[SFN] NASA uses final purchased Soyuz seat for Wednesday flight to station

[Orionid]

NASA uses final purchased Soyuz seat for Wednesday flight to station
October 13, 2020 William Harwood


NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, Russian commander Sergey Ryzhikov, and flight engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov will fly to the space station on the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft. Credit: NASA/GCTC/Roscosmos

In a mission marking the end of an era, NASA astronaut and former virus hunter Kate Rubins, using NASA’s last currently contracted seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, blasts off Wednesday with two cosmonaut crewmates on a flight to the International Space Station.

The launching will come just two weeks before 20th anniversary of the arrival of the station’s first crew on Nov. 2, 2000. Since then, the lab complex has been continuously staffed by rotating crews, or expeditions, of American, Russian, Japanese, European and Canadian fliers along with a handful of space tourists.

“It’s just incredible that we’ve had a space station with continuous human presence for 20 years,” Rubins said. “It’s one of the most incredible engineering achievements, I think, that humanity has done. And the fact that we’ve done it as an international partnership and a collaboration, I think that’s absolutely the intangible benefit of all of this.”

Since the space shuttle’s last flight in 2011, that human presence aboard the station has relied solely on Russia’s reliable three-seat Soyuz spacecraft and the Russian space agency’s willingness to sell seats, albeit at premium prices, to NASA and its international partners.

Now, six years and roughly $5 billion after NASA began funding commercial development of SpaceX and Boeing astronaut ferry ships, NASA’s reliance on Russia for basic space transportation is coming to an end.

NASA paid Roscosmos $90.3 million for Rubins’ ticket to ride, but it’s the last such payment the agency expects to make as it transitions to regularly scheduled launches using SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule and, starting next year, Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner.

The next planned launch of U.S. astronauts to the space station after Rubins will be aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon making the program’s first operational flight. Launch of the six-month-long “Crew-1” mission is targeted for early to mid November.

NASA still plans to launch astronauts aboard Soyuz spacecraft through the life of the station program as a hedge against emergencies like a serious illness, for example, that could result in the early departure of a U.S. or Russian crew ship.

Mixed crews would ensure at least one astronaut or cosmonaut on board the station at all times to operate their nation’s systems.

But those mixed flights, including the eventual launch of Russian cosmonauts aboard the new American spacecraft, will be covered by barter arrangements, not direct cash payments. NASA will still be paying for seats aboard U.S. spacecraft — the cost is not yet known — but that money will be spent in the United States.

To put that in perspective, NASA has purchased 71 Soyuz seats for roughly $4 billion since 2006, a total that includes 5 seats purchased through Boeing for $373.5 million as part of a settlement between the company and a Russian counterpart. The total also includes $1 billion for 13 seats that were required because of delays getting the Commercial Crew Program off the ground.


The Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft is seen during pre-launch processing at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: Roscosmos

Overall, NASA paid an average cost per seat of $56.3 million for the 71 completed and planned missions from 2006 through Kate Rubins’ Soyuz MS-17 flight with prices ranging from a low of approximately $21.3 million to the $90.3 million paid for Wednesday’s flight.

Appreciative of Russia’s long-term support, NASA is eager to turn the page.

The successful test flight of a Crew Dragon carrying two astronauts to the space station earlier this summer marked “another milestone, a critical milestone in the development of our ability to launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil, now sustainably,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “These are very exciting times.”

The Crew-1 astronauts will boost the station’s staffing level from three to seven, and the U.S. segment’s crew from one to five.

“When we increase the number of astronauts onboard, we’re going to be able to get three times as much science done and three times as much technology development,” Bridenstine said. “And all of that is critically important for for our Artemis (moon) program, and eventually our Mars program.

“As we develop moon to Mars, we’re going to be using low-Earth orbit to test all of these capabilities and technologies, ultimately, to create a sustainable return to the moon, and then take all of that knowledge onto Mars. So this particular mission is another critical milestone. We’re very excited about it.”

Rubins, Soyuz MS-17/63S commander Sergey Ryzhikov, a station veteran, and rookie co-pilot Sergey Kud-Sverchkov are scheduled for launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:45 a.m. EDT Wednesday (10:45 a.m. local time).

Ryzhikov spent 173 days aboard the station in 2016-17. Rubins, who holds a Ph.D. in cancer biology from Stanford University and later helped develop therapies for deadly Ebola and Lassa viruses, spent 115 days aboard the space lab in 2016 during a mission that overlapped Ryzhikov’s stay.

She completed two spacewalks, including one to finish installing a docking port that will be used by visiting SpaceX and Boeing spacecraft, logging 12 hours and 46 minutes outside the station.

While she will not be investigating COVID-19 during her station expedition, Rubins will bring her expertise to bear with a wide variety of research and experiments.

“We’re not researching coronavirus specifically on station, that needs to be handled in high biosafety level labs on Earth,” she said. “But we are looking at things like microbes in our environment, how we interact with those microbes, whether they’re pathogenic or beneficial.

“And space station is an incredible place to study that because it’s isolated. ISS is sort of the ultimate quarantine. We’re very interested in what happens with humans and their microbiome environment when we are living off of the planet. And we have been for almost 20 years now. I think that’s going to be an incredibly exciting area of research.”


