Crew Departs Space Station Returns Home

The Soyuz capsule lands safely today in snowy Kazakhstan (NASA)

The recent American commander of the International Space Station and his Russian flight engineer departed the orbital complex this morning following a busy six-month stay.

The outgoing Expedition 22 commander Jeffery Williams and cosmonaut Max Suraev said their goodbyes to the three fellow residents of the new Expedition 23 crew, and climbed aboard their Soyuz TMA16 spacecraft to begin the return trip home.

Undocking by the Soyuz from the Poisk Mini-Research Module occurred at 4:03 am EDT this morning, as the orbital duo flew 220 miles above the Mongolian border near Russia.

Unlike the space shuttle, the Soyuz time in orbit following a station undocking is brief.

The Soyuz, piloted by Suraev, spent two orbits of the earth dropping their altitude prior to their four-minute deorbit burn which began at 6:33 am.

Meanwhile, aboard the space station, new station commander Oleg Kotev, and flight engineers Soichi Noguchi of Japan and astronaut Timothy J. Creamer watched the live video coverage of the landing via their laptop computer.

The next landing event saw the Soyuz equipment section separate from the crew module twenty-five minutes later. This manuver set the module up for it's firery atmospheric reentry.

That warmth inside the crew module was plesent as it began it's plunge at 7:02 am, unlike the cold which which would later greet the space duo minutes later.

The weather was cold as the sun began to set as the crew module sat down in the remote site of north central Kazakhstan, near the town of Arkalyk.

A temperature of 21 degrees F and winds out of the southwest at 15 mph created a real feel temp of 0 degrees F for the rescue ground personal.

A vast recovery group of twelve MI military helicopters, a fixed-wing aircraft, medical teams and both NASA and Russian Space Agency personal were on hand for the landing.

A series of parachutes began slowing the spacecraft down and just before landing, several thrusters on the bottom of the Soyuz performed a soft-landing firing.

Landing upon the snow covered wide open area of Kazakhstan occurred on time at 7:24 am (1124 GMT), just 202 minutes following their station undocking.

Touchdown site was located at 50.4 degrees North by 67.2 degrees East, or 60 km northeast of Arkalyk.

Seconds after landing, the Soyuz was buffeted by the winds and was tipped over on it's side and drug about twenty-five feet through three feet of snow.

During the next twenty minutes, as snow flurries began to coat the craft, recovery teams opened up the hatch, and removed Williams and Suraev and took them to a medical tent.

Space Station Residents Prepare for Return to Earth

Williams floats in the scenic Cupola module. (NASA)

The crew aboard the International Space Station are preparing today to begin a crew rotation which will see the departure of two and the arrival of three new residents.

Expedition 22 station commander Jeffery Williams and Flight Engineer Maxim Suraev are finalizing the loading of their Russian Soyuz-TMA 16 spacecraft for the return trip home to earth following 175 days in space.

Soyuz undocking is planned for Thursday morning at 4:03 am EDT (0703 GMT). The two will then return upon the deserts central Asia later that morning at 7:24 am.

The duo launched on September 30th from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and docked to station two days later.

Following the Soyuz undocking, three crew members will be left aboard to become the core for the new Expedition 23 crew, led by new commander Oleg Kotov. Flight Engineers Soichi Noguchi and NASA astronaut T.J. Creamer will round out the crew.

An official commander to commander handover is set for Wednesday morning at 7:45 am.

The trio will not be alone for long as new residents launch to earth's orbital outpost in April to begin their six month journey aboard station.

Alexander Skvortsov, Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Mikhail Kornienko are set to lift-off aboard their Soyuz TMA18 spacecraft from Baikonur on April 2 at 12:04 am EDT (0404 GMT).

The Soyuz is scheduled to dock on April 4 at 12:28 am (0428 GMT), with hatch opening three hours later.

Three days later, seven guests will show up as the space shuttle Discovery returns to begin eight days of docked operations to resupply the space station.

In addition to fresh food, water, oxygen and personal supplies, Discovery will add a new ammonia tank and supply racks aboard station.

Main Space Station computer goes offline

A possible commanding issue caused a prime computer aboard the International Space Station to fail this morning as the five-member crew slept.

Commander Jeffery Williams and his crew began working with Mission Control in Houston to bring the computers back on line.

Command and control computer multiplexer/demultiplexer #1 went offline at about 8:55 am EST, due to the "ascending of commands from the ground", according to the space station control room.

By noon time, all three computers which have control of the space station were 'showing healthy'.

Computer #3 was set to primery, #2 remained as back-up, while #1 was moved to standby.

Mission control will be scatching their heads for a few hours to determine the cause of the computer shutdown this morning.

At 12:05 pm, there were still issues running between computers # 2 & #1 reported.

Mission control has also reported that the crew was not in any danger, nor did it affect the life support systems on board.

