Another Dragon, Another EVA for ISS

NASA Astronaut Ricky Arnold moves out of the airlock for his third EVA this year. NASA credit.

 

June was pretty busy for the crew of Expedition 56. With all of the maintenance and experiments performed by the six-person crew, you'd think they were busy enough! But no, they also had to prepare for a spacewalk and to make preparations for a new Dragon Cargo ship. On June 14, astronauts Drew Feustel (Expedition 56 commander) and Ricky Arnold (flight engineer) performed a6 hour 49 minute EVA to install improved HD camera equipment on the outside of the station.

 

Expedition 56 commander Drew Feustel led the 6th EVA of the Year.

 

The two spacewalkers  installed the HD cameras to help improve the view of the upcoming Dragon crewed ship docking and future Boeing Starliner crew vehicle dockings. In addition to the cameras, they moved some grab handles and performed some maintenance outside the Japanese KIBO module.

Dragon cargo spacecraft grappled by the CanadArm2 robotic arm. 

 

Following liftoff on Friday, and a three-day orbital chase, another Dragon cargo ship arrived at the ISS and was captured by robotic arm on Monday July 2. Astronauts Ricky Arnold, backed up by Drew Feustel, maneuvered the craft to dock at the US-built Harmony module. It carried science equipment, supplies, and biological experiments. Dragon is scheduled to stay at the station for about a month.

Parking is getting pretty limited up there.

 

With the arrival of Dragon, the ISS ports look pretty full. There are two Soyuz crew vehicles, a Cygnus cargo ship, a Dragon cargo ship, a Russian Progress cargo ship, and the inflatable Bigelow BEAM module attached to docking ports. Soon, however, we can expect further US-built crew ships (Dragon2 and Boeing Starliner) to be arriving for testing. This will make parking very interesting at the ISS!

ISS: From 55 to 56

Touchdown! Soyuz capsule MS-07 lands after firing retro-rockets in Kazakhstan.

Expedition 55 prepares to enter Soyuz MS-07 before undocking. (L-R) Anton Shkaplerov, Norishige Kanai, and Scott Tingle.

Expedition 55 came to an end officially when the crew of Soyuz MS-07 undocked their ship from the ISS on June 3. Cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov (Roscosmos) commanded the Soyuz and astronauts Norishige Kani (JAX) and Scott Tingle (NASA) occupied the left and right seats.  STaying on board, and commencing Expedition 56, were Commander Drew Feustel (NASA), Ricky Arnold (NASA) and Oleg Artemyev (Roscosmos) acting as Flight Engineers.

The Soyuz safely landed on the steppes of Kazakhstan later that day. Three more crewmembers were scheduled to arrive shortly.

The crew of Expedition 56/57 pose before their Soyuz rocket, with its special markings commemorating the 2018 FIFA World Cup. (L-R) Serena Auñon-Chancellor, Sergey Prokopyev, and Alexander Gerst.

 Russian Soyuz rocket blasts off from Baikonur with Expedition 56/57.

On Wednesday, June 6, the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft was sent on a 2-day orbital rendezvous with the ISS. The ship docked on June 8 to the Russian-made Rassvet module. Astronaut Gerst of the ESA is on his 2nd mission to the station, and will assume command for expedition 57.

Recently, the Dragon cargo ship left the station and returned to Earth. On May 24, the Cygnus cargo spacecraft docked to the station with thousands of pound worth of supplies and science experiment support. 

View from the Cuppola on the ISS of the Cygnus cargo spaceship grappled by the CanadArm.

ISS: Expedition 55 Having a good start to Spring!

Current Spacecraft docking at the ISS. Credit: NASA.

