ISS, March 29. /TASS/: NASA’s astronaut Thomas Mashburn has temporarily taken over command of the International Space Station. A Russian cosmonaut will assume the commander’s powers in April, a TASS special correspondent, cosmonaut Oleg Artemiev reports.
Russian crewmember Anton Shkaplerov handed a symbolic key to the ISS to Mashburn in a special ceremony.
"Tom, I know you well, you are a professional and you will be a professional ISS commander," Shkaplerov said.
Mashburn wished the crewmembers of the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft a soft landing. Before returning to Earth at the end of April Mashburn will pass the key to Oleg Artemiev, who on Tuesday assumed the responsibility for the Russian segment.
The current ISS occupants are Roscosmos’s Anton Shkaplerov, Pyotr Dubrov, Oleg Artemiev, Denis Matveyev and Sergey Korsakov, NASA’s Mark Vande Hei, Raja Chari, Thomas Mashburn and Kayla Barron and the European Space Agency’s Matthias Maurer.
At 10:19 Moscow time on March 30 the Soyuz MS-19 capsule will separate from the Rassvet module of the Russian segment of the ISS. It will take back to Earth Roscosmos’s Shkaplerov and Dubrov and NASA’s Vande Hei. The landing is due at 14:29 Moscow time southeast of Jezkazgan, Kazakhstan.
