Artykuły o Soyuz MS-18

[Orionid]

NASA confirms plan to fly astronaut on upcoming Soyuz mission
by Jeff Foust — March 9, 2021


NASA said March 9 that it signed a contract with Axiom Space, exchanging a seat Axiom procured on the next Soyuz mission to the ISS in April for one on a commercial crew mission in 2023. Credit: NASA

WASHINGTON — A NASA astronaut will fly on a Soyuz mission to the International Space Station in April, as the agency confirmed a peculiar arrangement for obtaining a seat on the Russian spacecraft.

NASA said March 9 that Mark Vande Hei will join the crew of the Soyuz MS-18 mission to the station, launching April 9. He will join Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov on the mission, staying on the station for six months.

Vande Hei will be making his second trip to the space station. He was part of the Expedition 53 and 54 crews, spending 168 days on the station from September 2017 through February 2018. He served as the backup to Kate Rubins, the NASA astronaut who flew to the station on Soyuz MS-17 last October, with Novitsky and Dubrov the other backup members of the crew.

The announcement came a month after NASA released a procurement synopsis declaring its intent to obtain a seat on the Soyuz mission, which at the time had an all-Russian crew of Novitsky, Dubrov and Sergei Korsakov. NASA said at the time it wanted the seat to minimize “risks associated with any interruption in U.S. crew member presence on ISS” if there are problems with commercial crew vehicles, and would obtain the seat by “providing similar in-kind services” rather than a direct purchase from Roscosmos.

Roscosmos, in its own statement March 9, said it received an “earnest request” from NASA for the seat. “NASA voiced its request only in the end of 2020 meaning the Russian side had to change the already confirmed and approved launch program,” it stated. “Roscosmos has taken this decision confirming its adherence to the joint agreements and the spirit of joint usage of the International Space Station.”

When NASA published the solicitation in February, NASA did not announce who would take the seat, and NASA officials declined to identify the astronaut in subsequent briefings, citing limitations on providing information during the ongoing procurement. However, Vande Hei was widely rumored to be the astronaut who would be assigned should a deal be reached for the Soyuz seat. Images released last month by Roscosmos showed Novitsky and Dubrov training for the mission, wearing flight suits that had a Soyuz MS-18 mission patch that also included Vandei Hei’s name.

In a separate statement March 9, NASA said it signed a contract with commercial spaceflight company Axiom Space, who will provide NASA with the seat on that upcoming Soyuz flight. NASA will, in turn, give Axiom a seat on a future commercial crew mission to the station, likely in 2023.

“Because the services are determined to be of comparable value to both parties, the contract contains no exchange of funds,” NASA said in the statement.

NASA had not previously disclosed it was working with Axiom Space, but the company, which arranges commercial missions to the ISS and has plans to install private modules there, had been rumored to be the intermediary between NASA and Roscosmos. An Axiom official declined to comment on how the company obtained the Soyuz seat. An industry source familiar with the deal, speaking on background, said the company purchased the seat from Roscosmos in a “purely commercial” arrangement.

NASA’s decision to seek the seat through a third party, and to do so weeks from the launch, has raised eyebrows in the space industry. Even NASA’s approach for announcing the agreement was unusual. The agency sent out a standard press release announcing the assignment of Vande Hei, promoting it on the homepage of its website. The Axiom contract was not mentioned in that release, and instead mentioned in a separate statement posted elsewhere on the NASA website.

NASA’s rush to get a Soyuz seat also attracted attention from some members of Congress. Reps. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) and Brian Babin (R-Texas), the ranking members of the full House Science Committee and its space subcommittee, respectively, sent a letter to NASA last month asking for details on “NASA’s existing agreements and future plans for accessing the International Space Station.”

The agency has long emphasized its desire for “mixed crews,” with NASA astronauts continuing to fly on Soyuz missions and Roscosmos cosmonauts flying on commercial crew vehicles. Those seats would be bartered between NASA and Roscosmos.

Having a NASA astronaut, or one from Canada, Europe or Japan, on every spacecraft going to the station “protects us from all kinds of contingencies,” Kathy Lueders, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said at a March 1 briefing about the upcoming SpaceX Crew-2 commercial crew mission, now scheduled for launch April 22.

