Commander Michael López-Alegría, and flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on 18 September 2006, 04:09 UTC, aboard Soyuz TMA-9.

They joined Thomas Reiter, who had arrived at the ISS on 6 July 2006 aboard Space Shuttle Discovery during mission STS-121.

As they watched Atlantis create a glowing contrail during its plunge into the atmosphere, López-Alegría and Williams provided commentary of the re-entry to the Mission Control Center in Houston.

Inspection of a Kurs antenna on the Progress 23 unpiloted cargo carrier that docked at the aft end of the station's Zvezda Service Module on 26 October 2006 was the next task.

Final latching of the spacecraft to the station during the docking procedure was delayed by more than three hours because Mission Control Moscow was not sure the antenna was completely retracted.

Next they relocated a WAL antenna, which was later used to guide the unpiloted European cargo carrier, the Automated Transfer Vehicle, when it docked with the station.

Two thermal covers from the BTN were jettisoned before the spacewalkers returned to the Pirs airlock at 00:55 EST (04:55 UTC) on the morning of 23 November, bringing the 5-hour, 38-minute EVA to a close .

A final scheduled task, an inspection of bolts on one of two Strela hand-operated cranes on the docking compartment, was postponed to a future EVA.

This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.