Record Setting Mission Ends March 1 2016

 

After spending a total of 340 days aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko  returned to Earth March 1 at 10:38pm, aboard their Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft.

 

You can read more by clicking HERE  

And of course NASA.GOV  

or NASA.GOV/tv

Russia to Abandon the ISS by 2020

According to an article on the CNN U.S. blog site   Russia has said that it does not plan to use the ISS past 2020.  This move puts into doubt whether or not NASA will be able to make an argument for extending the life of the laboratory to 2024 or longer.  

Officials in Russia have stated that Russia will redirect it's efforts in different directions and on to other projects after 2020.  

From the article:

• NASA released a statement saying that the U.S. space agency "has not received any official notification from the Government of Russia on any changes in our space cooperation at this point."

Since NASA retired the shuttles the only way to reach the ISS has been aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. 

Read the full article HERE

 

Great Short of Russian ISS Personnel Moving A Soyuz Spacecraft to a New Parking Spot

Recently astronauts on the International Space Station spent 20 minutes moving a Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft around to a new parking spot to make room for a Soyuz TMA-11M, scheduled to show up at a later date.

When the Soyuz TMA-11m arrives, it will bring the compliment to nine which is remarkable due to the fact that the Shuttle is no longer flying.

Also an Olympic torch will arrive with the additional crew (not lit, no fires aboard the ISS) and it will also make a trip outside on a spacewalk.

Poop in Spaaaaaaaaaaaaace!

Or as the Gizmodo article put it ewwwwwww AWSOME! ewwwwwwwwwwwww!

Kyle Wagner writing for Gizmodo wrote in part:

 Cmdr. Chris Hadfield shared a horrifying piece of trivia - Soyuz astronauts get two enemas before launch. Which is a little uncomfortable, but necessary because, uh, Soyuz restroom looks like this.

The "human interface" part is on the left, and all that brown tubing coming from it is illustrative in a highly regrettable sort of way. Space! The final frontier.............................

I ain't going there and I suspect that you ain't either....so we can safely consider where no man has gone before?   Willingly may be the word.....

Latest ISS Astronauts Return Safely

Three astronauts returned to Earth, aboard a Soyuz capsule, safely after a marathon five-month mission.  The crew-members  landed Tuesday (5/14/13) on the steppes of Kazakhstan.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, American Thomas Marshburn and Russian Roman Romanenko landed as planned without incident.  

Hadfield has managed to garner some notice in the entertainment industry as well with his recent rendition of Major Tom which was filmed and recorded aboard the station. ( The five-minute video posted Sunday drew a salute from Bowie's official Facebook page: "It's possibly the most poignant version of the song ever created.")  Hadfield, from Milton Ontario is also Canada's first professional astronaut to live aboard the ISS as well as the first Canadian  spacecraft commander (he was commander of the ISS while aboard, passing command Sunday before he returned to Earth).  

There are still three crew members aboard the ISS.  They will be joined by another three astronauts in a couple of weeks.

   

Guess what 424 Million will Get Ya....

What WILL $424 million get you if you are NASA?  Well this pretty chunk of change will get you, according to a recent AP article: 

• training and transporting of six astronauts to and from the ISS in 2016 and the first half of 2017 in Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

hummm something tells me that the Russians are not as desperate for Uncle Sam script as they once might have once been.....

Oh and look, I know NASA would have a MUCH larger bill if a country came to us and said hey we would like to send six of our spacemen to the ISS aboard the Shuttle....what is the charges?   But really I am going to do a NETWORK here and I encourage others to do the same! 

 

Now I could turn this into a big rant....but I won't, but if this is not a case of just not looking ahead and planning for the future.....mumble mumble mumble

I am pulling my punches here a bit but NASA chief Charles Bolden is pointing a finger right at congress, blaming our present dilemma on Congress' failure to support the President's call for a program that would have more co-operation between the government and private industry calling the initiative the "Commercial Crew Program"  which may in fact allowed the US' lifting program to flourish instead of forcing NASA to extend its' contract with Russia. 

There is more that I think you will find interesting in this recent AFP article

New Russian Luna Spacecraft

Standing on decades of successful operation of the Soyuz, Russia has made no secret that it has plans that place their crafts well outside Earth orbit.   To effect these plans Russia has finalized the design for a new spacecraft capable of transporting humans to the Moon. 

