Russian-US crew docks at ISS two days late after technical glitch

[Buster's Uncle]

Russian-US crew docks at ISS two days late after technical glitch
AFP
14 hours ago



This still image from NASA TV shows Expedition 39, now a six-member crew, talking to family and mission officials moments after entering the International Space Station for the first time, on March 27, 2014 (AFP Photo/-)



Moscow (AFP) - A Russian spacecraft with two Russians and a NASA astronaut aboard on Friday docked successfully at the International Space Station after a technical hitch caused an unprecedented two-day delay.

The Soyuz TMA-12M carrying Russia's Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev and NASA's Steve Swanson docked at 03:53 am Moscow time (1153 GMT Thursday), Russia's mission control said.

Skvortsov was first to open the hatch into the ISS around 7:00 am Moscow time (0300 GMT), hugging the crewmembers already on board and grinning broadly.

"That was fun... It's a lot more spacious in here," Skvortsov said in a video link-up from the ISS.

The trio were originally to have docked with the ISS early Wednesday, just six hours after launch from Kazakhstan, but their Soyuz spacecraft suffered a technical glitch on its approach in orbit.

They had to orbit the Earth 34 times before their rendezvous with the international space laboratory, instead of the fast-track route of four orbits originally envisaged.

"It was a long two days but we made it. Glad to be here," Swanson said on a video link-up from the ISS.

The issue arose once their Soyuz capsule was in orbit and a thruster failed to fire to assist its approach for docking with the ISS.



This still image from a NASA video shows the Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft, a few meters away from docking to the International Space Station (ISS), on March 27, 2014 (AFP Photo/-)


US space agency NASA said in a statement that the Soyuz spacecraft "was unable to complete its third thruster burn to fine-tune its approach" to the ISS.

The Soyuz capsule later carried out three manoeuvres in orbit bringing it on the correct trajectory.

The head of the Russian state firm Energia that supplies the Soyuz rocket that propels the craft into space said Wednesday that the origin of the problem was not yet clear.

"It could be mathematics, it could be a transmitter problem or that the engine choked. But most likely it was a mathematical problem," said Vitaly Lopota, quoted by the Interfax news agency.

This would imply that ground scientists failed to work out the correct altitude in orbit for the thruster to fire to take the Soyuz to the ISS.

A commission has been formed to pinpoint the cause of the problem.



A Russian Soyuz-FG rocket with the Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft and a crew of US astronaut Steven Swanson and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev blasts off from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, on March 26, 2014 (AFP Photo/Vasily Maximov


- Fast-track route to continue -

The flight director for the Russian section of the ISS, Vladimir Solovyov, vowed Friday that Russia would continue to use the fast-track route to the ISS that it began using last year.

"We will continue to work according to this scheme. You can't scare us off with just this one thing," he said, cited by the ITAR-TASS news agency.

Mission control "at a certain moment did not receive the necessary orientation" from the Soyuz, he said.

"This was the rarest combination of circumstances," Solovyov said, while adding the Soyuz's onboard computers may be updated as a precaution.

"Maybe for such an unlikely case, we will put something extra into the memory of the onboard computer -- just in case."

After the retirement of the US shuttle, NASA is for now wholly reliant on Russia for delivering astronauts to the space station.

The trio bring the ISS crew up to six by joining incumbent crew Koichi Wakata of Japan, American Rick Mastracchio and Russian Mikhail Tyurin, who are due to leave in May.


- US-Russia space cooperation -

Space officials have made clear that space cooperation will continue unaffected by the mounting diplomatic strains that have seen the US impose sanctions on Russian officials over Moscow's annexation of Crimea.

Skvortsov and Swanson said at a pre-flight news conference that they had decided to have dinners together on board the ISS "as an opportunity to come together as friends in the kitchen and look each other in the eye".

"I think we will all be able to live peacefully together," Skvortsov said.

47-year-old Skvortsov is making his second space flight and 53-year-old Swanson, a veteran of two past shuttle missions, his third.

43-year-old Artemyev meanwhile is on his first voyage to space. He took part in a 2009 experiment where volunteers were shut up in a capsule at a Moscow laboratory for 105 days to simulate the effects of a possible voyage to Mars.


http://news.yahoo.com/russian-us-crew-docks-iss-two-days-technical-004928071.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Astronaut, 2 Cosmonauts Arrive at Space Station After 2-Day Delay
SPACE.com
by Mike Wall, Senior Writer  15 hours ago



A view from Russia's Soyuz capsule as it approaches the International Space Station on March 27, 2014.



Three new crewmembers have finally made it to the International Space Station, two days later than originally planned.

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Steve Swanson and cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev docked with the orbiting lab at 7:53 p.m. EDT (2353 GMT) Thursday (March 27), as the two spacecraft cruised over southern Brazil. The hatch linking the two vehicles opened at 10:35 p.m. EDT Thursday, NASA officials said.

The three spaceflyers blasted off Tuesday afternoon EDT (March 25) and were slated to arrive at the station just six hours later. But the Soyuz failed to complete one of the automated burns required to pull off this "fast track" trip, forcing mission controllers to revert to a more traditional two-day chase and rendezvous.

All systems on the Soyuz now appear to be functioning normally, NASA officials said in an update Wednesday (March 26).