NASA, though, has yet to complete an agreement with Roscosmos about exchanging seats. “We’re working toward the capability, and moving to have in place, the international agreements where we will be able to fly our crew members up on a Soyuz and have Rocsomos fly their crew members up on one of our two commercial crew providers, and move forward into this new age,” Lueders said. “It gives us the most robust logistics strategy.”

Source: https://spacenews.com/nasa-confirms-plan-to-fly-astronaut-on-upcoming-soyuz-mission/

[Orionid]

NASA astronaut may have extended stay on ISS
by Jeff Foust — March 15, 2021 [SN]


Mark Vande Hei (left) said he was “super excited” when he found out he would fly to the ISS with Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky (center) and Pyotr Dubrov next month. Credit: NASA

WASHINGTON — A NASA astronaut flying to the International Space Station in April could spend up to a year on the station, an extended stay that he said he was “enthusiastic” about.

NASA announced March 9 that Mark Vande Hei would fly on the Soyuz MS-18 mission to the space station, launching April 9. He will fly with Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov.

In a typical mission scenario, the three would stay on the station for about six months, returning after the next crew arrives on Soyuz MS-19 in October. However, Roscosmos officials have discussed filming a movie on the station in October, sending up director Klim Shipenko and an actress to be selected during an ongoing competition on Soyuz MS-19 along with commander Anton Shkaplerov. Shipenko and the actress would return on Soyuz MS-18 with Novitsky, commander of that mission, requiring Dubrov and Vande Hei to stay on the station until as late as April 2022, when the next Soyuz crew rotation mission launches.

Vande Hei, in a call with reporters March 15, acknowledged he may stay on the station for longer than six months. “It all depends on whether those tourists go up on the spacecraft in the fall, because they would take my seat back,” he said.

He said he welcomes the chance for an extended stay on the ISS. “Honestly, for me it’s just an opportunity for a new life experience. I’ve never been in space longer than six months,” he said, a reference to his first mission to the ISS, which lasted from September 2017 through February 2018. “I’m really enthusiastic about it.”

That uncertain duration is not the only unusual aspect about the mission. NASA acquired the seat not by purchasing it directly from Roscosmos, as it has in the past, but instead through an exchange with commercial spaceflight company Axiom Space, which obtained the seat from Roscosmos in a deal the terms of which neither Roscosmos nor Axiom disclosed. Axiom will receive a seat on a NASA commercial crew mission to the ISS, likely in 2023, in exchange for the Soyuz seat.

Vande Hei said he was not involved in the negotiations for the seat. “I’m sure it was a very complicated, challenging thing to work out. I know a lot of effort went into making it happen,” he said. “I’m really happy it worked out the way it did, and I’m also very happy that I did not have to deal with all those details.”

Vande Hei started training last year as a backup to Kate Rubins, the NASA astronaut who flew to the station on the Soyuz MS-17 mission last October, then “flowed right into” training for Soyuz MS-18. “The only thing that was uncertain was whether or not I actually launch as a result of doing the training,” he said.

Roscosmos originally announced that Sergei Korsakov would accompany Novitsky and Dubrov on Soyuz MS-18. Vande Hei trained with those three for months, he said, knowing that only three of the four people would fly. “We were ready for whatever contingency,” he said.

Because of that uncertainty, he said he had been managing his expectations about whether he would launch. “I was trying not to get too emotional, too excited about the fact that I may be launching in April,” he said. “I only realized that I had been doing that when I felt super excited when it was actually finalized.”

Roscosmos went as far to make two versions of the Soyuz MS-18 mission patch, one with Vande Hei’s name — seen in February in photos of training activities by Novitsky and Dubrov — and one with Korsakov’s name. In a show of comradery, Vande Hei said he wore the version of the patch with Korsakov’s name while Korsakov wore the patch with Vande Hei’s name. “I will always consider him to be a part of our team,” he said of Korsakov.

Russian media reported that Roscosmos is considering assigning Korsakov to a future Crew Dragon mission once NASA and Roscosmos finalize an agreement about the exchange of seats between Soyuz and commercial crew vehicles.

Source: https://spacenews.com/nasa-astronaut-may-have-extended-stay-on-iss/

[Orionid]

NASA astronaut, two cosmonauts set for launch to space station
April 8, 2021 William Harwood [SFN]


NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, commander Oleg Novitskiy, and Russian flight engineer Pyotr Dubrov after a pressure check of their Sokol launch and entry suits at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 27. Credit: NASA/GCTC/Irina Spector

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and two Russian cosmonauts will ride a Soyuz ferry ship to the International Space Station early Friday, the first step in a record crew rotation requiring two launches and two landings with four different spacecraft in just three weeks.

The launching comes just three days before the 60th anniversary of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s historic flight on April 12, 1961, to become the first man in space. More than 570 men and women have made the trip since then, fueling competition and then cooperation between Russia and the United States that has culminated in the International Space Station.

“When we started, we were competing with each other and that was one of the reasons we were so successful at the beginning of human spaceflight,” Vande Hei said at a pre-launch news conference. “And as time went on, we realized that by working together, we could achieve even more. That’s continuing to this day, and I hope that will continue into the future.”

Kicking off replacement of the station’s current seven-member crew, Vande Hei, Soyuz MS-18/64S commander Oleg Novitskiy and flight engineer Pyotr Dubrov are scheduled for launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:42 a.m. Friday (12:42 p.m. local time).

Climbing directly into the plane of the space station’s orbit, the Soyuz was expected to catch up with the space station in just two orbits, docking at the Earth-facing Rassvet module at 7:07 a.m.

Standing by to welcome them aboard will be Soyuz MS-17/63S commander Sergey Ryzhikov and his two crewmates, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Kate Rubins, along with SpaceX Crew-1 Dragon astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi.


The service structure is raised into position around the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft and its Soyuz booster following rollout to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

The expanded 10-member crew will enjoy a week together before Ryzhikov, Kud-Sverchkov and Rubins undock and return to Earth aboard their own Soyuz, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan at 12:56 a.m. EDT on April 17 to close out a 185-day mission.

Five days after that, at 6:11 a.m. on April 22, NASA and SpaceX plan to launch a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to ferry Crew-2 commander Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, Japan’s Akihiko Hoshide and ESA’s Thomas Pesquet to the station, briefly boosting the lab’s crew to 11.

After helping their replacements get familiar with station systems, the SpaceX Crew-1 astronauts — Hopkins, Glover, Walker and Noguchi — will head for home, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida on April 28 to wrap up a 164-day flight, the first operational mission by a SpaceX Crew Dragon.

And with that, the space station crew swap out will be complete. The Crew-2 astronauts and the Soyuz MS-18/64S crew are expected to be replaced, in turn, in late September and mid October respectively.

But Vande Hei, a last-minute addition to the latest Soyuz crew, does not know when he will be able to hitch a ride home. While his flight is officially scheduled to last six months, he could end up living aboard the space station for a full year.

That’s because NASA managers want to guarantee a continuous U.S. presence aboard the lab to make sure a properly trained NASA astronaut is on board at all times to operate U.S. systems even if launches are interrupted or something forces a partial evacuation.

“The plan is for me to be on board for six months,” Vande Hei said from Moscow in a pre-launch interview with CBS News. “Of course, it’s a very dynamic situation, so we try to make sure we’re ready for anything. I certainly feel emotionally prepared to stay on orbit well longer than that six months that’s planned.”

He added, “there are a variety of things that could impact when I come back (but) I’m also very certain that regardless of what happens, we’ll make sure we have a U.S. presence continuously on the space station.”

NASA wants to ensure the continued launch of American astronauts aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and Russian cosmonauts aboard U.S. ferry ships, even though the U.S. space agency funded development of commercial crew ships to end its sole reliance on Russia for transportation to and from the station.

Russian cosmonauts are not trained to operate NASA’s solar power system, computers, stabilizing gyroscopes and other systems. Likewise, U.S. astronauts are equally unprepared to operate Russian propulsion, docking and other mission-critical systems.

If a medical emergency or some other crisis forced a Russian or NASA crew to make an unplanned departure, the crew members remaining behind, trained to operate U.S. or Russian systems — but not both — might not be able to maintain the station on their own.

Likewise, NASA wants to protect against the possibility of a launch mishap or a major technical problem that could interrupt or suspend crew rotation flights.