The "Prospective Piloted Transport System, as it has been designated, design contract has been was awarded to Energia in 2009 and is the company that presently construct the Soyuz.  All indications point to the PPTS being ready for flight soon.   Energia  execs have said  "If we get normal financing, we will start flight tests of the spaceship in 2017."   

Here is the complete Dvice article   and the original RT article here

Space Tourism? Space Adventures Says Yes!

Space Adventures' Eric Anderson, says basically in the commercial below, you give him 150 million and he will send you to the Moon. Quite literally! Anderson's company has made a name for itself by flying rich customers to the ISS for upwards of 20 million is serious about the Moon adventure. They plan on using the work horse Russian Soyuz along with a modified Proton/habitat module to fly two paying customers plus a Russian Cosmonaut in a six day out and back flight similar to Apollo 13's flight path.

Check out the Boing Boing article here

30 Update: Soyuz Docks With ISS

At 11:11 Moscow time, 3 pm Eastern, the Soyuz capsule carrying one American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts docked with the international space station. This crew is scheduled to remain on the ISS for 150 days.

Below is the video of the Soyuz as it makes it's approach and docking maneuvers.

Expedition 30 Launches

With the Russian space effort taking a few knocks lately, it is good to see that Soyuz TMA-22 lifted from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The Expedition 30 flight launched 04:15am on 11/14/11 carrying 1 American astronaut and 2 Russian cosmonauts. With the current ISS crew set to return to Earth on 21 November.

With the new crew now on it's way, fears that the ISS would be unmanned for 2012 due to repeated failures in the Soyuz crew capsule, have been allayed.

The Daily Galaxy

Returning to Earth Aboard Soyuz

Astronaut and blogger Ron Garan blogs of his experiences aboard the ISS and his return to Earth. Shortly before Garan was to return home he writes:

• (I) had a video-conference from the International Space Station with astronaut Scott Kelly who told me about his experience, his own ride home from the ISS on a Soyuz spacecraft was like.
  

Kelly said and Garan attests to the description of the return flight as:

• plunging over Niagara Falls in a burning barrel

Ron's page describing final preparations for the return aboard the Russian work horse. There are an amazing amount of things that must be done.

Check out his post here

Thanks to Boing Boing for the info

Was There Every an Apollo 18?

No you say? Just some science fiction movie maker's fever dream! Well as Xnewsman points out that if we want to get very literal there was indeed an Apollo 18 flight.

In July 1975 there was indeed an Apollo mission. It was the last Apollo mission and the last manned US space mission until the first Space Shuttle flight in April 1981.

This last mission was called the ASTP and it was the first joint U.S./Soviet space flight.

From the WIKI

• The mission included both joint and separate scientific experiments (including an engineered eclipse of the Sun by Apollo to allow Soyuz to take photographs of the solar corona) and provided useful engineering experience for future joint US/Russian space flights, such as the Shuttle–Mir Program and the International Space Station.

Ultimately though it's main purpose was symbolic; the ASTP was a symbol of that the two superpowers were trying to get along. But it did prove useful to understanding how the two very dissimilar systems could be harnessed to work together.

It was also the only space flight taken by one of the original Mercury 7 astronaut candidates. Deke Slaton was removed from consideration early in the Mercury selection due to a heart irregularity. Not to say that there still wasn't some politics going on. Jack Swigert was removed as a crew member for just such political reasons. I would suggest looking up the Apollo 15 stamp scandal.

Abandon Ship!

According to an article in Dvice: NASA may be considering abandoning the International Space Station in November, due mostly to the crash of the Russian Progress M-12M resupply ship in August of 2011. If the malfunction that prevented the Progress from separating from the heavy lift second stage booster then the first half of the crew will have to return in October with the balance returning in January.

Even though the station is capable of maintaining the crew indefinitely, the Soyuz is only rated for 210 days life in which exceeding that limit is strongly not recommended. And neither is a January landing on the Russian Steppes.

ISS Crews NASA and Russian mission control are all holding their collective breathes as technicians try to uncover the cause of the malfunction.

Post Atlantis Soyuz Rides Cost What?!!

Well, since the shuttle Atlantis is home and NASA now completely dependent on Russia for rides to the ISS, I thought I would check to see if the figures I had been quoted for each ride were insanely wrong. So I checked an article Space Daily and this is exactly what I got from the article.