Spring has gotten off to a good start up in Low Earth Orbit. When the Expedition 54 crew left the station on March XX, it left only three crew aboard: Expedition 55 Commander Anton Shkaplerov (Roscosmos) Norishige Kanai (Japan) and Scott Tingle (NASA). They did not have long to wait. On March 23, the reinforcements arrived on Soyuz spacecraft MS-08, docking at the Russian-built Poisk module. Joining the crew was Soyuz commander Oleg Artemyev (Roscosmos), Dr. Andrew Feustet (NASA), and Rick Arnold (NASA). Comprising the Expedition 55/56 crew, they are all veterans of spaceflight with Artemyev having already visited the ISS for six months in 2014. Dr. Feustel flew aboard shuttle Atlantis in 20009 with the Hubble Servicing Mission, shuttle Endeavor's final mission in 2011 (STS-134), and already has six EVAs to his credit. He will The Expedition 56 commander at the end of Expedition 55. Astronaut Arnold flew aboard shuttle Discovery in 2009, delivering the last set of solar panels to the ISS.

MS-08 approaches the station.

 

Nice view of MS-08 passing below the already-docked Progress cargo spacecraft.

 

 The last week of March was a busy one for the full crew. On March 28, ISS crewmembers closed the hatch on Progress 68P, having removed all its cargo and replaced the cargo with trash and waste items. The Progress ship undocked from the Russian-built Pirs module and was maneuvered into a lower orbit. Russian ground controllers are using the craft for some engineering tests, until they are ready to de-orbit the craft on April 25 and let it burn up over the Pacific Ocean.

Progress 68 just getting ready to undock as the ISS flies over the Atlantic Ocean.

 

The next day, March 29, two of NASA's astronauts went outside for a spacewalk, the fourth of the year. Astronauts Feustel and Arnold performed an EVA for a little over six hours, replacing worrisome cables on a cooling system, installing a TV camera, and placing a new communications antenna on the US Tranquility module. 

Drew Feustel on his March 29 EVA. This makes 7 EVAs in his career.

 

With the spacewalk completed, astronauts began preparing for their next visitor. On April 2, SpaceX launched another resupply mission to the ISS using the Falcon 9 re-usable rocket and the Dragon cargo spacecraft. Mission CRS-14 brings the station a plethora of science equipment as well as consumables and regular maintenance items. Dragon reached the station and docked on April 4 to the US Harmony module. It will remain on the station until May.

Dragon CRS-14 approaches the station over the magnificent colors of our planet.

 

 Next big event for the station crew will be the end of Expedition 55 in April.

 

Soyuz MS-06 Returns to Earth with Expedition 53/54

Soyuz Descent module under its parachute heads towards a landing in Kazakhstan.

On Monday, February 26 the Expedition 54 came to an end during a Change of command ceremony. Cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov will command the station starting Expedition 55. They will be joined on March 21 by astronauts Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel (NASA) and Oleg Artemyev (Roscosmos).

Expedition 54/55 enjoying space before the Change of Command Ceremony.

The Soyuz capsule landed on the cold wintery steppes of Kazakhstan early on Tuesday. They were quickly joined by recovery crews flying in by helicopter and were carefully retrieved from the cramped descent module. For Soyuz commander Alexander Misurkin, he now has his second spaceflight complete. He took part in a record-breaking Russian EVA on February 2, and now has a total of 4 spacewalks in his resumé. Astronaut Joe Acaba has now completed three spaceflights, with three EVAs total. Astronaut Mark Vende Hei has completed his first space mission, and now has a fantastic four EVAs to his credit.

Christmas visitors at ISS

Soyuz FG rocket lifts off the pad at Baikonur into a wintery blue sky.

 

On Sunday Dec 17, the second half of the Expedition 54 team left Russia for a two-day chase to the International Space Station. On board the Soyuz MS-07 spacecraft were Soyuz Commander Anton Shkaplerov (Roscosmos), Scott Tingle (NASA), and Norishige Kanai (JAXA). They docked at the station on Tuesday morning. 

Before the launch, at the simulator (L-R): Kanai, Shkaplerov, and Tingle.