There are no available Soyuz seats in the near term — Rubins used NASA’s last directly purchased seat — and in any case, NASA is no longer authorized to buy rides on Russian spacecraft. Vande Hei’s seat was obtained through Houston-based Axiom Space in exchange for a future flight by a commercial astronaut on a NASA-sponsored ferry ship.

NASA managers hope to work out an agreement with the Russian space agency to ensure crew continuity aboard the station by launching at least one NASA astronaut aboard each Soyuz flight and one cosmonaut aboard each U.S. commercial crew mission.

In the meantime, Vande Hei is prepared to stay in orbit however long it takes for a seat to open up.

“The attitude we’re taking is that every step of this (mission) means I’m just that much closer to getting home, whether that be six months or longer than that,” he said. “My wife’s really got a fantastic attitude. I’ve deployed multiple times (but) for my family, this would be a record setter.”

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/04/08/nasa-astronaut-two-cosmonauts-set-for-launch-to-space-station/

[Orionid]

Soyuz launches new crew to International Space Station
by Jeff Foust — April 9, 2021 [SN]


A Soyuz rocket with the Soyuz Ms-18 spacecraft lifts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome April 9. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

WASHINGTON — A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russian cosmonauts and one American astronaut arrived at the International Space Station April 9, a few hours after its launch from Kazakhstan.

A Soyuz-2.1a rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 3:42 a.m. Eastern, placing the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft into orbit. That spacecraft docked with the station’s Rassvet module at 7:05 a.m. Eastern after a two-orbit approach to the station.

The Soyuz brought to the station NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov. They will remain on the station through at least October as part of the Expedition 65 crew.

Novitsky, commander of the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft, will return to Earth in October on that spacecraft. However, both Dubrov and Vande Hei may remain on the station for up to a year if Roscosmos decides to fly spaceflight participants on the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft in October. Those spaceflight participants — likely a director and actress for a movie filmed on the station — would launch on Soyuz MS-19 but return with Novitsky on MS-18 after about a week on the station.

Vande Hei, in a call with reporters March 15, acknowledged the uncertainty of how long he will be on the station. “Honestly, for me it’s just an opportunity for a new life experience. I’ve never been in space longer than six months,” he said, referring to his six-month stay on the station in 2017–2018. “I’m really enthusiastic about it.”

Vande Hei was formally added to Soyuz MS-18 only a month before the launch, after the agency finalized an agreement involving Roscosmos and commercial spaceflight company Axiom Space to acquire the seat. Roscosmos sold the seat to Axiom, which then transferred it to NASA in exchange for a seat on a future commercial crew mission, likely in 2023.

NASA, which in the past purchased seats directly from Roscosmos, took this unusual approach as a stopgap as it works on an agreement with Roscosmos for exchanging seats directly between the two agencies. Under that plan, NASA astronauts would continue to fly on Soyuz spacecraft, while Russian cosmonauts would fly on commercial crew vehicles, with no exchange of funds between the agencies. Such “mixed crews” ensure there will always be both NASA and Roscosmos personnel on the station in the event either the Soyuz or commercial crew spacecraft are grounded for an extended period.

That agreement has not been completed. However, NASA has yet to fill the fourth seat on the Crew-3 commercial crew mission, a Crew Dragon spacecraft scheduled to launch no earlier than Oct. 23. NASA astronauts Raja Chari and Tom Marshburn and European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer have already been assigned to that flight.

Vande Hei said he was not involved in the negotiations to secure his seat on the Soyuz. However, he was training alongside Novitsky and Dubrov, as well as Sergei Korsakov, a Russian cosmonaut originally assigned to the mission. Korsakov was bumped from the mission to give his seat to Vande Hei.

Vande Hei noted that, at one point, there were two versions of the Soyuz MS-18 mission patch created by Roscosmos, one with his name and the other with Korsakov. In a show of camaraderie, Vande Hei said he wore the version of the patch with Korsakov’s name while Korsakov wore the patch with Vande Hei’s name. “I will always consider him to be a part of our team,” he said of Korsakov.

With the arrival of Soyuz MS-18, the station’s crew temporarily increases to 10 people. NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov will return to Earth April 17 on the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft.

