Everyone's been in a situation when some cars have to be moved or parking space cleared before the arrival of visitors. When that sort of situation occurs on the International Space Station, the procedure is naturally a little more complicated.
On Friday, the ISS Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano successfully moved their Soyuz vehicle from one docking area of the ISS to another at the rear of the station. The first move of its type since 2010 (which Yurchikhin also took part in), the relocation was to make way for the arrival of ISS Expedition 38 / 39 crew members Rick Mastracchio (NASA), Koichi Wakata (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin (Russian Federal Space Agency).
The new crew are due to arrive at ISS on the 7th November, resulting in a brief overlap between Expeditions that will see 9 different astronauts on board the ISS. Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano, however, will depart on November 10th, after a five month stay in space.
Check out the Soyuz relocation effort in the NASA video below:
