NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Padalka Hands Station Command Over to Williams

Gennady Padalka ceremonially hands control of the International Space Station to Suni Williams. Credit: NASA TV

Expedition 32 Commander Gennady Padalka ceremonially handed over control of the International Space Station to Expedition 33 Commander Suni Williams. The duo was in the Destiny laboratory with their four crewmates Saturday afternoon for the traditional Change-of-Command Ceremony.

Padalka will leave the station at 7:09 p.m. EDT Sunday with Flight Engineers Joe Acaba and Sergei Revin. When the homebound trio undocks from the Poisk module aboard the Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft Expedition 33 will officially begin. Their landing in Kazakhstan is scheduled for 10:53 p.m. (8:53 a.m. Monday Kazakhstan time).

Williams will stay behind with Flight Engineers Aki Hoshide and Yuri Malenchenko to live and work aboard the orbital laboratory until Nov. 12. They will greet three new crew members in October when Flight Engineers Kevin Ford, Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin arrive aboard the Soyuz TMA-06M vehicle completing the six-member Expedition 33 crew.

Padalka previously commanded two International Space Station missions including Expeditions 9 and 19. His first spaceflight was aboard the Russian Mir space station in 1998 bringing his total spaceflight experience to 711 days.

Williams is serving her second mission in space her first being Expedition 14 as flight engineer. She has conducted six spacewalks, four during Expedition 14 and two on Expedition 32, for a total of 44 hours and two minutes.

› Read more about Expedition 32
› Expedition 32 Mission Summary (4.7 MB PDF)