Fwd: Soyuz hoisted in place at Baikonur

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: November 5, 2013 10:56:02 AM CST
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Soyuz hoisted in place at Baikonur

 

 

 

 

Space rocket "Soyuz-FG" with transport manned spacecraft "Soyuz TMA-11M" taken to the "Gagarin's Start"

9:17 :: 05.11.2013

 

Today at 5:00. 00 minutes. Moscow time, in accordance with the decision of the State Commission calculations of rocket-space industry produced garbage Launch Vehicle (ILV) "Soyuz-FG" with transport manned spacecraft (WPK) "Soyuz TMA-11M" from the assembly and test facility (MIC) platform 112 cosmodrome.

Launch vehicle delivered to the launch pad area 1 ("Gagarin's Start") and is set to launch the system. Roscosmos specialists of enterprises have started to work on the schedule the first launch of the day.

Start ILV "Soyuz-FG" with TPK "Soyuz TMA-11M" and the crew 38/39-y mission to the International Space Station is scheduled for November 7.

The main crew TPK "Soyuz TMA-11M" - commander Mikhail Tyurin (Roscosmos), flight engineer Rick Mastracchio (NASA) and Koichi Wakata (JAXA).

Backup crew - commander Maxim Suraev (Roscosmos), flight engineers Reid Wiseman (NASA) and Alexander Gersten (ESA).

Press Service of the Russian Federal Space Agency

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LV Soyuz rollout to the launch pad
November 5, 2013

At Baikonur launch site the preparations continue for the launch of Soyuz TMA-11M transport manned vehicle under the International Space Station program.

Soyuz launch vehicle was rolled out from the integration building to the launch pad. Soyuz launch vehicle with Soyuz TMA-11M transport vehicle is installed on the launch pad. L-2 days activities have been started. 

 

 

 

 

November 5, 2013.
LV Soyuz rollout to the launch pad

At Baikonur launch site the preparations continue for the launch of Soyuz TMA-11M transport manned vehicle under the International Space Station program.

Soyuz launch vehicle was rolled out from the integration building to the launch pad. Soyuz launch vehicle with Soyuz TMA-11M transport vehicle is installed on the launch pad. L-2 days activities have been started. 

 

November 4, 2013.

Meetings of the Technical management and State commission were held

At Baikonur launch site the preparations continue for the launch of Soyuz TMA-11M transport manned vehicle under the International Space Station program.

Meetings of the Technical management under the chairmanship of S.P. Korolev RSC Energia President and General Designer V.A. Lopota and State commission were held. A decision on rollout of the launch vehicle with the Soyuz TMA-11M transport manned spacecraft to the launch facility and its preparation for launch planned for November 7, 2013 was adopted.

 

      

 

© 2000 - 2013  S.P. Korolev RSC "Energia"

 

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Manned Soyuz Craft Readied Ahead of Olympic Torch Spacewalk

Soyuz TMA-11M

© RIA Novosti. Anton Denisov

10:44 05/11/2013

 

BAIKONUR, November 5 (RIA Novosti) – A Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft was hoisted into place at a launch pad in Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome Tuesday morning ahead of a mission to take three astronauts to the manned International Space Station.

The crew, consisting of Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, NASA's Richard Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata of Japan, is set to blast off Thursday from the Russian-leased facility.

The Soyuz will be carrying an unlit Olympic torch, making for the most eye-catching, albeit unofficial, part of a grand relay taking place ahead of the Winter Games in and around the southern Russian resort town of Sochi in February.

The torch will be taken on a brief spacewalk Saturday by Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy, who are one of the six people currently aboard the space station.

The arrival of the Soyuz TMA-11M will take the number of people on the ISS to nine for the first time since October 2009 without the US shuttle, which was definitively retired in the middle of 2011.

The main purpose of the spacewalk will be to prepare the station for the arrival of a Russian Multi-Purpose Laboratory Module.

The outbound trio will remain on the International Space Station until May. Wakata,of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, is set to take the helm of the station for the final two months. That will mark the first time in history that the ISS has had a Japanese commander.

Luca Parmitano, an Italian astronaut with European Space Agency, Russia's Fyodor Yurchikhin and NASA's Karen Nyberg are set to return to earth on Sunday.

© 2013 RIA Novosti

 

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Space Station Crew Faces Orbital Traffic Jam This Week

By Elizabeth Howell, SPACE.com Contributor   |   November 04, 2013 04:33pm ET

Soyuz TMA-09M moves house on the International Space Station with Russia's Fyodor Yurchikhin, the United States' Karen Nyberg and Italy's Luca Parmitano on board. Credit: NASA TV View full size image

It's a busy week in orbit at the International Space Station. With nine astronauts set to crowd the station this week, part of its crew moved a Russian transport vehicle to a different dock to make room for the new arrivals.

Three members of the six-person Expedition 37 climbed into the Soyuz TMA-09 spacecraft Friday (Nov. 1) to bring the vehicle from the Rassvet cargo and docking module to the Zvezda service module, which has another Russian docking port on the other side of the station. The maneuver began at 4:33 a.m. EDT (0833 GMT) and lasted 21 minutes.

Russia's Fyodor Yurchikhin commanded the vehicle, which also had NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano inside. Three people must go inside the Soyuz during these kinds of transfers because if something goes wrong, NASA wants to preserve the option of making an early return to Earth with a full crew on board. [Space Station Photos: Expedition 37 Mission in Orbit (Gallery)]

The move cleared the way for three new crewmembers to arrive Nov. 7. Soyuz TMA-11M Russian commander Mikhail Tyurin, NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata, of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, will dock at the Rassvet port six hours after launching from Kazakhstan.

Nine people in the space station will make for crowded quarters. According to NASA, this month will mark the first time since October 2009 that so many people were on the station without the presence of a space shuttle. That vehicle used to routinely dump crews of an extra six to seven astronauts on board the station for a few days. Typical space station crew numbers range between three to six people at a time.

Besides carrying the astronauts, the Soyuz will also have the Olympic torch onboard as part of a cosmic torch relay. On Nov. 9, just two days after the torch arrives on station, Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy will take it outside the station as part of a spacewalk.

The torch will come back to Earth Nov. 10 when Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano fly home to cap a five-month mission in space.

Coincidentally, Yurchikhin was at the helm the last time a Soyuz moved ports on the station. The June 2010 flight went off flawlessly, but was delayed after a last-minute circuit breaker power failure in one of the space station's solar arrays. NASA usually moves these arrays out of the way to make sure that emissions from the Soyuz's thrusters don't damage the solar panels.

Yurchikhin and NASA astronauts Douglas Wheelock and Shannon Walker waited an extra orbit (about 90 minutes) inside their Sokol spacesuits. Russian mission controllers invited the crew to take off their gloves if they wanted to get more comfortable, but Yurchikhin said everyone could wait it out.

 

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