ISS - Expedition 39 Mission patch / ROSCOSMOS - Soyuz TMA-11M Mission patch.
May 13, 2014
Three Expedition 39 crew members are on their way back to Earth after more than six months aboard the International Space Station.
Image above: A Russian Soyuz spacecraft is seen docked to the International Space Station, as photographed by one of the Expedition 39 crew members aboard the orbital outpost.Image Credit: NASA.
Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA undocked their Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft from the Rassvet module on the Earth-facing side of the station at 6:36 p.m. EDT. At the time of undocking the complex was orbiting 261 statute miles over Mongolia.
Station Crewmates Board Soyuz for Journey Home
A deorbit burn at 9:04 p.m. will put the Soyuz on track for a parachute-assisted landing in the steppe of Kazakhstan southeast of Dzhezkazgan at 9:58 p.m. (7:58 a.m. Wednesday, Kazakh time). The landing will complete a journey of over 79 million statute miles and more than 3,000 orbits of the Earth for the trio since launching to the station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan back on Nov. 7.
Image above: Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin and Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata close the hatch to Soyuz as they and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio prepare for the return to Earth after more than six months aboard the International Space Station. Image Credit: NASA TV.
Learn more about Soyuz landings: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/soyuz/landing.html
Live NASA Television coverage of the Expedition 39 landing begins at 8:45 p.m.
Watch NASA TV: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv
The undocking marked the end of Expedition 39 and the start of Expedition 40 under the command of NASA astronaut Steve Swanson. Wakata, the first Japanese commander of the station, passed the helm of the orbiting complex over to Swanson during a change of command ceremony Monday afternoon. After making their final farewells, Wakata, Mastracchio and Tyurin boarded their Soyuz, and the crews closed the hatches between the vehicles at 3:26 p.m. Tuesday.
Expedition 39 Soyuz Undocks from Station
Swanson and his crewmates, Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev of Roscosmos, will operate the station as a three-person crew for two weeks until the arrival of three new crew members -- Reid Wiseman of NASA, Max Suraev of Roscosmos and Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency. The trio of new flight engineers, who are wrapping up pre-flight activities in Star City, Russia, will fly to Baikonur on Thursday to begin the homestretch of preparations for their May 28 launch to the station.
Image above: This Russian control panel shows the view of the International Space Station from the departing Soyuz spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA TV.
Samples from the ongoing microbiome investigation will return on the Soyuz TMA-11M. The microbiome study looks at the impact of space travel on the immune system and on human microbiomes – microbes living in and on the human body at any given time. Samples from crew members’ bodies and the space station environment are taken periodically to monitor changes in the immune system and microbiomes. The results of this study may add to research on health impacts to people who live and work in extreme environments on Earth, and help with research on early disease detection, metabolic function and immune system deficiency.
For more information about the International Space Station (ISS), visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
Images, Video, Text, Credit: NASA / NASA TV / ROSCOSMOS.
Best regards, Orbiter.ch
