ISS - Expedition 44 Mission patch.
July 17, 2015
The Expedition 44 crew is back at work after taking precautions as a piece of orbital debris safely passed the International Space Station this morning. Meanwhile, three new crew members are conducting final preparations before next week’s launch to the orbital laboratory.
Image above: One-Year crew members Mikhail Kornienko (left) and Scott Kelly talk to journalists on Earth Thursday morning about their year-long mission and the Pluto flyby. Watch the interview video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v64H35RDtR8 Image Credit: NASA TV.
Mission Control in Houston tracked a fragment of an old weather satellite and predicted a possible conjunction with the station at 8:01 a.m. EDT. Flight Director Ed Van Cise then ordered Commander Gennady Padalka and One-Year crew members Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko to take shelter in their docked Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft as a precaution. After a safe pass, the crew then went back to work resuming normal station operations.
A new trio of space station crew members arrived at the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Friday to complete mission preparations. In space, the orbital residents began a series of Cubesat deployments.
Image above: Expedition 44 crew members Kjell Lindgren , Oleg Kononenko and Kimiya Yui pose with their Sokol launch and entry suits July 11 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Image Credits: Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.
On board the International Space Station, One-Year crew member Scott Kelly set up the Japanese Kibo airlock for Cubesat deployments this week. Kelly also explored fluid physics for the Capillary Beverage study. Cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko studied liquid crystals and observed chemical reactions in the Earth’s upper atmosphere.
International Space Station (ISS). Image Credit: NASA
Back on Earth, three new Expedition 44 crew members from the U.S., Russia and Japan are counting down to their July 22 launch aboard the Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft. The trio consisting of Soyuz Commander Oleg Kononenko and Flight Engineers Kjell Lindgren and Kimiya Yui are at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for final prelaunch activities while engineers inspect their Soyuz vehicle before next week’s roll out to the launch pad.
Related links:
РОСКОСМОС: МКС ФУНКЦИОНИРУЕТ В ШТАТНОМ РЕЖИМЕ: http://www.federalspace.ru/21587/
Capillary Beverage study: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2029.html
Liquid crystals study: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/773.html
Expedition 44: https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/category/expedition-44/
One-Year Crew: https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/category/one-year-crew-2/
International Space Station (ISS): https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/tag/international-space-station/
Images (mentioned), Text, Credit: NASA.
Greetings, Orbiter.ch