 

This is Shkaplerov's third trip to the ISS. This time he will take over as station commander when the current lead crew returns to Earth. FOr Kanai, though this may be his first spaceflight, he previously made a two-week stay in the seabase off the Florida coast in 2015, simulating communications protocols in a future Mars mission with long signal delays.  Scott Tingle has been a Navy test pilot and also flew as a member of the elite Blue Diamonds demonstration team. He has 54 combat missions to his credit, and joined NASA in 2009. This is his first flight to space. 

Current spacecraft docking locations at the ISS.

 

November and December have seen a busy schedule of flights to and from the station. The Cygnus resupplu spacecraft arrived on November 13 for a three week stay. After delivering its supplies, the spacecraft undocked on December 6 for a 12 day period of free-flight testing, before entering the Earth's atmosphere on December 18 for a fiery end. During that time it also launched 14 Nanorack Cubesats.

 

Cygnus OA-8, named SS Gene Cernan.

 

 SpaceX launched another Dragon supply ship CRS-13 on Dec. 8. This time, both the capsule (C-108) and the Falcon 9 rocket are being used a second time, as part of SpaceX's re-usable spacecraft system. It is currently docked to the US-built Harmony module. 

CRS-13 docked to the Harmony module.

 

On Thursday Dec. 14, Soyuz MS-05 undocked from the ISS for a return to Earth. In Command of the spacecraft was Sergei Ryazansky (Roscosmos), accompanied by Randy Bresnik (NASA) and Paolo Nespoli (ESA). Bresnik had been Commander of Expedition 53 before leaving the station in the capable hands of Misurkin, commanding Expedition 54. 

Beautiful picture of returning Soyuz capsule over Kazakhstan.

 

Sadly, it has been reported that astronaut Bruce McCandless II has died. He was made famous around the world for the image of him in the shuttle EVA suit flying tether-free around the space shuttle. Most people are unaware, but he served as Houston Mission Control communicator during the historic moonwalk of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11 in 1969. He also was part of the crew that launched the Hubble Space Telescope on STS-31 in the shuttle Discovery.

McCandless in his official NASA WSS press photograph, strapped into the Manned Maneuvering Vehicle (MMV).

 

One of the most famous photos of the Shuttle period, McCandless flies free in the MMV during mission STS-41B around the space shuttle Challenger.

 

 

Expedition 52 Returns to Earth

Great picture of Soyuz MS-04 landing.

Alas, it was time for her to come home. Peggy Whitson left the International Space Station after 288 days, some of which was unplanned but welcome. That means she now holds the American record of 665 days in space throughout all her missions. The World record is held by Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, who has currently 879 days in his name. He will have more, as he is scheduled to return to the ISS in September next year.

Preparing to close the hatch to Soyuz MS-04. L-R: Peggy Whitson, Fyodor Yurchikhin, and Jack Fischer. They undocked from ISS at 5:58 pm on Friday. Landing occurred at 11:22 pn Eastern time.

Originally, MS-04 was supposed to land with only two occupants. It had arrived at the ISS four and a half months ago, with just Yurchikhin and Fischer on board. The Russian agency Roscosmos was temporarily reducing crew members while a new space station module is under construction, due to be installed on the ISS next year. This allowed NASA to keep Peggy Whitson on board for extra time and increase the availability of slots for NASA personnel. 

Crew of ISS with flags from participating nations.

Officially, once the Soyuz undocked, Expedition 53 began under the command of NASA astronaut Commander Randy Bresnik, and crewed also by flight engineers Sergey Ryazanskiy (Roscosmos) and Paulo Nespoli (ESA). They will be on their own until more crew arrives in mid-September.

You can read more about Peggy Whitson's career in space at NASA Spaceflight.com:

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/09/soyuz-ms-peggy-whitson-ends-record-mission/

Three New Crew for Expedition 52 Arrive at ISS

Contact! Soyuz crewed spaceship MS-05 reaches the docking port on the International Space Station. (NASA TV)

 ISS Expedition 52 received three new crewmembers with the arrival on Friday of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Using the six-hour ascent interception plan, the Soyuz reached the station safely and docked at 5:54 Eastern Daylight time. On board the spacecraft were Soyuz commander Sergei Ryazanskiy (Roscosmos), astronaut Randy Bresnick (NASA) and astronaut Paulo Naspoli (ESA). The crew now stands at six, including Expedition 52 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin (Roscosmos), Peggy Whitson (NASA), and Jack Fischer (NASA). 

