Flávio Dieguez*
Special Report

Baikonur (Kazakhstan) - The 13th manned mission to the International Space Station (Estação Espacial Internacional) (ISS) is scheduled for liftoff at 11:30 pm tonight (Brazilian time), with Brazil's first astronaut, Marcos Pontes, aboard. Pontes has been in astronaut training for eight years preparing for this mission which is to last eight days. He will conduct a number of experiments aboard the ISS, most of them taking advantage of the lack of gravity, in order to study its effects on enzymes, proteins, DNA and various types of seeds.

Besides Marcos Pontes, astronauts Jeffrey Williams (American) and Pavel Vinogradov (Russia) will be making the trip aboard a Soyuz spacecraft that will be launched from the Yuri Gagarin platform (Gagarin was the world's first astronaut, going into space in 1961) at the Russian rocket center in Baikonur.

Brazilians are calling the Pontes flight "The Centenary Mission," honoring the 100 years since Brazilian aviation pioneer Alberto Santos Dumont made the world's first public flights (in 1906).

Translation: Allen Bennett