The station did loose both KU and S-band communications with the ground for an hour due to the failed prime and backup computers. They then again lost communications for a brief time again an hour later. KU-band provides the live video and high speed data traffic from the station to the ground.

By 1PM, the KU-band was still not operative.

The space shuttle Endeavour -- some 665 miles ahead of the station in orbit --had undocked just 37 hours earlier following the installation of the new node 3 Tranquility and cupola observation module.

There were commands in the Tanquility which did not sync up with earlier commands from the ground.

At 12:31 pm, controlers on the ground were working specific commands to a key computer on board Tranquility. A few minutes later, they uplinked the new commands.

The crew awoke this morning at 1AM, and were enjoying an off-duty day following a buy last ten days of joint docked operations with Endeavour's crew.

Christmas Crew of Five aboard Space Station

Carrying a small decorated Christmas tree and wearing a red Santa cap, Soyuz commander Kotov entered the space station at 7:35 pm EST tonight, followed by elf's Creamer and Noguchi, and beginning their six month stay in space.

Hatch opening occurred at 7:30 pm this evening (3:30 am Moscow time) as the station passed 220 miles above the central Atlantic Ocean.

As quickly as the crew of entered the orbital outpost, they were ordered back inside their newly arrived Soyuz TMA-17 craft so that Russia's Mission Control could properly video record the crew's ingress into the station.

Minutes later, Mission Control in Moscow told the crew to go back again and to video record the crew's holiday dressed entrance into the space station for a third time.

As the minutes then went by with the Soyuz crew inside their space taxi again, the station's commander Jeff Williams and flight engineer Max Surave began to get a bit impatient with the staging of the ceremony.

"If we wait to much longer then the guys will get their feelings hurt and not want to come out," Surave radioed Moscow.

New crew members arrive at Space Station

Three new crew members arrived at their port-of-call tonight as a Russian Soyuz craft docked with earth's orbital outpost.

A Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft docked with the Russian Zarya section of the International Space Station at 5:48:20 pm EST (1:48 am Moscow time) this evening 220 miles off the east coast of southern Brazil.

"Welcome to station, guys, your home for six months," Williams stated ten minutes later.

Soyuz commander Oleg V. Kotov brought the craft into a slow approach with the station to 150 meters prior to docking. An automatic docking system piloted the Soyuz to Zarya earth-facing port minutes ahead of schedule.


Joining Kotov inside the Soyuz is American astronaut Timothy J. Creamer and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi. All three are just two days into their six month journey upon the ocean of space.

The space trio will join current station crew members, Expedition 22 Commander Jeffery Williams and Flight Engineer Maxim Suraev, who have been aboard the space station since October 2.

Kotov, who will serve as flight engineer during the Expedition 22, and in March assume the title of station commander as the Expedition 23 timeline begins with the Soyuz TMA16 undocking on March 18th.

Russian cosmonauts Suraev and Kotov on January 14 will perform a spacewalk and complete some work outside of the Poisk module which is connected to the Zvezda module.

Kotov, Creamer and Noguchi will undock from station aboard the Soyuz TMA 17 for the trip back to earth this May.

Hatch opening could occur as early as 7:35 pm EST.

Expedition 22 crew headed for Space Station

images via NASA & energia

The 22nd expedition crew is bound for the International Space Station.

On a beautiful, cold evening in Kazakhstan at the Baikonur Cosmodrome tonight, an American, Russian and Japanese astronaut boarded their Soyuz spacecraft and lifted-off toward a holiday link-up with earth's orbital outpost in space.

As a crescent Moon hung over the space center, American astronaut Timothy (T.J.) Creamer, Russian cosmonaut Oleg V. Kotov and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi boarded their Soyuz TMA-17 craft perched a top a Soyuz FG LV rocket at pad 1 two hours before launch.

As the countdown reached zero, fuel and support arms retracted away from the 151-foot tall rocket. The Soyuz FG's four liquid fueled boosters and core main engine ignited on time launching the international crew of three upward at 4:52 pm EST (2152 GMT) from it's pad.

As the Soyuz launched, the Space Station flew 224 statue miles over the southern coast of Chilie, South America.

Two minutes into the rocket's climb to orbit, the boosters emptied their fuel and were jettisoned. Seven minutes later, the craft was in low earth orbit of 125 statue miles.

Creamer is making his first trip into space, while Kotov and Noguchi are each making their second visit to the space station.

After completing 34 orbits of the earth, the Soyuz TMA17 will make a slow approach to the station and dock to the Russian Zarya module on Tuesday. Docking time is planned for 5:54 pm EST (1:54 am Moscow time), however docking will likely happen a few minutes earlier than planned based on the quickness of their orbital rendezvous.

Once docked, the trio will join Expedition 22 Commander Jeffery Williams and Flight Engineer Maxim Suraev who have been aboard the space station since October 2.