The international space station's three residents bade farewell to one set of houseguests Sunday and prepared for the arrival of more visitors, according to The Associated Press. The send-off of space shuttle Atlantis' six astronauts Sunday was the start of a week of heavy traffic at the space station, the equivalent of rush hour in space. A Russian Soyuz vehicle ferrying two new station crew members and the first female space tourist was set to launch overnight, followed by the departure of a Russian cargo ship from the station on Monday. The Soyuz was scheduled to arrive at the space station early Wednesday, and Atlantis was set to land at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida later that day. «As you need more air traffic controllers when the airport gets busier, that's the situation that we're facing,» U.S. astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria said from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, where he will blast off in the Soyuz early Monday. «I frankly think it's very exciting and I think it bodes well for our future.» Early Sunday, Atlantis pilot Chris Ferguson carefully eased Atlantis through a tight corridor away from the station. About 450 feet (135 meters) away, he fired jets to maneuver Atlantis around the space lab so the crew could take photos of the crew's handiwork _ a newly expanded station. The space station gleamed in the reflection of the sun. In three arduous spacewalks with the blue-green Earth as a backdrop, the Atlantis crew unpacked and installed a 17½-ton addition which contained a pair of solar wings that will ultimately generate a quarter of the space station's power. The wings were the first addition to the orbiting space lab since the 2003 Columbia disaster.
