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 el ...

: 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 el ...

: 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 reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Ea ...

: 51.6° * Period: 92 min *Docked: 20 October 2003 - 07:15:58 UTC *Undocked: 29 April 2004 - 20:52:09 UTC *Time Docked: 192 days, 13 h, 36 min, 11 s

Mission objectives

Expedition 8 Commander and NASA Station Science Officer Michael Foale, Flight Engineer Alexander Kaleri and ESA Astronaut Pedro Duque docked the Soyuz TMA-3 with the International Space Station at 07:15:58 UTC on 20 October 2003. At the time of docking, both spacecraft orbited the Earth above Russia. Once the Expedition 7 crew undocked, Foale and Kaleri settled down to work, beginning a more than six-month stint focused on Station operations and maintenance. The new station crew, along with Duque, launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 05:38:03 UTC, on 18 October 2003. Foale and Kaleri departed the station for earth aboard the Soyuz TMA-3 spacecraft on 29 April 2004 along with ESA Astronaut

André Kuipers André Kuipers (; born 5 October 1958) is a Dutch physician and ESA astronaut. He became the second Dutch citizen, third Dutch-born and fifth Dutch-speaking astronaut upon launch of Soyuz TMA-4 on 19 April 2004. Kuipers returned to Earth a ...

, who had arrived with the Expedition 9 crew aboard Soyuz TMA-4 nine days earlier.

Spacewalks

The Expedition 8 crew conducted the first two-person

spacewalk Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut in outer space outside a spacecraft. In the absence of a breathable Earthlike atmosphere, the astronaut is completely reliant on a space suit for environmental support. EVA in ...

at the International Space Station. Unlike previous spacewalks conducted by ISS crews, there was not a crewmember inside the Station as the spacewalkers worked outside. The spacewalk was based out of the Pirs docking compartment; the spacewalkers wore Russian Orlan space suits. This was the 52nd spacewalk devoted to Space Station assembly, operations and maintenance, bringing the cumulative total to 322 hours and 32 minutes. It was the 27th based out of the Station, bringing the total to 155 hours and 17 minutes.

Images

References

External links

Expedition 8 Photography
{{Use British English, date=August 2010 Expedition 08 2003 in spaceflight 2004 in spaceflight