New space station crew will bid farewell to shuttle

Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and US astronauts Douglas Wheelock and Shannon Walker are due to blast off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on June 16 and spend half a year aboard the orbiting station.

"Of course, one would like the shuttle programme to continue," Mr Yurchikhin told reporters at the Star City cosmonaut training centre near Moscow.

"But if the programme is going to end, at least we'll get to see the last shuttle to dock with the station," he said, seated alongside his two US crewmates at a pre-departure press conference.

Nasa's iconic space shuttle has only two more scheduled missions before its retirement: a flight by Discovery in September and a flight by Endeavour in November, with both set to dock with the ISS.

Astronauts Yurchikhin, Wheelock and Warner will reach the space station by a Russian Soyuz rocket, which unlike the shuttle cannot repeat missions.

Their expedition to the space station is also notable because one crew member, Mr Walker, is married to an astronaut who will be cheering on his wife as she launches into space for the first time.

Her husband, Australian-born Nasa astronaut Andy Thomas, said he wished he could join her in space.