A Soyuz-2.1a rocket will propel the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft into orbit. Credit: Roscosmos

In a first for the Soyuz program, Ryzhikov, Kud-Sverchkov and Rubins will monitor an automated two-orbit rendezvous, docking at the station’s Earth-facing Rassvet module just three hours after launch.

Standing by to welcome them aboard will be Expedition 63 commander Chris Cassidy and cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner. They were launched to the space station aboard the Soyuz MS-16/62S spacecraft on April 9.

After a one-week handover, Cassidy and his crewmates plan to undock and return to Earth aboard their Soyuz MS-62/16S spacecraft, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan near the town of Dzhezkazgan on Oct. 21 (U.S. time) to close out a 196-day mission.

Cassidy, a former Navy SEAL, will have logged 378 days in space during three missions while Ivanishin’s total will stand at 196 days over three flights. Vagner is completing his first flight.

Landing will set the stage for launch of the Crew-1 mission from historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in early November. On board will be mission commander Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi.

Hopkins, Walker and Noguchi, who flew on the space shuttle as well as a Soyuz, are spaceflight veterans while Glover is making his first flight to space. Like Rubins, they plan to spend about six months aboard the station.

“I’m really excited to be able to greet Crew-1 when they come across the hatch,” Rubins said. “They’re going to be getting there pretty quickly after I arrive, and it’s going to be incredible to have our station complement grow to a total crew of seven.

“There’s a certain amount of time every week we have to devote to just maintaining the space station, keeping the equipment running, keeping our life support going,” she said. “When we have additional crew members on board, we can get that much more science done.”

Rubins and her crewmates will face a particularly busy six months in space, including multiple spacewalks and the arrival of multiple cargo ships.

Nearly 8,000 pounds of supplies and equipment arrived Oct. 5 aboard a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo ship, including a new female-friendly zero gravity toilet. A SpaceX Dragon supply ship will arrive in late November followed by a Russian Progress space freighter in the first half of December. Two more cargo ships will arrive in February and March.

The next piloted flight after the Crew-1 astronauts arrive is another Crew Dragon carrying four fresh astronauts to the outpost at the end of March. A Soyuz will carry up three more cosmonauts on April 10, replacing Ryzhikov, Kud-Sverchkov and Rubins, who plan to return to Earth on April 17.

The Crew-1 astronauts are expected to come home around the first of May to wrap up an action-packed six-month mission.

“It’s really an honor to be able to train and to fly in the Soyuz,” Rubins said. “It’s also just incredible to be at this precipice where we are welcoming commercial crew onboard the space station.

“It’s great to have multiple vehicles that have the capability to access the space station. It gives us redundancy. We are in a mature program, and we’re seeing the results of that by having things like commercial crew and increasing the crew number to seven. So for me, it’s just incredibly exciting to see all these things going on.”

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/10/13/nasa-uses-final-purchased-soyuz-seat-for-wednesday-flight-to-station/

[Orionid]

Soyuz crew relocates spacecraft to new space station parking spot
March 19, 2021 Stephen Clark [SFN]
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated at 1:20 p.m. EDT (1720 GMT) after docking.


The Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft is seen during a flyaround of the International Space Station on Friday. At left is a solar array of a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo freighter. Credit: NASA TV/Spaceflight Now

Two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut strapped into their Soyuz spacecraft Friday and moved the capsule to a different docking port on the International Space Station, clearing the way arrival of a fresh crew next month.

Russian commander Sergey Ryzhikov manually controlled the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft during the relocation maneuver. Cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins were also aboard the spaceship.

All three crew members launched inside the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft in October, and are scheduled to return to Earth on April 17. The Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft has custom-fitted seat liners for each crew member, and all three were aboard for the relocation maneuver Friday, ready to return to Earth in case of problems reconnecting with the space station.

The Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft undocked from the space station’s Russian Rassvet module at 12:38 p.m. EDT (1638 GMT) Thursday. Rassvet is located on the lower part, or the Earth-facing side, of the space station’s Russian segment.

Ryzhikov, a 46-year-old former Russian Air Force fighter pilot, flew the Soyuz spacecraft away from the Rassvet module. After backing away to a distance of about 130 feet (40 meters), Ryzhikov performed a flyaround maneuver around the rear side of the space station to reach a position above the complex around.

The commander then guided the Soyuz spacecraft to a manual docking with the Poisk module on the upper part, or space-facing side, of the space station’s Russian segment. Docking occurred at for 1:12 p.m. EDT (1712 GMT) to wrap up the 34-minute maneuver.

The undocking, flyaround maneuver, and re-docking all happened while the Soyuz and space station soared around the world at a velocity of roughly 5 miles (8 kilometers) per second.


NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, Russian commander Sergey Ryzhikov, and flight engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov. Credit: NASA/GCTC/Roscosmos

The crew relocated the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft to clear the way for the next Soyuz mission to dock with the Rassvet module after launching April 9 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Russian commander Oleg Novitskiy, flight engineer Pyotr Dubrov, and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei will launch on the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft. Novitskiy and his crewmates will replace the Soyuz MS-17 crew members on the space station before their April 17 homecoming.

