By DIRECT2TheMoon on 27 May 2009 at 10:41AM
Liftoff! Riding aboard Soyuz TMA-15 atop a Soyuz-FG rocket, three space voyagers will join the three crewmembers of Expedition 19 already in orbit, to become Expedition 20, the first six-person crew of the ISS. Launch occurred at 6:34AM EDT. Docking is scheduled for Friday at around 8:36AM. NASA reports:
Image above: The Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft carrying three additional crew members to the International Space Station lifts off from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Credit: NASA TV
Flight Engineers Roman Romanenko, Frank De Winne and Robert Thirsk of the 20th International Space Station crew launched in their Soyuz TMA-15 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 6:34 a.m. EDT Wednesday to begin a six-month stay in space.
Expedition 20 will mark the start of six-person crew operations aboard the International Space Station. All five of the international partner agencies – NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) – will be represented on orbit for the first time.
› Read more about the launch
› Read more about Expedition 19
› View crew timelines
Expedition 20 pics are up at the JSC Gallery and Energia. Video clips at NASA and Space Multimedia. Discussion at Nasaspaceflight. News resources at NASA, ESA, and CSA. Check the links at right for play-by-play and NASA TV.
By TonyF on 28 March 2009 at 2:22PM
Discovery has fired her OMS engines, and the seven astronauts are headed back to Florida! NASA reports:
Image: Long range landing ground tracks for Discovery's return to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA
› STS-119 Landing Ground Tracks
Mission Control has confirmed space shuttle Discovery's successful deorbit burn. The burn lasted from three to four minutes, slowing Discovery enough to begin its descent.
Touchdown on runway 15 at Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility will be at 3:14 p.m. EDT. Meanwhile, the landing crews are ramping up into high-gear for Discovery's arrival.
Live landing coverage is available on NASA TV and NASA's Launch Blog.
There will be a post-landing news conference at no earlier than 2 hours after landing and a crew post-landing news conference, at no earlier than 5 1/2 hours after landing. Both events will be broadcast on NASA TV.
Landing Day Timeline - All times listed in EDT
2:08:44 p.m. Deorbit burn duration 3 minutes, 1 second - slows shuttle's speed to
231 mph
2:11:45 p.m. Deorbit burn complete
2:42:21 p.m. Entry interface - distance to Kennedy Space Center, 5,023 miles
2:47:21 p.m. First roll command to right
2:56:36 p.m. First right-to-left roll reversal
3:03 p.m. C-band radar acquisition
3:07:24 p.m. Velocity less than mach 2.5
3:09:37 p.m.Velocity less than mach 1
3:10:23 p.m.Shuttle banks to line up on runway 15
3:13:59 p.m. Landing - 202 orbits / Mission Elapsed Time: 12 days, 19 hours, 30 minutes, 15 seconds
Follow the homecoming at the NASA landing blog and at SpaceVidcast. Look for landing pics and video at KSC. Discussion here. Check the links at right for play-by-play and NASA TV.
By TonyF on 28 March 2009 at 11:38AM
High winds at KSC have caused mission managers to wave off the first landing attempt, and go around for one more orbit. NASA reports:
› STS-119 Landing Ground Tracks
Mission Control Center in Houston has waved-off the first landing opportunity at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The next Kennedy landing opportunity is at 3:13 p.m. EDT, with a deorbit burn of 2:08 p.m. EDT.
Live landing coverage available on NASA TV and NASA's Launch Blog.
Check the links at right for play-by-play and NASA TV.
Live coverage at NASA landing blog and SpaceVidcast. Flight Day 13 pics and video are up at the JSC Gallery. Discussion here. Status Report #26 here. Look for landing pics and video at KSC. Discussion here. Check the links at right for play-by-play and NASA TV.
By TonyF on 11 March 2009 at 10:19PM
Mission managers have further delayed the next launch date for Shuttle Discovery. A hydrogen leak at the launch pad caused today's scheduled launch to be scrubbed, and now it looks like the earliest they can fly is Sunday evening. The crew had not yet boarded when the leak was detected, about two hours into the tanking procedure. Due to conflicts with the upcoming Soyuz launch to the ISS, this delay may lead to a curtailing of STS-119. NASA reports:
Image: The sun sets behind space shuttle Discovery as it sits poised for launch to the International Space Station. Photo credit: NASA
› View larger image
The STS-119 mission to the International Space Station now is targeted for no earlier than March 15. Wednesday's planned liftoff was scrubbed due to a leak associated with the gaseous hydrogen venting system outside the external fuel tank.