Get ready...here it comes:

• NASA has signed a deal worth 306 million dollars with Roskomos for six rides to the ISS in 2012 and 2013, or a charge of 51 million dollars per US astronaut.

I thought that was insane but now that Russia has a monopoly it plans on increasing those costs significantly. CBS Evening News site is quoting 60 million as the ongoing charge now for training and a ride.


Even crazier is the fact that the original plans were to decom the iss in 2015 and ditch it in the ocean. Luck has it that the other partner countries are negotiating the station life out to 2020 (glad someone has sense)

comments?

pic CBS evening News

Endeavour's Last Mission & Still Setting Records

Endeavour has completed its last mission but this mission also marked the first time a space shuttle was ever photographed while docked as shown here in this pic from IO9's blog.
From the IO9 article:

• While the shuttle was docked, Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli left the station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft and took these photographs during his departure.

There are a couple more good pics on site and a nice short video here on IO9

Got a spare 150 million? Have I got a deal for you!

Here is something I found in Dvice that has been making its rounds in the blogosphere: If you can raise 150 million dollars, you can buy one of the two space tourist seats on a trip to the Moon and around it. The craft will be a "lunar rated" Russian Soyuz spacecraft that carries three. The third seat is reserved for Russian cosmonaut.

Seems like a lot of money, but when you consider that NASA spent about the same amount (300 mill) for Apollo 8, it really isn't such a bad deal, considering that NASA would spend in the billions now to do the same job, it is even a much better deal. Plus you become part of a very elite group of people. Only 24 others have circled the Moon in the past!

Here is the mission plan according to Dvice:

• After launching from Russia, your Soyuz capsule will rendezvous and dock with a waiting booster rocket, which will power you into a free-return trajectory around the moon and back. After a two day journey, the capsule will circle the moon once, viewing the dark side from a mere 62 miles up. (Returning to Earth) you can expect to land somewhere in Siberia a few days later.

Close Call on 4/5/2011 Soyuz Launch wtf?

Hey, wanna see a close call that will make you damn glad you are NOT an astronaut? Check out this video of the April 5th 2011 Soyuz Spacecraft launch. I think if I were on-board and knew this was going on around the launch vehicle, I would have wet my space diaper for sure. Now I don't know how authentic the film is. (I first saw it on Daily Galaxy website) and since absolutely no one reacts to what happened, and I don't remember anything like this on the news right? So I am leaning towards hoax. But you watch it and let me know your take.

HD Tour of the I.S.S.

Here is a great HD Tour of the ISS I found over on Crunch Gear thanks to Dvice

US tourist launches toward ISS

In light of some of the bad press that Space Adventures has garnered over the past few weeks, I though an article showing the successful side of a launch.

Shaun Saunders sends in an article from BBC News about space tourist Richard Garriot who was part of the crew of the Russian Soyuz that launched towards the ISS recently. Mr Garriott. a software design millionaire, has paid about $30m for his 10-day trip to the International Space Station. Richard's father, Owen Garriott, spent 60 days on the US space station Skylab in 1973. Owen, now 77, will support his son from mission control in Moscow. Richard plans to carry out experiments during his voyage, including one involving protein crystal growth, on behalf of companies that he says have footed a "meaningful percentage" of the ticket price. He will also follow in his father's footsteps and take photos to record how the Earth's surface has changed in the 35 years since his father's voyage.

The first official image of a Russian-European manned Luna spacecraft

The BBC via Gizmodo has released the first "official" images of the proposed Russian/Euro manned follow on to the Soyuz space capsule. Designed to replace the Soyuz vehicle currently in use by Russia - it will allow Europe to participate directly in crew transportation. Ultimately the reusable ship may well be utilized to carry four people towards the Moon. That's right, Four - bettering the US Ares/Orion system. Among other improvements besides the crew complement size is the emphasis on re-usability. Plans for the capsule entale making a soft landing using rocket engines unlike the Soyuz predicessor. Resembling America's next-generation spacecraft Orion. (though it could be said that Orion bears a striking resemblance to a Soyuz) The Russian-European vehicle is designed to carry six crew into low-Earth orbit and four on missions to lunar orbit. Also in the planning stages are possibilities of using the new Vostochny Cosmodrome being developed in Russia's eastern Amur region.