Soyuz training photo. L-R: Paulo Nespoli, Sergei Ryazanskiy, Randy Bresnick.

The new crew is expected to remain on the ISS for four months. During that time, the station expects arrivals from Dragon, Progress, and Cygnus cargo spacecraft. Much of the science work for this mission will involve medical studies including an interesting look at how Parkinson's disease is started. They will also study how small satellites can be used in critical situations such as natural disasters or severe weather monitoring. The original Exp. 52 crew of Yurchikhin, Whitson and Fischer are expected to leave the station in September.

ISS: Cargo and Crew Transfers Underway

Soyuz MS-03 undocks from the International Space Station. A Progress Supply ship is docked in the background. (Credit: NASA)

On June 2, Soyuz ship MS-03 departed for a return trip to Earth. Rather than the usual three crewmembers, this trip only included two: Oleg Novitskiy (Roscosmos) and Thomas Pesquet (ESA). 

Before the departure, a Change of Command ceremony took place.

Peggy Whitson turns over command of the station to Fyodor Yurchikhin. (Credit: NASA TV)

On June 1st, Expedition 51 officially ended when astronaut Peggy Whitson gave command to cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin. With the ceremony completed, the Expedition 52 period did not officially begin until Novitskiy and Pesquet departed for Earth. The two had 196 days in space before leaving on Friday. Crew reinforcements for Expedition 52 will arrive in July.

From L-R: Novistkiy, Whitson, Pesquet. (NASA)

 

 

Computer simulation of Soyuz module separations during re-entry process. The crew is located in the center module, which has the heat shield. The service module and crew docking module burn up during re-entry.

 

Touchdown! Soyuz MS-03 safely lands after firing landing thrusters activate during the final few moments of descent. Landing took place in Kazakhstan.

Meanwhile, there is a resupply mission ending and another one beginning. SpaceX was due to launch a special resupply mission on Friday, but had to postpone for a day because of lightning concerns at the launch site. This mission (CRS-11) would feature the first use of a reusable Dragon cargo ship. Ship number C-106 was last used on mission CRS-4 in September of 2014.

Falcon-9 rocket lifts off from LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center, FL. (Credit: SpaceX)

Actual launch of mission CRS-11 took place Saturday June 3. The Falcon 9 rocket took off flawlessly and after ten minutes separated from the Dragon spacecraft, which continued its flight into orbit. The rocket itself however, descended by parachute and engine power to land vertically back at Kennedy on pad LC-13. With a safe landing, the rocket can be refurbished and prepared to be reused on another future flight.

Cygnus resupply spacecraft. (NASA)

 

While Dragon makes its way to the ISS, another ship is leaving. Early Sunday morning, astronauts Jack Fischer and Peggy Whitson used the station's CanadArm robotic arm to pull the undocked Cygnus spacecraft OA-7 (Named John H. Glenn) from its berth and release it. This move comes a month earlier than scheduled, in an effort to reduce the future workload for the crew. The Cygnus will now move away from the station, and spend a week doing experiments under control from ground flight engineers. The John H. Glenn will deploy several small satellites on Thursday, and after experiments are completed, the craft will de-orbit and burn up over the Pacific Ocean on June 11.

 

Expedition 51 gets off to a busy start on ISS

Current docking arrangements on the ISS. (NASA)

Since the crew switch-over in mid-April, Peggy Whitson has been in command of the ISS and operational leader of Expedition 51. With the departure of Soyuz MS-02 earlier, that left three crew on the station to begin the Expedition 51 adventure: NASA astronaut (and station commander) Peggy Whitson, and flight engineers Oleg Novitskiy (Roscosmos), and Thomas Pesquet (ESA). While the crew awaited reiforcements from Earth, they continued biological and technical experiments, and important maintenance for an upcoming EVA on May 12. 

