Space station getting Russian compartment

Alpha crew members: Commander Frank Culbertson, center, cosmonauts Mikhail Tyurin, left and Vladimir Dezhurov

(CNN) - Space station Alpha is about to grow again.

A new Russian station component, a docking port, was scheduled for launch Friday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, with arrival at Alpha on Sunday.

The Russian docking port is called Pirs, the Russian word for pier.

Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin continue to work on science experiments in the orbiting laboratory. But even at 240 statute miles above the planet, the crew has been affected by the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

This still image, taken from the international space station on Tuesday, shows a smoke plume rising from the Manhattan area of New York City.

Early Wednesday morning, the crew sent down video taken Tuesday of the smoke plume rising from the World Trade Center area.

Commander Culbertson extended his condolences to the victims.

"Our prayers and thoughts go out to all the people there, and everywhere else. Here I am looking up and down the East Coast to see if I can see anything else, and to the people in Washington," Culbertson said.

The crew, the third for Alpha, is in its fifth week of a four-month stay aboard the space station.