ROSCOSMOS - Soyuz TMA-07M Mission patch.
May 13, 2013
Expedition 35 Commander Chris Hadfield, Soyuz Commander Roman Romanenko and Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn undocked from the International Space Station at 7:08 p.m. EDT Monday night, wrapping up 146 days in space. A deorbit burn, planned at 9:37 p.m., will set the Soyuz on track for a landing at 10:30 p.m.
Expedition 35 Farewell and Undocking
Expedition 35 Commander Chris Hadfield, Soyuz Commander Roman Romanenko and Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn are set to return to Earth Monday night to wrap up 146 days in space and 144 days on the International Space Station.
Image above: Eight of the 12 prime Russian MI-8 helicopters flew from the staging city in Karaganda, Kazakhstan to Dzhezkazgan early Monday to pre-stage for landing. Four additional helicopters will depart Karaganda two hours prior to landing to converge on the landing zone. Credit: NASA TV.
The undocking will mark the end of Expedition 35 and the start of Expedition 36 under the command of Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, who is scheduled to remain on the station with Flight Engineers Chris Cassidy and Alexander Misurkin until September. Hadfield ceremonially handed command of the station over to Vinogradov on Sunday. Vinogradov, Cassidy and Misurkin arrived at the station aboard the Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft in March 2013.
Soyuz De-orbit and Entry shema. Credit: NASA TV
Vinogradov, Cassidy and Misurkin will remain aboard the orbiting complex as a three-person crew until the May 28 launch and docking of Expedition 36 Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg, Fyodor Yurchikhin, Luca Parmitano.
Hadfield, Marshburn and Romanenko spent their final morning aboard the station Monday packing some final items for return to Earth aboard their Soyuz spacecraft. Marshburn removed a sample canister from a Japanese protein crystal growth experiment and handed it off to his Russian crewmates to stow inside the Soyuz.
Image above: The Atlantic coastline forms the backdrop for a medium close-up of a docked Russian Soyuz spacecraft and the solar panel of a Russian Progress cargo carrier. Credit: NASA.
With the successful completion of the Binary Colloid Alloy Test-6, or BCAT-6, Hadfield stowed the experiment hardware in the Zarya module. BCAT-6 took a look at how gasses and liquids come together and separate in space. Results from this experiment may lead to improvements in the shelf-life of household products, food and medicine.
Hadfield also assisted Cassidy with a periodic fitness evaluation as flight surgeons keep track of the crew’s health during these long-duration missions. Cassidy exercised on the station’s exercise bike -- the Cycle Ergometer with Vibration Isolation and Stabilization – while Hadfield collected blood pressure measurements.
A map of the Expedition 35 landing site in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA
Cassidy also installed a new HD camera in the Destiny lab and upgraded a video encoder card in an associated computer.
Astronaut Shannon Walker, who served as an Expedition 24/25 flight engineer in 2010, talked about the preparations station crew members make before leaving the station during an interview on Space Station Live on Monday.
The spare Pump and Flow Control Subassembly (PFCS) box installed Saturday by Cassidy and Marshburn during their 5-hour, 30-minute spacewalk continues to be checked out by flight controllers, but is showing no signs of ammonia leakage at this point and is functioning normally.
Video above: Commander Chris Hadfield performs David Bowie's Space Oddity from ISS. Credits. CSA-ASC / NASA TV.
Exceptionally, to celebrate the success of the spacewalk to repair the ammonia leak, Hadfield made a music video clip with the resumption of the David Bowie song - Space Oddity.
For more information about the International Space Station (ISS), visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
Read more about Expedition 35: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition35/index.html
Read more about Expedition 36: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition36/index.html
Images (mentioned), Videos (mentioned), Text, Credit: NASA.
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