Expedition 29 Crew Lands

Russian support personnel work to help get crew members out of the Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft shortly after the capsule landed with Expedition 29 Commander Mike Fossum and flight engineers Sergei Volkov and Satoshi Furukawa in a remote area outside of the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, at 9:26 p.m. EST on Monday, Nov. 21, 2011 (8:26 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011, Kazakhstan time). NASA astronaut Fossum, Russian cosmonaut Volkov and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Furukawa are returning from more than five months aboard the International Space Station where they served as members of the Expedition 28 and 29 crews.
 
Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Space Station Trio Lands Safely in Kazakhstan

Michael Curie
Headquarters, Washington

Kelly Humphries

Johnson Space Center, Houston

HOUSTON -- Three International Space Station crew members safely returned to Earth on Monday, wrapping up nearly six months in space during which NASA and its international partners celebrated the 11th anniversary of continuous residence and work aboard the station.

Expedition 29 Commander Mike Fossum, Flight Engineers Satoshi Furukawa of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Sergei Volkov of the Russian Federal Space Agency landed their Soyuz spacecraft in frigid conditions on the central steppe of Kazakhstan at 8:26 p.m. CST Nov. 21 (8:26 a.m. Kazakhstan time, Nov. 22). The trio arrived at the station on June 9. They spent 167 days in space and 165 days on the complex. Volkov, a two-time station crew member, now has accumulated 366 days in space.

Before leaving the station, Fossum handed over command to NASA's Dan Burbank, who leads Expedition 30. Burbank and Flight Engineers Anatoly Ivanishin and Anton Shkaplerov of Russia will continue research and maintenance aboard the station.

The remaining Expedition 30 crew members, NASA astronaut Don Pettit, European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers, and cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, are scheduled to launch Dec. 21 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and dock with the station on Dec. 23.

To follow Twitter updates from Burbank, visit http://twitter.com/AstroCoastie.

To view social media updates from Fossum's mission, visit http://twitter.com/astro_aggie and http://go.nasa.gov/oZgHtl.

For more information about Expedition 29 and the space station, visit http://www.nasa.gov/station.

- end -

Cosmonauts Conduct Spacewalk

Cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Alexander Samokutyaev (out of frame), attired in Russian Orlan spacesuits, conducted a spacewalk on Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2011, on the Russian segment of the International Space Station. During the six-hour, 23-minute spacewalk, the Expedition 28 flight engineers moved a cargo boom from one airlock to another, installed a prototype laser communications system and deployed an amateur radio micro-satellite.

Image Credit: NASA

NASA Television To Broadcast Space Station Spacewalk

Michael Curie

Headquarters, Washington     

 

Kelly Humphries

Johnson Space Center, Houston

HOUSTON -- Two cosmonauts will conduct a six-hour spacewalk on Wednesday, Aug. 3, to continue outfitting the Russian segment of the International Space Station. NASA Television will broadcast the spacewalk beginning at 9 a.m. CDT.

Expedition 28 Russian Flight Engineers Sergei Volkov and Alexander Samokutyaev will install laser communications equipment and replace experiments on the Zvezda service module. They also will retrieve a rendezvous antenna, relocate a boom structure to aid future spacewalks and deploy a small satellite equipped with an amateur radio transmitter and a student-built experiment.

The duo will wear Russian Orlan spacesuits and will emerge from the Pirs docking compartment airlock at about 9:30 a.m. The spacewalk will be the third for Volkov, who performed two spacewalks as Expedition 17 commander in 2008. This will be the first spacewalk for Samokutyaev.

For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

For information about the International Space Station, visit http://www.nasa.gov/station.

- end -

Atlantis on Final Path to Station

Commander Chris Ferguson and the crew of space shuttle Atlantis performed the Terminal Initiation burn at 8:29 a.m. EDT, firing the left Orbital Maneuvering System engine for 12 seconds to place the shuttle on the final path for its 11:07 a.m. docking to the International Space Station, which is about eight miles away.

When Atlantis is about 600 feet from the station, Ferguson will guide the shuttle through a backflip rotation to expose the heat shield to station crew members who will snap high resolution digital photographs. Flight Engineers Sergei Volkov, Mike Fossum and Satoshi Furukawa will use cameras with 1,000 mm, 800 mm and 400 mm lenses, respectively, to photograph Atlantis’ upper and lower surfaces through windows in the Zvezda Service Module. The photos will be transmitted to Mission Control in Houston for evaluation by imagery experts and mission managers to determine whether the heat shield sustained any damage during launch.

Docking Day Arrives for STS-135 Crew

The crew of space shuttle Atlantis awoke at 3:29 a.m. EDT to “Mr. Blue Sky” by the Electric Light Orchestra, played for Commander Chris Ferguson.

Today is docking day in space. The terminal initiation burn at 8:29 a.m. will put the shuttle on the final course to link up with the International Space Station at about 11:07 a.m.

Ferguson will fly Atlantis through an intricate approach for docking. After a series of jet firings to fine-tune the shuttle’s path, Atlantis will arrive at a point about 600 feet directly below the station at about 10:06 a.m. Ferguson then will perform the rendezvous pitch maneuver, a one-degree-per-second rotational “backflip” to enable Expedition 28 crew members to snap hundreds of high resolution photographs of the shuttle’s heat shield and other areas of potential interest. Imagery analysts will pore over the photos to determine the health of the shuttle’s thermal protection system.