The next commercial crew mission, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Crew-2, remains scheduled for launch April 22. It will transport NASA’s Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, ESA’s Thomas Pesquet and Akihiko Hoshide of the Japanese space agency JAXA to the station. The Crew-1 mission, with NASA’s Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker and JAXA’s Soichi Noguchi will return to Earth April 28.

Source: https://spacenews.com/soyuz-launches-new-crew-to-international-space-station/

[Orionid]

Soyuz crew welcomed aboard International Space Station
April 9, 2021 William Harwood


The three new arrivals from the Soyuz MS-18 mission, seen in white flight suits, joined the six-member crew of the International Space Station after docking Friday. Credit: NASA TV/Spaceflight Now

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and two cosmonauts blasted off from Kazakhstan Friday and docked with the International Space Station after a two-orbit chase, the first step in a record crew rotation requiring two launches and two landings with four different spacecraft in just three weeks.

The launching came three days before the 60th anniversary of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s historic flight on April 12, 1961, to become the first man in space. More than 570 men and women have made the trip since then, fueling competition and then cooperation between Russia and the United States that has culminated in the International Space Station.

“When we started, we were competing with each other and that was one of the reasons we were so successful at the beginning of human spaceflight,” Vande Hei said at a pre-launch news conference. “And as time went on, we realized that by working together, we could achieve even more. That’s continuing to this day, and I hope that will continue into the future.”

Kicking off replacement of the station’s current seven-member crew, Vande Hei, commander Oleg Novitskiy and flight engineer Pyotr Dubrov thundered away from the Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard the Soyuz MS-18/64S spacecraft at 3:42 a.m. Friday (12:42 p.m. local time).

Climbing through a clear blue sky, the Soyuz 2.1a rocket boosted the crew ship smoothly into space and after a speedy two-orbit rendezvous, the spacecraft glided in for docking at the lab’s Earth-facing Rassvet module at 7:05 a.m.

Welcoming the new crew aboard were Soyuz MS-17/63S commander Sergey Ryzhikov and his two crewmates, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Kate Rubins, along with SpaceX Crew-1 Dragon astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi.

“Father, when are you coming back?” Novitskiy’s young daughter asked during a traditional video conference with family members back on Earth.

The expanded 10-member crew will enjoy a week together before Ryzhikov, Kud-Sverchkov and Rubins undock and return to Earth aboard their own Soyuz, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan at 12:56 a.m. EDT on April 17 to close out a 185-day mission.


The Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft takes off Friday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Five days after that, at 6:11 a.m. on April 22, NASA and SpaceX plan to launch a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to ferry Crew-2 commander Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, Japan’s Akihiko Hoshide and ESA’s Thomas Pesquet to the station, briefly boosting the lab’s crew to 11.

After helping their replacements get familiar with station systems, the SpaceX Crew-1 astronauts — Hopkins, Glover, Walker and Noguchi — will head for home, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida on April 28 to wrap up a 164-day flight, the first operational mission by a SpaceX Crew Dragon.

And with that, the space station crew swap out will be complete. The Crew-2 astronauts and the Soyuz MS-18/64S crew are expected to be replaced, in turn, in late September and mid October respectively.

But Vande Hei, a last-minute addition to the latest Soyuz crew, does not know when he will be able to hitch a ride home. While his flight is officially scheduled to last six months, he could end up living aboard the space station for a full year.

That’s because NASA managers want to guarantee a continuous U.S. presence aboard the lab to make sure a properly trained NASA astronaut is on board at all times to operate U.S. systems even if launches are interrupted or something forces a partial evacuation.

“The plan is for me to be on board for six months,” Vande Hei said from Moscow in a pre-launch interview with CBS News. “Of course, it’s a very dynamic situation, so we try to make sure we’re ready for anything. I certainly feel emotionally prepared to stay on orbit well longer than that six months that’s planned.”

He added, “there are a variety of things that could impact when I come back (but) I’m also very certain that regardless of what happens, we’ll make sure we have a U.S. presence continuously on the space station.”

NASA wants to ensure the continued launch of American astronauts aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and Russian cosmonauts aboard U.S. ferry ships, even though the U.S. space agency funded development of commercial crew ships to end its sole reliance on Russia for transportation to and from the station.

