Visions of Future Past

The Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft is the subject of this long exposure, and is seen as it is rolled out by train to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Friday, Dec. 18, 2009. The launch of the Soyuz spacecraft with Expedition 22 NASA Flight Engineer Timothy J. Creamer of the U.S., Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov of Russia and Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi of Japan, occurred on Monday, Dec. 21, 2009.

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1655.html

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ISS Photography: 100 Million Words

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the Expedition 22 crew aboard the International Space Station is about to complete the generation of 100 million words worth of information.

That’s because Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineers Max Suraev, Oleg Kotov, T.J. Creamer, and Soichi Noguchi are expected to snap a total of 100,000 images by the end of their mission in Earth orbit.

Expedition 22 Commander Jeffrey Williams works with test samples in the Human Research Facility 2 Refrigerated Centrifuge as a part of the Nutritional Status Assessment experiment in the International Space Station's Columbus laboratory. Credit: NASA

Williams is setting a record that surpasses his own previous record of 83,856 images taken during Expedition 13 in 2006.

“This week we broke my old Exp. 13 record for number of Earth photos,” Williams “tweeted” from the station. “Later, after landing and recovery, I will post some of best.”

Among those digital still images is this spectacular nighttime image taken of Houston, Texas, the home of Mission Control and astronaut training, and the hub of the International Space Station Program that unites five space agencies and 15 countries in peaceful exploration and scientific research.

Williams and Suraev will end their five-and-a-half-month stay on the station Thursday, when they undock their Soyuz spacecraft and head for a landing in Kazakhstan. They were part of both the Expedition 21 and 22 crews. Kotov, Creamer and Noguchi will stay on orbit, snapping more photos, for two more months before returning home after being part of both the Expedition 22 and 23 crews.

All told, space station crews so far have amassed a total of almost 639,000 images. Those images include photos that document life and work aboard the space station, and photos that document the condition of the home planet from its unique perspective 220 miles above Earth. Their efforts are part of a larger collection that began with Earth observations photos during the Gemini Program of the 1960s. Many of the images are used in scientific research about the Earth, its climate, its resources and the effects humans are having on both.

The Houston metropolitan area at night is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 22 crew member on the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

The recent STS-130 space shuttle mission delivered a new observation deck known as the cupola that offers the largest window ever flown on a spacecraft, and the upcoming STS-131 shuttle mission to the station will deliver the Window Observational Research Facility (WORF), which will provide a new facility dedicated to multi- and hyper-spectral remote sensing and high resolution Earth observation photography to enhance the use of the best optical-quality window ever flown in space, in the U.S. Destiny Laboratory.

For more information about Earth observations photography, visit the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of the Earth at:

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov

For more information about WORF, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/experiments/WORF.html

For more information about the International Space Station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition22/iss_photography.html

Flight Day 2

This view of space shuttle Endeavour's crew cabin and forward payload bay was taken by an Expedition 22 crew member during a survey of the approaching shuttle before it docked with the International Space Station.

As part of the survey during each mission's activities, Endeavour performed a back-flip for the rendezvous pitch maneuver. The image was photographed with a digital still camera, using a 400mm lens at a distance of about 600 feet (180 meters).

Image credit: NASA
Feb. 9, 2010

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts130/multimedia/gallery/fd2-1.html

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Progress 36 Docks to Station

The ISS Progress 36 unpiloted spacecraft docked to the aft port of the Zvezda service module of the International Space Station on Thursday, Feb. 4 at 11:26 p.m. EST using the automated Kurs docking system. The new resupply ship brings to the orbiting laboratory 1,940 pounds of propellant, 106 pounds of oxygen and air, 926 pounds of water and 2,683 pounds of spare parts and supplies for the Expedition 22 crew.

Flight Engineers Maxim Suraev and Oleg Kotov monitored the approach of Progress from Zvezda, along with their crewmates, Expedition Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineers Soichi Noguchi and T.J. Creamer.

The spacecraft launched on Tuesday, Feb. 2 at 10:45 p.m. (9:45 a.m. Wednesday, Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The latest Progress joins the Progress 35 resupply ship and two Russian Soyuz spacecraft at the station. The Soyuz spacecraft are serving as return vehicles for the five Expedition 22 crew members on the orbiting laboratory.

The ISS Progress 36 unpiloted spacecraft approaches International Space Station for docking. Credit: NASA TV

Once the cargo is unloaded from it, Progress will be filled with trash and station discards. It is scheduled to be undocked from the station in May, and like its predecessors, deorbited and burned in Earth's atmosphere.

