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    ESA > Our Activities > Human Spaceflight > Astronauts

    Day 7: Starting preparations for return

    Gidzenko, Vittori and Shuttleworth on board the ISS
    The Marco Polo 'taxi' flight crew
    1 May 2002

    Roberto continued with his experiments and reported no malfunctions with impact to the performance.

    Preparations for the return flight are already taking part of his time. Roberto, as Flight Engineer of the Soyuz spacecraft, and Commander Yuri Gidzenko, have to ensure that the complete payload for the return is packed safely into the very limited space of the return capsule. All in all some 50 kg of payloads will be taken down with the returning Marco Polo crew, 15 kg of experiment results come from the Italian/ESA science programme.

    The ‘taxi’ crew will leave the Space Station on Saturday evening, landing in Kazakhstan early on Sunday morning.

    Because the ALTEINO neurological radiation experiments have gone smoothly during the last few days, the scientists decided to skip one of the two runs planned for tomorrow, 2 May. This gives Roberto more time to take care of his Soyuz duties.

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    • Mission reports
    • Days 9 & 10: Final preparations for return to Earth
    • Day 8: Nelson Mandela calls the Space Station
    • Day 7: Starting preparations for return
    • Day 6: Inflight call with Prodi
    • Day 5: Experiments continue
    • Day 4: First full day on the ISS
    • Day 3: Docking and ingress
    • Day 2: Chasing the ISS in orbit
    • Launch day: Thursday 25 April 2002
    • Pre-launch photo report
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      • video   Marco Polo mission videos

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