The official launch date will depend on the work necessary to repair the problem. NASA managers will meet again Thursday at 4 p.m. to assess the troubleshooting plan. Liftoff on March 15 would be at 7:43 p.m. EDT.
Image: The hydrogen vent line connects to the external tank for space shuttle Discovery. Photo Credit: NASA TV
› View Larger Image
Additional Resources
› STS-119 Flow Valve Fact Sheet (447 Kb PDF)
› STS-119 Mission Summary (562 Kb PDF)
› STS-119 Fact Sheet (788 Kb PDF)
› STS-119 Press Kit (5.06 Mb PDF)
› STS-119 Information for Educators
News video at WESH and MSNBC. Clips from the pad and press conference at YouTube. Preflight pics are up at the JSC Gallery. More preflight pics and video at KSC and Miami Herald. Discussions at NasaSpaceFlight and SlashDot. Check the links at right for play-by-play and NASA TV.
By TonyF on 14 October 2008 at 10:58PM
The Russian Soyuz spacecraft, with the next Space Station crew aboard, has docked with the ISS. Joining them is computer game mogul Richard Garriott, who will be returning home next week with the departing Expedition 17 crew. His dad is Skylab and Shuttle veteran Owen Garriott. Richard isn't the first guy to follow his father's footsteps into space, though - that would be Sergei Volkov (son of Alexander) who is in charge of the ISS now. NASA reports:
Image above: The crew members of Expeditions 17 and 18 participate in an interview aboard the International Space Station. Image credit: NASA TV
Commander Edward Michael "Mike" Fincke and Flight Engineer Yury Valentinovich Lonchakov of the 18th International Space Station crew docked their Soyuz TMA-13 to the Earth-facing port of the Zarya module at 4:26 a.m. EDT Tuesday.
Hatches between the two spacecraft were opened at 5:55 a.m. A welcome ceremony and a safety briefing for the new arrivals followed.
The new crew launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:01 a.m. EDT Sunday to begin a six-month stay in space.
With Fincke, an Air Force colonel, and Lonchakov, a colonel in the Russian Air Force, is spaceflight participant Richard Garriott, flying under contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency.
Garriott will return to Earth with Expedition 17 crew members, Commander Sergei Volkov and Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko, in their Soyuz TMA-12 on Oct. 23. Expedition 17 launched to the station April 8.
Aboard the station to welcome Expedition 18 crew members was the Expedition 17 crew, including astronaut Gregory E. Chamitoff. He launched to the station on the STS-124 mission of Discovery May 31. He joined Expedition 17 in progress and will provide Expedition 18 with an experienced flight engineer for the first part of its increment.
Fincke, 41, is making his second long-duration flight on the station. He is a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds master's degrees from Stanford University and the University of Houston, Clear Lake.
He served as an Air Force flight test engineer. He was selected by NASA in 1996. He was commander of the second NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO 2), working seven days on the seafloor off Florida in May 2002. He served as a flight engineer on station Expedition 9 from April to October 2004.
Lonchakov, 43, is a graduate of the Orenburg Air Force Pilot School and the Zhukovski Air Force Academy. He is a class 1 air force pilot. He has more than 1,400 hours of flight time. He also is a paratroop training instructor with 526 jumps.
He was selected as a test cosmonaut candidate in late 1997. He has flown two previous space missions, STS-100 to the station in April 2001 and a Soyuz delivery flight to the station in October and November 2002.
Astronaut Sandra H. Magnus is scheduled to fly to the station on STS-126 to replace Chamitoff as a flight engineer on E18. Magnus, 43, will be replaced near the end of Expedition 18 by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who will launch on Discovery on the STS-119 mission. Magnus holds bachelor's and master's degrees in physics from the University of Missouri-Rolla and a Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology.
She was selected as an astronaut in 1996. Magnus will be making her second spaceflight. She flew as a mission specialist on STS-112 in October 2002.
News video here. Expedition 18 pics are up at the JSC Gallery. Video clips here. Discussion here. News resources here. Check the links at right for play-by-play and NASA TV.
Recent Comments