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[b]Soyuz TMA-09M moved to set stage for next crew[/b] Three International Space Station crew members took their Soyuz for a spin around the block on Friday (Nov. 1) as they prepare for a busy final week for Expedition 37. Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineers Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano undocked their Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft from the Rassvet module on the Earth-facing side of the station at 3:33 a.m. CDT (0833 GMT). After backing the vehicle a safe distance away, Yurchikhin rotated the Soyuz and began the flyaround to the rear of the station. Carefully aligning the spacecraft with the docking port on the aft end of the Zvezda service module, which was vacated by the European Space Agency's fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle on Monday, Yurchikhin guided the spacecraft in for its docking at 3:54 a.m. CDT. Coincidentally, Yurchikhin was also at the helm for the last Soyuz relocation at the station in June 2010 when he piloted the Expedition 24 crew's Soyuz TMA-19 vehicle from Zvezda to the then newly installed Rassvet module. Friday's Soyuz move sets the stage for the launch and arrival of a trio of new station crew members — NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata and Roscosmos cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin – who will dock their Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft to Rassvet on Nov. 7 about six hours after their launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
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