Throughout the week, the Expedition 22 crew continued preparations for the arrival of space shuttle Endeavour and the STS-130 crew. During STS-130, the combined shuttle and station crews will work to install the Italian-built Tranquility node and the seven-windowed Cupola. Endeavour is slated to launch Sunday, Feb. 7 at 4:39 a.m. from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and dock with the station early Tuesday, Feb. 9.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition22/p36_dock.html

Expedition 22 Dress Rehearsal

JSC2009-E-258623 (10 Dec. 2009)--- At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Expedition 22 NASA Flight Engineer Timothy J. Creamer (left), Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov (center) and Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency take a moment for photographs following a fit check of their Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft at the launch site’s integration facility Dec. 10, 2009. The trio are scheduled to launch to the International Space Station December 21 for a six-month stay on the complex. They will join Expedition 22 Commander Jeffrey Williams of NASA and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev, who have been on the station since October. Photo credit: NASA/Victor Zelentsov

JSC2009-E-258621 (10 Dec. 2009) --- At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Expedition 22's astronaut Timothy J. Creamer (left), flight engineer; Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov (center) and Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi (right) of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency review the status of their spacecraft’s systems following a suited dress rehearsal and fit check at the launch site’s integration facility Dec. 10, 2009. The three are scheduled to launch to the International Space Station December 21 on the Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft for a six-month stay on the complex. They will join Expedition 22 Commander Jeffrey Williams of NASA and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev, who have been on the station since October. Photo credit: NASA/Victor Zelentsov

JSC2009-E-258622 (10 Dec. 2009) --- At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, NASA Flight Engineer Timothy J. Creamer checks out the systems inside the Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft during a dress rehearsal at the launch site Dec. 10, 2009 in preparation for launch December 21 to the International Space Station. Creamer will launch with Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency for a six-month stay on the complex. They will join Expedition 22 Commander Jeffrey Williams of NASA and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev, who have been on the station since October. Photo credit: NASA/Victor Zelentsov

JSC2009-E-258620 (10 Dec. 2009) --- At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Expedition 22 Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency undergoes a pressure and leak check of his Russian launch and entry suit Dec. 10, 2009 as he prepares for launch to the International Space Station on the Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft December 21. Noguchi will launch with Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov and NASA astronaut Timothy J. Creamer, flight engineer, for a six-month stay on the complex. They will join Expedition 22 Commander Jeffrey Williams of NASA and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev, who have been on the station since October. Photo credit: NASA/Victor Zelentsov

JSC2009-E-258619 (10 Dec. 2009)--- At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Expedition 22 Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov (left) and Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency take a moment during their suited dress rehearsal activities Dec. 10, 2009 as they prepare for launch December 21 along with NASA’s Timothy J. Creamer on the Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft to the International Space Station. They will join Expedition 22 Commander Jeffrey Williams of NASA and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev, who have been on the station since October. Photo credit: NASA/Victor Zelentsov

JSC2009-E-258618 (10 Dec. 2009) --– At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the prime and backup crews for Expedition 22 meet with Russian space officials in their suit up and integration facility after inspecting their Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft on Dec. 10, 2009. From left to right are prime crew members NASA Flight Engineer Timothy J. Creamer, Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and their backups, NASA’s Doug Wheelock, Russian Anton Shkaplerov and Japan’s Satoshi Furakawa.

Launch of Creamer, Kotov and Noguchi to the International Space Station is scheduled for December 21, 2009 to begin a six-month stay on the complex. They will join Expedition 22 Commander Jeff Williams of NASA and Russian cosmonaut Max Suraev, who have been on the station since October. Photo credit: NASA/Victor Zelentsov

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/multimedia/exp22_dress_rehearsal.html

Off-Duty Day for Station Crew

Expedition 22 Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineer Max Suraev of the two-person International Space Station crew enjoyed their second of two off-duty days Wednesday.

Three more crew members, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi and NASA astronaut T.J. Creamer, all flight engineers, are scheduled to launch on the Soyuz TMA-17 Dec. 20 and will arrive at the station Dec. 23.

Meanwhile, Expedition 21 crew members Frank De Winne, Roman Romanenko and Bob Thirsk arrived in Star City, Russia about 10 a.m. EST (about 6 p.m. Moscow time) Wednesday and were reunited with their families.

De Winne, Romanenko and Thirsk returned to Earth aboard the Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft at 2:15 a.m. Tuesday, landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Expedition 21 Crew Lands in Kazakhstan

Expedition 21 Flight Engineer and Soyuz Commander Roman Romanenko, European Space Agency Flight Engineer Frank De Winne and Canadian Space Agency Flight Engineer Robert Thirsk have returned to Earth, landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan in their Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft. Landing occurred at 2:15 a.m. EST Tuesday, 1:15 p.m. Kazakhstan time.

All three crew members were reported to be in good condition. Due to icy conditions at the landing site, the landing support team recalled its helicopters to their bases in Kustanai and Arkalyk, Kazakhstan. Instead the team arrived in all-terrain vehicles from nearby Arkalyk to extract the Expedition 21 crew members from the Soyuz crew module.

Romanenko, De Winne and Thirsk spent 188 days in space, 186 of those aboard the orbiting International Space Station. The three arrived at the station in May as part of Expedition 20, which marked the start of six-person crew operations aboard the station. With their arrival, all five of the international partner agencies – NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) – were represented on orbit for the first time.

