Expedition 13 (2006), the 13th expedition to the International Space Station (ISS), launched at 02:30 UTC on March 30, 2006. The Expedition used the Soyuz TMA-8 spacecraft, which will stay during the entirety of the expedition for emergency evacuation.
Astronaut Marcos Pontes launched together with Expedition 13 on the Soyuz TMA-8 spacecraft and became the first Brazilian in space. He returned with Expedition 12 on Soyuz TMA-7 after a nine-day mission.
Thomas Reiter, from the European Space Agency, became part of the Expedition 13 crew in July 2006. Reiter was launched with the second Return to Flight mission on Discovery (STS-121) on July 4, 2006. Reiter became the first European long-duration crew member on the International Space Station when he officially joined the crew of the ISS at 1413 CST on July 6, 2006 upon the complete installation of his Soyuz spacecraft seat liner, allowing him to return to Earth aboard the docked Soyuz craft.
His arrival restored the station crew to three members for the first time since May 2003. Crew size was reduced to two and shuttle flights were put on hold after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster of February 1, 2003.
Crew
(#) number of spaceflights each crew member has completed, including this mission
Back-up Crew
Original Expedition 13 Patch before the addition of Thomas Reiter
Mission parameters
Mission objectives
Spacewalks
EVA 1
The first spacewalk for Expedition 13 occurred on June 1, 2006.
It was originally scheduled to include a golf shot off the space station but this was postponed at least to Expedition 14, because NASA is still evaluating the risks. [1]
The spacewalk ran behind schedule, requiring an extra 50 minutes to be added to the length in order to complete the camera replacement. The EVA began at 23:48 UTC and ended at 06:19 UTC, taking 6 hours and 31 minutes. Other tasks during the walk included repair of a vent for the station's oxygen-producing Elektron unit and retrieval of experiment results.
EVA 2
The second spacewalk for Expedition 13 ocorred on August 3, 2006. This EVA was performed by astronauts Jeffrey Williams and Thomas Reiter, it began at 14:04 UTC and ended at 19:58 UTC, taking 5 hours and 54 minutes.
During this EVA the astronauts installed the Floating Potential Measurement Unit (FPMU), installed two Materials on International Space Station Experiment containers, installed a controller for a thermal radiator rotary joint, replaced a computer and installed a starboard jumper and spool positioning device (SPD), inspected a radiator beam valve module and installed another, installed a port jumper and SPD, tested an infrared camera, installed a light on the truss railway handcart, replaced a malfunctioning GPS antenna, installed a vacuum system valve, moved two articuled portable foot restraints, photographed a scratch on the airlock hatch and retrieved a ball stack for inspection from PMA-1.
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