Russian officials want the Soyuz MS-18 mission to dock with the Rassvet module, and not Poisk, to allow cosmonauts to use Poisk for a spacewalk later this year to help prepare for the arrival of Russia’s Nauka laboratory module.

The space station’s Poisk and Pirs modules double as docking ports and airlocks for spacewalks. A Progress supply ship that arrived at the station last month will take away the Poisk module later this year to make room for the Nauka laboratory on the lower docking position on the Zvezda service module.

The Nauka lab module is scheduled for launch in July from Baikonur on a Russian Proton rocket. It will be the most significant addition to the Russian part of the space station since 2000, when the Zvezda module itself was launched.

This was the 19th Soyuz port relocation in International Space Station history, and the first since August 2019.

Ryzhikov, Kud-Sverchkov, and Rubins are currently living on the space station with four crewmates who launched in November aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft.

Dragon commander Mike Hopkins, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Soichi Noguchi and Shannon Walker will climb aboard their Crew Dragon capsule April 5 to perform a similar port relocation maneuver, freeing up the space station’s forward docking port for the arrival of the next Crew Dragon on April 23.

Unlike the Soyuz relocation, the Crew Dragon will undock and dock automatically, with Hopkins and his crewmates monitoring systems and ready to take manual control if necessary.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/03/19/soyuz-ms-17-relocation/

[Orionid]

Russian capsule brings home three space fliers
April 17, 2021 William Harwood STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION


The Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft lands in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut undocked from the International Space Station and plunged back to Earth early Saturday, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan amid preparations in Florida for launch of another station-bound crew Thursday aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.

With Russian recovery forces and NASA support personnel standing by, the Soyuz spacecraft’s central crew module, descending under a single orange-and-white parachute, settled to an on target rocket-assisted touchdown at 12:55 a.m. EDT (10:55 a.m. local time) to close out a 185-day mission.

Soyuz MS-17/63S commander Sergey Ryzhikov, flight engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins waved, smiled broadly and high-fived support crews as they were carried from the capsule to nearby recliners for quick medical checks and satellite phone calls home to friends and family.

“It was awesome!” Rubins, a space veteran, exclaimed after her second Soyuz re-entry.

At the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, meanwhile, SpaceX engineers readied a Falcon 9 rocket for a first stage engine test firing early Saturday to set the stage for launch Thursday on a flight to ferry two NASA astronauts, a Frenchman and a Japanese astronaut to the space station for their own six-month stay.

The four “Crew-2” astronauts flew to the Florida spaceport Friday afternoon to prepare for flight.

“It is awesome being at Kennedy Space Center, especially on launch week,” commander Shane Kimbrough told reporters at the runway. “It’s definitely getting real. Our crew is extremely well trained (and) we are really excited and ready to go.”


NASA astronaut Kate Rubins after landing Saturday. She now has 300 days of spaceflight experience in two missions. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

The Soyuz landing and Crew Dragon launch are the second and third flights in a record four-mission sequence over just three weeks to replace the station’s entire seven-member crew after long-duration stays in orbit.

It began on April 9 when Soyuz MS-18/64S commander Oleg Novitskiy, Pyotr Dubrov and NASA’s Mark Vande Hei blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, docking at the station after a two-orbit rendezvous.

They have now replaced Ryzhikov, Kud-Sverchkov and Rubins, who were launched to the orbital outpost last October. After a six-day handover, the outgoing trio bid their station crewmates farewell and undocked from the lab complex at 9:34 p.m. Friday

A four-minute 39-second rocket firing slowed the ship enough to drop out of orbit and 50 minutes later, the descent module landed as planned near the town of Dzhezkazgan.

Russian helicopters were standing by to ferry the crew to Karaganda. From there, Ryzhikov and Kud-Sverchkov planned to board a Russian jet for a flight back to Star City near Moscow while Rubins headed home to Houston aboard a NASA aircraft.

With the Soyuz crew safely back on Earth, NASA and SpaceX engineers are pressing ahead with work to ready the Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft for launch Thursday.

It will be the third piloted launch to orbit from U.S. soil since the shuttle program’s final flight in 2011 and the first featuring a previously flown first-stage booster and Crew Dragon ferry ship.

Following Saturday’s engine test firing, Kimbrough, McArthur, Pesquet and Hoshide plan to strap in early Sunday for a dress rehearsal countdown to run through launch-day procedures.

Liftoff is scheduled for 6:11 a.m. Thursday, setting up a docking at the space station Friday morning.

Kimbrough and his crew will be welcomed aboard the lab by space station commander Shannon Walker and fellow Crew Dragon astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, along with Novitskiy, Dubrov and Vande Hei.

After a weeklong handover to help familiarize their replacements with station operations, the Crew-1 astronauts will depart, riding their SpaceX capsule to a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico south of Tallahassee, Florida, around 12:40 p.m. on April 28.

And with that, NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos will have replaced the station’s seven crew members with two launches and two landings in less than one month, a record pace for the space station program.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/04/17/russian-capsule-brings-home-three-space-fliers/