Once the rotation is completed, Ferguson will fly Atlantis upward and in front of the station before slowly backing in for docking. At 1:19 p.m., hatches will be opened between the two spacecraft. Along with Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley, shuttle Mission Specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim will join the Expedition 28 crew: Commander Andrey Borisenko and Flight Engineers Alexander Samokutyaev and Sergei Volkov of Russian, Satoshi Furukawa from Japan, and NASA’s Ron Garan and Mike Fossum.

The combined crew of 10 will begin more than a week of docked operations, transferring supplies and equipment to the station from Atlantis’ middeck and the Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module, which will be transferred from the cargo bay and installed on the station’s Harmony node early Monday. Once 8,000 pounds of cargo are unloaded from Raffaello, it will be packed with waste items from the station and placed back in the cargo bay for return to Earth.

Lift Off

The Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early Wednesday, June 8, 2011, (4:12 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, June 7) carrying Expedition 28 Soyuz Commander Sergei Volkov of Russia, NASA Flight Engineer Mike Fossum and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Flight Engineer Satoshi Furukawa to the International Space Station.

Image Credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi

New Space Station Crew Members Launch from Kazakhstan

Michael Curie

Headquarters, Washington                                        

 

Kelly Humphries

Johnson Space Center, Houston

HOUSTON -- NASA astronaut Mike Fossum, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov and Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa launched to the International Space Station at 3:12 p.m. CDT Tuesday (2:12 a.m. local time, Wednesday) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Fossum, Furukawa and Volkov - the Soyuz commander- are scheduled to dock their spacecraft with their new home at 4:22 p.m. Thursday, June 9. They will join Expedition 28 commander Andrey Borisenko and flight engineer Alexander Samokutyaev of the Russian space agency and Ron Garan of NASA. The trio has been aboard the station since April 6.

On Thursday, coverage of the Soyuz docking will begin on NASA Television at 3:30 p.m. NASA TV coverage of the hatches opening and the welcoming ceremony aboard the orbiting laboratory will begin at 8:30 p.m.

The six-person crew will continue the uninterrupted presence of humans on the station since Nov. 2, 2000, conducting expanded scientific research and station maintenance activities. The station residents also will welcome the crew of the last space shuttle flight, Atlantis' STS-135 mission, targeted to launch July 8. The shuttle will deliver critical supplies in the Italian-built Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module and support spacewalks by Fossum and Garan to retrieve a failed cooling system pump module, which Atlantis will return to Earth for analysis.

Garan, Borisenko and Samokutyaev, who launched to the station April 4, will return to Earth in September. Before departing, Borisenko will hand over command of the station to Fossum for Expedition 29, which begins when the Soyuz TMA-21 undocks.

NASA astronaut Dan Burbank and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin will join Fossum, Volkov and Furukawa to complete the Expedition 29 crew in September.

Fossum will blog about his experiences while aboard the space station. His first blog entry will be posted later today at http://blogs.nasa.gov.

For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

For more information about Expedition 29 and the space station, visit http://www.nasa.gov/station.

To follow Twitter updates from Expedition 28-29 crew member Garan, visit http://twitter.com/Astro_Ron.

- end -

In the Light of the Sun

The Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft is seen at the launch pad after being raised into vertical position on Sunday, June 5, 2011, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The launch of the Soyuz spacecraft with Expedition 28 Soyuz Commander Sergei Volkov of Russia, NASA Flight Engineer Mike Fossum and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Flight Engineer Satoshi Furukawa is scheduled for Tuesday, June 7, 2011.

Image Credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi

Expedition 28 Crew Departs Star City

Expedition 28 crew members--Flight Engineer Satoshi Furukawa, left, Soyuz commander Sergei Volkov, center, and Flight Engineer Mike Fossum--answer reporters' questions during a press conference held on the grounds of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, Wednesday, May 25, 2011 in Star City, Russia. The crew later departed for Baikonur, Kazakhstan, in preparation for their June launch to the International Space Station.

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

International Space Station Crew Holds News Conference

Stephanie Schierholz

Headquarters, Washington

 

Nicole Cloutier-Lemasters

Johnson Space Center, Houston

HOUSTON -- Three crew members launching in May to live and work aboard the International Space Station will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. CST on Monday, March 21, at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The briefing will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency's website. Questions will be taken from participating NASA centers.

NASA astronaut Mike Fossum, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov will participate in individual round-robin interviews, in person or by phone, following the news conference. The crew also will participate in a photo opportunity for reporters at Johnson.

Media representatives planning to attend the briefing or participate in the round-robin interviews must contact the Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111 by 5 p.m. on Friday, March 11. All of the required paperwork for international journalists must be submitted to the newsroom by March 11.

Fossum, Furukawa and Volkov are three of the six crew members who will comprise Expeditions 28 and 29. The trio is scheduled to launch to the station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on May 30.

They will join Expedition 28 NASA astronaut Ron Garan, and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyaev and Andrey Borisenko, who will stay aboard the station until mid-September.

In early October, NASA's Dan Burbank, and Russia's Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin, will join Fossum, Furukawa and Volkov to complete the Expedition 29 crew.

For astronaut and cosmonaut biographical information, visit http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios.

For NASA TV streaming video, schedules and downlink information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

For more information about the crew members and their mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition28.

- end -