A Soyuz capsule carrying a NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts approaches the International Space Station on March 27, 2014.


The arrival of Swanson, Skvortsov and Artemyev brings the space station back up to its full complement of six crewmembers. The newcomers join NASA's Rick Mastracchio, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, rounding out the current Expedition 39 aboard the orbiting lab.

Mastracchio, Expedition 39 commander Wakata and Tyurin had had the $100 billion station all to themselves since March 10, when another Soyuz capsule ferried a Russian-U.S. crew back down to Earth.

Today's docking marked the beginning of Swanson's first long-duration stay aboard the International Space Station, though he has seen the inside of the complex twice before. He visited during two-week space shuttle missions, once in 2007 and again in 2009.

Skvortsov has one spaceflight under his belt, staying on the station for six months back in 2010. Artemyev, on the other hand, is an orbital newbie, though he did participate in the Mars500 mock Mars mission, which isolated participants here on Earth for 17 months to simulate the stresses and rigors of an actual Red Planet mission.

The space station will get another visitor soon. SpaceX aims to launch its unmanned Dragon capsule sometime next month, kicking off the company's third contracted cargo mission to the orbiting lab for NASA. SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion deal to make 12 such flights for the agency.

The Dragon launch was originally scheduled for Sunday (March 30) but was pushed after a fire knocked out a key piece of the U.S. Air Force's rocket-tracking infrastructure along the East Coast. No new liftoff date had been announced as of Thursday.

Soyuz flights have historically taken two days to reach the International Space Station. Mission controllers introduced the fast-track route in 2013, allowing all the required maneuvers to be completed in just six hours.


http://news.yahoo.com/astronaut-2-cosmonauts-arrive-space-station-2-day-001209747.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Russian craft docks with space station after delay
Associated Press
By ALICIA CHANG  3 hours ago



In this image provided by NASA shows a view from the balcony of the Russian Mission Control Center shows live television of the Expedition 39 crew members gathered together on the International Space Station a few hours after the Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft docked on Friday, March 28, 2014, in Korolev, Russia. Pictured are Expedition 39 crew members Flight Engineer Steve Swanson of NASA, left, Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, back left, Flight Engineer Alexander Skvortsov of the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, front center, Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA, back center, Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, back right and Flight Engineer Oleg Artemyev of Roscosmos, front right. Swanson, Skvortsov, and Oleg's arrival to the International Space Station comes two days after they launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Photo Credit (NASA/Joel Kowsky)



LOS ANGELES (AP) — Arriving fashionably late, a Russian spacecraft carrying three astronauts docked with the International Space Station Thursday evening 250 miles over Brazil.

The crew aboard the orbiting outpost congratulated the latest members — Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev and NASA's Steve Swanson.

"A flawless approach, a flawless docking," said mission control commentator Rob Navias.

The trio blasted off from Kazakhstan on Wednesday local time aboard a Soyuz rocket for what was supposed to be a six-hour straight shot to the space station. But an engine burn designed to fine-tune the craft's path did not occur as planned, delaying the docking.

Two rendezvous maneuvers were executed to put the Soyuz on course. The astronauts were never in danger.

Jaunts to the space station used to take two days. Last year, engineers experimented with a way to cut the trip down to six hours by compressing the number of times the Soyuz fires its engines to raise its orbit to meet the space station.



A view from the balcony of the Russian Mission Control Center shows live television of the Expedition 39 crew members gathered together on the International Space Station a few hours after the Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft docked on Friday, March 28, 2014, in Korolev, Russia. Expedition 39's arrival to the International Space Station comes two days after they launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. (AP Photo/NASA, Joel Kowsky)


Had the latest trip been on schedule, it would have been only the fifth time that a crew would have taken the "fast track" route.

Engineers were investigating the snag, but believe the burn didn't occur because the Soyuz was not in the right position.

The new crew, who will stay in orbit for six months, joined Japan's Koichi Wakata, NASA's Rick Mastracchio and Russia's Mikhail Tyurin.

Since the retirement of the space shuttle fleet, NASA has depended on the Russians to hitch a ride to the space station, paying nearly $71 million per seat.

Despite the frosty relationship on Earth between the U.S. and Russia over the annexation of Crimea, politics has not affected the cooperation in space.



this frame grab from video provided by NASA, Expedition 39 Soyuz Commander Aleksander Skvortsov, facing, second from right, of the Russian Federal Space Agency, is welcomed aboard the International Space Station by fellow Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, right, Thursday, March 27, 2014, after the Soyuz docked. At left, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata welcomes Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, background, through the hatch of the space station. The new crew will stay in orbit for six months. (AP Photo/NASA)


NASA has been working to develop its own space taxi to the orbiting laboratory through contracts with two private companies including California-based SpaceX founded by billionaire Elon Musk.

SpaceX's fourth supply run set for Sunday was postponed because of a problem at the Florida launch site. It was the second delay this month. The company earlier said it needed more time.

SpaceX's unmanned capsule named Dragon will haul 2 tons of supplies and experiments. It will also deliver a pair of legs for the humanoid robot at the space station. Until now, the torso-only Robonaut has been stuck on a pedestal.


http://news.yahoo.com/russian-craft-docks-space-station-delay-000222127.html