Flight International online news 14:30GMT: Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev will today celebrate five years of continuous human presence on the international space station.
They are the 12th station crew. The first station crew, Commander Bill Shepherd, Flight Engineers Sergei Krikalev and Soyuz Commander Yuri Gidzenko, arrived at the complex on Nov. 2, 2000.
Originally the size of a small apartment, the station has grown to a volume larger than the average three-bedroom house, equipped with the most sophisticated laboratory ever to fly in space.
The station is functioning as a test bed for technologies, procedures and human endurance that will allow future, longer space journeys. McArthur and Tokarev sent an anniversary greeting this week to the prior station crews and to the thousands who support the station in 16 nations.
ROSS BENTLEY/LONDON
Source: Airline Business