Russian cosmonauts are not trained to operate NASA’s solar power system, computers, stabilizing gyroscopes and other systems. Likewise, U.S. astronauts are equally unprepared to operate Russian propulsion, docking and other mission-critical systems.

If a medical emergency or some other crisis forced a Russian or NASA crew to make an unplanned departure, the crew members remaining behind, trained to operate U.S. or Russian systems — but not both — might not be able to maintain the station on their own.

Likewise, NASA wants to protect against the possibility of a launch mishap or a major technical problem that could interrupt or suspend crew rotation flights.

There are no available Soyuz seats in the near term — Rubins used NASA’s last directly purchased seat — and in any case, NASA is no longer authorized to buy rides on Russian spacecraft. Vande Hei’s seat was obtained through Houston-based Axiom Space in exchange for a future flight by a commercial astronaut on a NASA-sponsored ferry ship.

NASA managers hope to work out an agreement with the Russian space agency to ensure crew continuity aboard the station by launching at least one NASA astronaut aboard each Soyuz flight and one cosmonaut aboard each U.S. commercial crew mission.

In the meantime, Vande Hei is prepared to stay in orbit however long it takes for a seat to open up.

“The attitude we’re taking is that every step of this (mission) means I’m just that much closer to getting home, whether that be six months or longer than that,” he said. “My wife’s really got a fantastic attitude. I’ve deployed multiple times (but) for my family, this would be a record setter.”

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/04/09/soyuz-crew-welcomed-aboard-international-space-station/

[kretus15]

10 osób na ISS to trochę dużo...  Było już kiedyś tyle ludzi tam ?

[artpoz]

10 osób na ISS to trochę dużo...  Było już kiedyś tyle ludzi tam ?

Było nawet 13.

[Orionid]

10 osób na ISS to trochę dużo...  Było już kiedyś tyle ludzi tam ?

Było nawet 13.

Ostatnio w kwietniu 2010.
Byli to uczestnicy 23 Ekspedycji i załogi STS-131 Discovery
Jeden z uczestników tego spotkania na pokładzie ISS już nie żyje.

[Orionid]

Jeden z bohaterów tamtego zdjęcia przebywa obecnie na pokładzie ISS.
Obecnie w tym miesiącu powinno nastąpić ponownie spotkanie na orbicie 2. japońskich astronautów.
Wtedy też jedyny raz na pokładzie ISS przebywały jednocześnie 4 astronautki.

[Orionid]

Station crew relocates Soyuz spaceship to new Russian module
September 28, 2021 Stephen Clark [SFN]


The Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft during approach to the Nauka module Monday. Credit: NASA TV/Spaceflight Now

Two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut strapped into their Soyuz ferry ship Tuesday at the International Space Station and moved the craft to a new docking port on Russia’s Nauka lab module that arrived at the complex in July.

The relocation maneuver cleared the way for a new Soyuz crew spacecraft to dock with the Rassvet module at the space station next month.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/09/28/soyuz-ms-18-relocation/

[Orionid]

Soyuz returns cosmonauts and film crew to Earth
by Jeff Foust — October 17, 2021 [SN]


The Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft undocked from the space station’s Nauka module late Oct. 17, landing in Kazakhstan a little more than three hours later. Credit: NASA TV

WASHINGTON — A Soyuz spacecraft carrying a cosmonaut and two spaceflight participants landed in Kazakhstan Oct. 17, nearly two days after that spacecraft caused the station to briefly lose attitude control.

Source: https://spacenews.com/soyuz-returns-cosmonauts-and-film-crew-to-earth/

[Orionid]

Russian actress returns to Earth after space station movie shoot
October 17, 2021 William Harwood [SFN]
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION


Yulia Peresild, an award-winning Russian actress, is helped out of the Soyuz MS-18 descent module Sunday. Credit: Roscosmos

A Russian actress and her director-cameraman, wrapping up a 12-day movie shoot aboard the International Space Station, returned to Earth Sunday and promptly filmed a few additional scenes that will be part of the film’s conclusion.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/10/17/russian-actress-returns-to-earth-after-space-station-movie-shoot/