Once again spaceships left Earth to take supplies and new crewmembers to the station. First off the pad (LC-41) was Orbital ATK's Cygnus cargo spaceship, riding atop an Atlas V rocket, on Tuesday April 18. A couple of days later, on April 20th, SOyuz MS-04 blasted off from Baikonur carrying two new crewmembers, Fyodor Yurchikhin (Roscosmos) and Jack Fisher (NASA).

Last minute photos before the roll-out of the rocket that will carry them to orbit. Yurchikhin (L) and Fisher (R). (NASA)

The Cygnus cargo ship was already in orbit when the Soyuz blasted off the pad. But this time, unlike the previous several launches, there were no more new tests to do certifying the advanced Soyuz, so the craft entered a fast-track six-hour orbital path to the station. Cygnus was on a slow approach that would bring it to the station several days later.

The tried-and-true Soyuz arcs upwards on a fast trip to the station. (NASA)

Soyuz MS_04 arrives at the station (NASA TV)

Six hours later, at 7:18 am Mountain daylight time, MS-04 finally docked at the Poisk module on the ISS. Crewmembers began the seemingly long process of equalizing pressures and turning off the propulsion systems. Three hours later the hatches were opened and Expedition 51 had a total of five crew on board. This was Yurchikhin's fifth trip to the space station, and this was Fisher's first trip to space.

NASA TV image of Cygnus spaceship maneuvering into position after reaching the station.

 

 On Saturday the 22nd, The Cygnus spacraft had arrived at the station. Using the robotic arm, Peggy Whitson and Thomas Pesquet grappled the cargo ship and brought it to its docking port on the Unity module. The cargo ship was named the John Glenn, after the famous Mercury astronaut who had passed away last year. The cargo amounted to 7,600 pounds of supplies, fuel, air, and experiments. It will stay at the station for about three months while it is unloaded, and garbage stored back into it. 

On April 24, a special moment arrived for the station. Astronaut Peggy Whitson broke the record for US astronauts cumulative time in space, marking 535 days total on her several missions. During the day she received a congratulatory call from President Trump at the Whitehouse. Congratulations to Commander WHitson on this incredible achievement!

Keeping up with the ISS

Current spacecraft docked at ISS. Seems kind of empty now that some spaceships have departed. NASA.

I've had a little gap in my space reporting since early March, but that included an excellent trip to the Kennedy Space Center. So let's see how mankind's orbiting outpost has been doing. Currently, there is only one robotic cargo vessel (Progress 66) and one crew vehicle (Soyuz MS-03) docked. Wait - isn't it more usual to have two crewed vehicles there?

Touchdown! Expedition 50 makes it back to Kazakhstan in a Soyuz capsule (MS-02).

 

Expedition 50 came to a close on April 10 when Commander Shane Kimbrough and cosmonauts Sergey Rizhikov and Andrey Borisenko left the ISS in Soyuz MS-02 and landed safely in the open steppes of Kazakhstan. That left Expedition 51 in charge of the station, with NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson n command supported by flight engineers Oleg Novitskiy (Roscosmos) and Thomas Pesquet (ESA). 

Peggy Whitson and Thomas Pesquet pose inside the BEAM inflatable module currently being tested by NASA, attached to the station.

 

Change of Command ceremony. L-R: Shane Kimbrough, Sergey Rizhikov, Andrey Borisenko, Thomas Pesquet, Oleg Novitskiy, Peggy Whitson.

Unmanned cargo spacecraft have also been on the move. The Dragon 10 spaceship was loaded with items for return to Earth and undocked on March 19. It re-entered the atmosphere and safely deployed a parachute, landing it in the Pacific Ocean for a quick recovery and return to SpaceX for evaluation. 

SpaceX artist rendering of the Dragon plunging through the atmosphere.

