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The Expedition 17 crew members are busy with science and preparations for the arrival of future spacecraft at the International Space Station.

Commander Sergei Volkov spent Thursday morning photographing the docking cone on the Zarya module in preparation for the Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft relocation May 6.

Flight Engineer Garrett Reisman continued working with Coarsening in Solid Liquid Mixtures-2, an experiment which examines the kinetics of competitive particle growth within a liquid metal matrix.

Early Friday, the Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle's main engines will fire for 12 minutes, 15 seconds to complete the two-part reboost of the station. Ignition is scheduled for 12:22 a.m. EDT.

This will place the orbiting complex at the correct altitude for docking of the Progress 29 resupply ship on May 16, two days after its launch. The reboost will also place station in the proper configuration for the arrival of space shuttle Discovery on the STS-124 mission, to launch May 31.

The Expedition 16 crew members are in Star City, Russia, for debriefs and rehabilitation. Astronaut Peggy Whitson and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko landed in the steppes of Kazakhstan on April 19 after 192 days in space.

The Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, and Energia representatives have established a commission to investigate the cause of Expedition 16's ballistic re-entry. This was the second consecutive ballistic re-entry for a Soyuz spacecraft and the third Soyuz ballistic re-entry in the history of the International Space Station.

Source http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html