Soyuz with three astronauts undocks from ISS
Soyuz with three astronauts undocks from ISS.
Soyuz with three astronauts undocks from ISS.
Soyuz with three astronauts undocks from ISS.
The Soyuz capsule with three astronauts has successfully docked with ISS.
A Soyuz rocket has successfully launched three astronauts into orbit.
This is the first manned launch since the shuttles were retired, and the first Russian manned mission since the failure of a Soyuz rocket in August. If all goes well, the astronauts will dock with ISS in two days.
The first manned Soyuz launch since the launch failure in August is set for Sunday night.
The Progress freighter launched three days ago has docked successfully at ISS.
How our government gets Americans in space in the modern era: NASA is negotiating an extension of its deal with the Russians to fly astronauts to ISS.
First Soyuz rocket launch from South America scrubbed.
Coming home in a Soyuz capsule: “I could hear Andrey saying it was like an American amusement park.”
Final preparations begin on the first Soyuz rocket launch from French Guiana, set for October 20.
Russia has announced October, November, and December dates for the next Progress and Soyuz launches.
Some suggestions for keeping ISS occupied.
I especially like Harman’s suggestion that the Russians consider landing in the U.S. during the winter, thereby allowing them to extend one crew’s occupancy of ISS into December, January, or even February. Also, he proposes the Russians send an unmanned Soyuz to ISS during testing of the rocket, thereby providing the crews onboard a fresh lifeboat. This is something they have done in the past on their previous space station Mir.
Pete Harding at NasaSpaceflight.com has written a very thorough review of the changes to the flight manifest to ISS expected due to the August 24 failure of the Soyuz-U rocket.
More details on why the rocket carrying the Progress freighter to ISS failed last week.
More possible consequences if ISS becomes unmanned: the first test of Dragon will be delayed.
An unmanned ISS will also delay the first launch in February of Orbital Sciences Cyngus cargo vehicle, as this vehicle is like Dragon in that it requires astronauts on board ISS to control the robot arm that grabs and berths the spacecraft.
Good news: The Russians have pinned down a preliminary cause for the Progress launch failure last week.
Solving this quickly appears essential, as the space station was not really designed to fly unmanned.
Past NASA risk assessments show there is a one in 10 chance of losing the station within six months if astronauts and cosmonauts are not onboard to deal with any critical systems failures. The probability soars to a frightening one in two chance — a 50-percent probability — if the station is left without a crew for a year.
It’s now official: The Russians will postpone the launch of the next crew to ISS, as well as delaying the return of one crew presently on board.
The space station could be abandoned in November if the Russians haven’t solved their rocket problems by then.
Because of this week’s Progress freighter launch failure, Russia plans two unmanned test launches of its Soyuz rockets before flying crews on them to ISS.
One of these test launches will carry a new Progress freighter, with supplies for ISS.
The launch of a Progress freighter to ISS today has failed, with the freighter ending up crashing into Siberia.
This is very bad news for the station. Everyone in the space industry knows that with the shuttle gone, it will be a challenge to maintain supplies to the station’s the six-person crew. Losing just one supply ship will strain the station’s supplies, if not now in the long run for sure.
Worse, this is the first launch failure of the Soyuz rocket that puts both Progress and manned Soyuz capsule into orbit in more than eleven years. The next manned crew is scheduled for launch on September 21. Whether this failure will delay that launch remains unknown.
Fly me to the moon! Two stories today (here and here) from Russia about a possible tourist flight around the moon by 2016-2017.
That’s so nice of them: Russia vows not to exploit its manned space flight monopoly.
Actually, this isn’t really news. Since the fall of the Soviet Union the Russians have always driven a hard bargain when they have sold tickets to get crew or cargo into space. However, once the contract has been signed they have also honored those contracts, to the letter. As the U.S. already has a signed contract to get its astronauts to ISS using Russian rockets and capsules, there won’t be any opportunities for Russian exploitation — until that contract expires.
In other words, the U.S. had better get some manned launch capability on line before too long. And on that note, see this article: NASA considers man-rating the Atlas V.
The first Soyuz launch from French Guiana has now been scheduled for October 20, 2011.
According to the chief of the Russian space agency, it presently does not have the capacity to produce additional Soyuz capsule for tourist flights.
A new crew, launched by Russia, is heading to the International Space Station.
Rough and fast: Riding a Soyuz back to Earth.
Another Soyuz upgrade in the works.
Soyuz TMA-20 lands safely in Kazakhstan.
A hint at what today’s images of the station and shuttle, taken from the Soyuz capsule, will look like.
The departing Soyuz crew will do a photo-op fly around on Monday to photograph the completed station with a docked shuttle.
The first Soyuz launch from the European spaceport in French Guiana is now scheduled for October.