Crew of 7th Expedition to ISS Pass Their Final Pre-flight Exam

The crew of Expedition Seven to the International Space Station, Russian Yuri Malenchenko and American Edward Lu, as well as their backups Alexander Kaleri /Russia/ and Michael Foale /the USA/, on Wednesday successfully passed their final test that checked their readiness for the flight, the Star City reported.

The cosmonauts drew examination papers with concrete tasks and demonstrated their actions to the committee of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre.

Thus, Malenchenko and Lu had to conduct a medical-biological experiment on inter-cell interaction of tissues of biological objects. The experiment is listed under No.1 in the programme of their scientific work on the station. On the whole, the Russian programme of Expedition Seven includes 13 scientific research experiments.

Apart from this, the astronauts demonstrated their abilities to service the piloted craft and the station, such as temperature control and orientation. The test was conducted on the space station's modules and on the model of the Soyuz TMA-2 spacecraft, which will take them to the station on April 26th. The main crew and the backups will leave for the Baikonur space launch site on April 20th.