Space Station (ISS) Status 11/18/05

Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery
Tokarev took a short ride around the International Space Station
today, flying their Soyuz spacecraft from one docking port to
another.

The crew left the station unoccupied for approximately 30 minutes, as
they relocated the Soyuz. Tokarev undocked the spacecraft at 3:46
a.m. EST, while the station orbited 225 miles above the Atlantic, and
docked to the nearby Zarya module at 4:05 a.m. EST.

The Soyuz move freed the Pirs Docking Compartment airlock for an
upcoming spacewalk. The Soyuz is the crew's ride home at the end of
their six-month stay on the station. It also serves as a lifeboat.

The crew must finish unpacking the Progress cargo spacecraft docked to
the complex, prepare it for undocking and get ready for the Dec. 23
arrival of the next supply ship. McArthur spent several hours
photographing samples of colloids that had been undisturbed in the
station's microgravity environment for more than a year. The work is
part of an experiment called the Binary Colloidal Alloy Test. The
behavior of these supercritical fluids is important because they
combine the properties of liquids and gases. A better understanding
of their reaction in the weightless environment of space could help
in the development of new drugs, cleaner power and interplanetary
transportation.