Before the conclusion of Expedition 50, there was another important spacewalk to continue preparations for the station to begin receiving Non-NASA manned spacecraft from Boeing and SpaceX next year. On March 30, Peggy Whitson and Shane Kimbrough completed a six-and-a-half hour EVA, connecting a computer relay box as well as connecting cables and wires on the Pressurized Mating Adapter -3 (PMA-3). During the EVA, Peggy broke a spacewalking record, making an eighth EVA by a woman astronaut.

Next week will see more cargo spacecraft and new cremembers arriving at the ISS.

 

ISS: Busy Traffic Week

 Current Spacecraft positions on the ISS. Credit: NASA.

It was a very busy week for the crew of Expedition 50 on the International Space Station. In between station maintenance, science experiments, and preparations for future work, the crew needed to be on their toes dealing with all the intracacies of arriving robotic spacecraft.

Launch Pad 39B with the SpaceX Falcon rocket. Launch Control and the Vehicle Assembly Building seen in the background. SpaceX.

Events started with a roar on Sunday. From the historic LC-39B pad, SpaceX launched Dragon 10, their unmanned cargo spacecraft, on a mission to take supplies to the ISS. The launch went very well, and Dragon began its 2 day voyage to rendezvous with the station. 

First launch from Pad 39B since the retirement of the shuttle in 2011.

In a historic first, the Dragon 10 lifted off from its pad on the Falcon rocket as the first commercial rocket to launch from the famous pad 39, where decades earlier the astronauts flew the mighty Saturn Vs to the Moon in project Apollo, and then later when the space shuttles began their routine missions into low Earth orbit. This pad site has been modified from the shuttle operations to accept more commercially-operated designs. It is currently leased to SpaceX, which previously had been using the Pad 40 on the Cape Canaveral Air Force station. That pad was damaged in a Falcon Explosion in September of 2016. It is expected that future manned SpaceX flights will also take place from 39B.

Separation of Dragon-10 from the second stage. SpaceX.

 

In a further demonstration of their rocket prowess, the controllers of SpaceX carefully guided the first stage of the Falcon back through the atmosphere to a safe, upright landing at the landing pad on Cape Canaveral. The first stage will be examined, refurbished, and re-used on a future flight to help save funding. 

Dragon-10 approaches the pickup point.

 

Docking with the ISS proved to have some difficulties. As the spacecraft made its first approach to the ISS, a fault in the GPS tracking triggered an orbit of docking approach and the spacecraft was backed away from the station while engineers investigated the problem. A work-around was configured, and a second attempt the next day was successful. Astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet used the robotic arm to grapple and then dock the Dragon temporarily at the Node-2 docking port. They used cameras to record the outer condition of the Dragon for engineers to study later. Then the craft was moved to the Common Berthing Module.

Meanwhile, back in Russia...

 

In a nice daytime blastoff, the Russian space agency launched a Progress resupply spacecraft into orbit from the Baikonur facility. Known both as MS-05 and as Progress 66, the Soyuz-U rocket used a different third stage motor design than was used on the previous Progress MS-04 mission. That motor suffered a catastrophic failure in the oxidizer turbopump, which shredded the engine and lost the spacecraft in flight.

 

 Picture-perfect liftoff of the Soyuz-U rocket with Progress 66 aboard. Spaceflight Now.

 

After an 8-minute flight and stage separations, the Progress 66 ship was on its way to the station. The flight plan for this mission again called for a 2-day orbit path, giving engineers plenty of time to test and verify all functions carefully. The S-band uplink navigation system was able to complete its flight-certification, the last step in preparations to begin using the latest Progress design in the preferred single day orbital approach flight plan.

 

Progress 66 approaching the ISS, with its solar panels making a symmetrical wing-like appearance.

 

On Friday, the Progress 66 spacecraft reached its rendezvous point with the station and engineers carefully guided the vehicle into its docking position. The spacecraft completed its flight at the Pirs module docking port. This makes the 68th successful Progress mission to the ISS, delivering supplies and experiments to the station.

The next supply mission expected is the Cygnus mission on March 19.