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This is Mission Control Houston.

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This week has been a very busy
week for the Expedition 34 crew

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with a wide range of activities
being completed by the crew.

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One of the biggest activities

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of this week was being
the undocking and docking

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of the Progress spacecraft.

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That swap kicked off last
weekend with the undocking

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of the Progress 48
spacecraft, which undocked

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from the space station
last Saturday.

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With its successful
deorbit completed,

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the Progress 50 spacecraft
launched Monday

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at 8:41 AM central time
from the Baikonur Cosmodrome

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in Kazakhstan to send the
Progress on an accelerated 4-

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orbit six-hour rendezvous to
the International Space Station.

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That single day
launch-to-docking went

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by the book with the
cargo craft docking

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to the orbiting complex's
Pirs docking compartment

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on Monday afternoon,
bringing with it nearly 3 tons

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of supplies and equipment.

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The crew performed leak checks

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and opened the hatches
Tuesday morning,

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which kicked off the
extensive unpacking

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that has continued
throughout the week.

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Ultimately the crew will
transfer more than 1,700 pounds

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of propellant, a hundred
pounds of air and oxygen,

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900 pounds of water
and 3,000 pounds

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of supply items and equipment.

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While the cosmonauts
primarily led

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that unpacking effort their US
counterparts have spent a fair

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amount of time this week
with prepack activities

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for the next visiting
vehicle, the Dragon spacecraft.

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That vehicle is now planned to
visit the station in early March

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and the team is already making
preparations for that visit.

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Astronaut Tom Marshburn and
Chris Hadfield spent a lot

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of time gathering supplies and
equipment that will be loaded

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onto that vehicle which has
the added capability being able

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to return supplies and
equipment samples to Earth.

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In addition with Commander Kevin
Ford the three spent time this

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week performing refresher
training

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on the robotic arm operations,
performing numerous sessions

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of onboard computer-based
simulation and working

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with the ground robotic
specialist to coordinate

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and fine tune the procedures
for that upcoming spacecraft,

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which will need the
robotic arm to retrieve

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and dock it to the
space station.

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Other activities this week
included continued extensive

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work by Kevin Ford
on maintenance

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of the Internal Thermal Control
System, checkouts with Robonaut,

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the onboard humanoid
robot, and experiments.

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Maintenance work with the
Combustion Integration Rack

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experiment facility as well
as Water Processing Assembly

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and laptop swaps in the Columbus
module were also completed.

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Experiment work this
week was on a variety

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of experiments including the
Binary Colloidal Alloy [Test]

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study and InSPACE, a
study of the behavior

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of physical properties of fluids
in response to magnetic fields

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in space which may
ultimately lead to improvements

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in the ability to
design structures,

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such as buildings
and bridges on Earth.

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The International Space Station
is an official US national

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laboratory supporting
a wide range

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of active experiments
at any time.

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For a complete rundown of all
the experiments and facilities

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on the space station, you can
visit our webpage dedicated

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to the research

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on the International
Space Station website

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at www.nasa.gov/station
and click

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on the research tab
on the upper left.

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The crew's weekend will include
a few routine housekeeping tasks

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and family conferences but
otherwise off-duty time