The Marco Polo 'taxi' flight crew

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.