Romanenko, a cosmonaut with Roscosmos, served as a flight engineer for Expeditions 20 and 21. He was selected as a test-cosmonaut candidate of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center Cosmonaut Office in December 1997. The son of veteran Cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko, he qualified as a test cosmonaut in November 1999.

Image above: The Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft carrying Flight Engineers Frank De Winne, Roman Romanenko and Robert Thirsk lands in the steppes of Kazakhstan. Credit: Roscosmos/NASA TV

De Winne, an ESA astronaut, served as a flight engineer for Expeditions 20 and 21 and commander for Expedition 21. He spent nine days aboard the station in 2002 as a member of the Odissea mission arriving on a new spacecraft, the Soyuz TMA-1, then leaving on an older Soyuz TM-34.

Thirsk, a CSA astronaut, served as a flight engineer for Expeditions 20 and 21. In 1996, Thirsk flew as a payload specialist astronaut aboard space shuttle mission STS-78, the Life and Microgravity Spacelab mission.

After traveling back to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, the crew members will be reunited with their families and start their reorientation to a gravity environment after a half year off the planet.

Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineer Maxim Suraev remain on the station, comprising the Expedition 22 crew as a two-man contingent for three weeks until the arrival Dec. 23 of Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, NASA’s T.J. Creamer, and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, who will launch to the station Dec. 20 on the Soyuz TMA-17 craft.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition21/exp21_land.html

Expedition 21 Crew Lands in Kazakhstan; Space Junk No Threat to Station

As the International Space Station’s smaller, two-person, Expedition 22 crew enjoyed its first full day alone in orbit Tuesday, Mission Control monitored a small piece of space junk until tracking updates showed it would not come close enough to require precautions.

At 11:25 a.m. EST, Flight Director Dana Weigel decided not to awaken the crew based on the latest tracking data on the piece of a Russian Cosmos satellite, estimated to be less than four inches in diameter. Mission Control determined the probability of a collision was so low that there was no need to have the crew make a precautionary move into their Soyuz spacecraft, close hatches and be ready to depart the station.

The debris had been so small that tracking sensors initially had trouble providing reliable information about how close it might come to the station, but best estimates were that the closest approach would be about 1 kilometer away at 1:19 p.m.

Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineer Max Suraev were informed of the possible close pass before they went to bed at 2:30 a.m. following the departure of crewmates Frank De Winne, Roman Romanenko and Bob Thirsk who returned to Earth aboard their Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft northeast of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan at 2:15 a.m. (1:15 p.m. Kazakhstan time). Williams and Suraev were scheduled to enjoy the first of two full days off Tuesday.

The U.S. Space Command routinely tracks space debris in orbit around the Earth, and reports to NASA any possible "conjunctions" or close passes to the space station.

NASA has a set of long-standing guidelines that are used to assess whether the threat of such a close pass is sufficient to warrant evasive action or precautions to ensure the safety of the crew.

These guidelines essentially draw an imaginary box, known as the "pizza box" because of its flat, rectangular shape, around the space station. This box is about half a mile deep by 15 miles across by 15 miles tall (0.75 x 25 x 25 kilometers). When predictions indicate that the debris will pass close enough for concern and the quality of the tracking data is deemed sufficiently accurate, Mission Control centers in Houston and Moscow work together to develop a prudent course of action.

Image above: Kazakh authorities give a warm welcome to the Expedition 21 crew members following their return to Earth aboard the Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft. Pictured, left to right, are Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk, flight engineer; Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, flight engineer; and European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne. Photo credit: ESA/Stephane Corvaja

Sometimes these encounters are known well in advance and there is time to move the station slightly, known as a "debris avoidance maneuver" to keep the debris outside of the box. Other times, the tracking data isn’t precise enough to warrant such a maneuver or the close pass isn’t identified in time to make the maneuver. In those cases, the control centers may agree that the best course of action is to move the crew into the Soyuz spacecraft that are used to transport crew members to and from the station so that they could isolate those spaceships from the station by closing hatches, and then leave the station if the debris were to collide with the station and cause a loss of pressure in the life-supporting module. The Soyuz act as lifeboats for crew members in the event of an emergency.

Mission Control also has the option of taking additional precautions, such as closing hatches between some of the station’s modules, if the likelihood of a collision is great enough.

If the tracking data indicates any extra precautions are needed updates will be provided on the web and NASA TV as appropriate.

Meanwhile, De Winne, Romanenko and Thirsk were met by the Russian Search and Recovery Forces in all-terrain vehicles and were extracted quickly from the upright Soyuz. Russian helicopters normally used for recovery operations were grounded due to low clouds and freezing temperatures.

After being extracted from the Soyuz, the crew was then driven back to Arkalyk to spend the night. On Wednesday (Tuesday night, U.S. time), the crew will helicopter from Arkalyk to Kustanai, and then fly on the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center plane to Chkalovsky Airfield near their training base in Star City, Russia, outside Moscow for reunions with their families and dignitaries and the start of a rehabilitation period. Flight surgeons report that the crew is in excellent shape.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html