Russian, Two Americans on Space Station Grieving

Expedition Six, as the three-person crew on the international space station is called, arrived by shuttle in November and is scheduled to stay until March. There are enough supplies aboard to last until June, shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore said.

In addition, Russia launched a previously scheduled supply vessel Sunday with a load of scientific equipment, fuel, food and mail for the crew. It is scheduled to arrive Tuesday.

The Expedition Six crew:

* Ken Bowersox, NASA astronaut, a former naval aviator and test pilot who has flown in space five times, including on Columbia.

* Don Pettit, NASA astronaut, a chemical engineer who is in space for the first time. He was playing a chess match via e-mail with Columbia pilot William C. McCool.

* Nikolai Budarin, the Russian Soyuz commander.

In an interview published by NASA before he left for the space station, Bowersox was asked to identify the crew’s primary mission. “The No. 1 goal,” he said, “is to come back alive, for it to be a safe flight.”

The crew is doing maintenance work on the partially constructed, 2-year-old station and running experiments.

Columbia did not rendezvous with the space station, but the crews were in contact by e-mail. They also spoke by radio on Jan. 28, the anniversary of the Challenger explosion that killed seven astronauts 17 years ago.

Bob Cabana, NASA’s director of flight crew operations, said he told the space station astronauts about Columbia’s accident about 24 hours after the shuttle disintegrated 39 miles above Texas.

“Mostly it was just sharing. I shared with them,” Cabana said. “They’re grieving up there also. And they feel a little isolated. We’re keeping them fully informed.”