ISS Expedition 6

Mission Profile

Overview

Expedition 6 became the crew that lived through one of spaceflight's darkest chapters. Commander Ken Bowersox, flight engineer Nikolai Budarin and NASA science officer Don Pettit arrived aboard Endeavour on STS-113, expecting a routine handover home by shuttle in spring 2003. Then, on 1 February 2003, Columbia broke apart on re-entry, killing seven astronauts and grounding the shuttle fleet indefinitely. Stranded by circumstance, the three men kept the station alive, conducted research and performed two spacewalks while mission planners improvised. With no shuttle to bring them down, they returned in the Soyuz TMA-1 lifeboat on 4 May 2003 — the first time American astronauts landed in a Russian Soyuz. A ballistic re-entry carried them far off course, and rescuers reached the capsule hours later. For Pettit, the celebrated 'Mr. Wizard' of orbit, it was the first of a remarkable career aloft.

Crew

Key Milestones

1. 2002-11-24

   Endeavour launches on STS-113, delivering the Expedition 6 crew to the ISS

2. 2003-01-15

   Pettit and Bowersox complete the second of two Expedition 6 spacewalks

3. 2003-02-01

   Columbia disaster grounds the Space Shuttle fleet, stranding the crew aboard the station

4. 2003-05-04

   Crew returns aboard Soyuz TMA-1 — first U.S. astronauts to land in a Soyuz, after a ballistic re-entry

Key Achievements

• First U.S. astronauts to land in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft

• Kept the ISS crewed through the grounding of the shuttle fleet after the Columbia disaster

• Don Pettit's first spaceflight, conducting two spacewalks

Related Missions

Sources

1. Wikipedia: Expedition 6
2. Wikipedia: STS-113
3. ESA: A hard but safe landing