Soyuz MS-17 takes a 3-hour adventure to the ISS

The 3 travelers of the Soyuz MS-17 project presented the International Space Station on a six-month project.

Soyuz MS-17 took off at a Soyuz 2. 1a thruster at Baikonur Cosmodrome, site No. 31/6, Kazakhstan at 05:45:04 UTC on October 14 (01:45:04 EDT), leading your foreign team to a very fast, two-orbit, three-hour encounter with the station.

Ultra-fast appointment method:

The launch marked a milestone for a Soyuz spacecraft, the first to use a new “ultra-fast” encounter scheme with the ISS. After a foolproof ascent into the correct orbit, the Soyuz MS-17 remained in the lab in orbit. in just two orbits (three hours), halving the time it took for the team to reach the station.

This approach takes over from the previous one in which the Soyuz spacecraft passed 4 free-flying orbits to reach the ISS in about six hours. This approach, first used with soyuz’s TMA-08M team in March 2013, on an even older approach where soyuz flew 34 orbits before reaching the ISS, leaving the team inside the small spacecraft for more than two days.

Although the Soyuz MS-17 marked the first crewed project to use the ultra-fast method, it was tested before an unmanned Progress spacecraft. Multiple Progress effectively used the two-orbit, three-hour encounter profile, starting with Progress MS-09 in July 2018.

Unfortunately, anything as undeniable as an unrated orbital insertion or a lost correction burn can precipitate ultra-fast appointments.

In March 2014, the Soyuz TMA-12M was introduced with the aim of bringing the 3 team members to the ISS using the new six-hour meeting method. However, a challenge with the Soyuz attitude formula caused the spacecraft to lose its third scheduled course correction. , which required a return to the two-day meeting plan.

The desire for Soyuz teams to arrive at the station temporarily is similar to the incredibly tight and closed nature of the vehicle. For the team inside, it is a much greater mental and physical advantage to succeed in the season as temporarily as possible. , it is perfectly safe for teams to be in Soyuz for two days to the station if necessary.

By contrast, the cars of the American advertising team Dragon and Starliner, theoretically able to reach the station so fast, do not have the same requirement, as they are much more spacious for their 4 passengers, as they are not only ISS rotation cars, but for solo missions. Also in Earth orbit.

Therefore, U. S. cars point to/point to a quieter one-day meeting flight profile with the Station, as noted in SpaceX’s Demo-1 and Demo-2 projects and is the plan for Crew-1 in November and Starliner’s orbital flight test project. 2021.

The gang:

Sergey Nikolayvich Ryzhikov:

The Soyuz MS-17 is commanded through Sergey Ryzhikov, a veteran Roscosmos cosmonaut who accumulated 173 days in the area of a long-term flight to the ISS.

Ryzhikov was born on August 19, 1974, in Bugulma, a city now known as the Republic of Tartaristan, a federal theme of the Russian Federation.

He comes from military origin, having been a fighter pilot in the Russian Air Force, where he spent more than 700 hours flying on high-performance fighter jets.

Selected through the Cosmonaut Corps in October 2006, he officially finished his in 2009, after which he was called a “test cosmonaut”.

In December 2014, he was assigned as a backup flight engineer for the ISS 47/48 expedition, which was effectively introduced in March 2016, and was subsequently assigned as a flight engineer for the ISS 49/50 expedition.

He made his first area flight on 19 October 2016 aboard soyuz MS-02. Ryzhikov served as commander of the Soyuz spacecraft and joined through Russian cosmonaut Andrei Borisenko and NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough. He spent 173 days in the area as a flight engineer on Expeditions 49 and 50 before returning to Earth in April 2017.

Ryzhikov was assigned as deputy commander of the Soyuz MS-17 in November 2019, equipment adjustments in February 2020 led to him being transferred to the main team.

He will serve as a flight engineer on the ISS Expedition and take command of the station for Expedition 64 after the departure of the Soyuz MS-16, recently scheduled for October 21.

His replacement is Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, a two-season veteran on the ISS.

Sergey Vladimirvich Kud-Sverchkov:

Sergey Kud-Sverchkov is the cosmonaut to be launched for the first time in Soyuz MS-17; will serve as a flight 1 engineer on the Soyuz spacecraft.

He was born on August 23, 1983 in Baikonur, Soviet Socialist Republic of Kazakhstan (now Republic of Kazakhstan), making it exclusive among the many travelers in the area who left Earth from the vast Kazakh steppe because he was born in the same city from where he is now introduced to the area.

After graduating from Moscow State Technical University with a degree in rocket engines in 2006, he worked for RSC Energia, the Russian company that builds the Soyuz spacecraft and rockets. He worked at Energia as an engineer until April 2010, when he decided to exercise. as a cosmonaut.

Her education ended in July 2012 and she qualified as a “test cosmonaut” the following month. He was a member of Roscosmos’ specialization and improvement organization for the ISS program until November 2019, when he was assigned to the Soyuz MS-17 support team with Ryzhikov.

As with Ryzhikov, previous team adjustments in 2020 led to him being transferred to the main team in February.

He will serve as a flight engineer on expeditions 63 and 64, and his replacement is the Russian cosmonaut Pytor Dubrovnik, who has not yet made his first flight.

Dr. Kathleen Hallisey Rubins:

The last member of the team is Flight 2 engineer Dr. Kathleen “Kate” Rubins of NASA, who spent 115 days on a long-term flight to the ISS.

Born in Farmington, Connecticut, on October 14, 1978, Dr. Rubins participated in this project on his 42nd birthday.

Rubins earned a Bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology from the University of California in 1999 and then earned a Ph. D. In Cancer Biology at Stanford University in 2005.

He worked at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, where he conducted studies on HIV-1, along with the U. S. Army’s Institute of Medical Research on Infectious Diseases. But it’s not the first time And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was part of a team that developed the first style of smallpox infection. He then led a team of viral disease scientists at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Massachusetts.

Dr. Rubins decided through NASA in 2009, as a member of the agency’s 20th astronaut organization, also known as “The Chumps. “He finished his education in November 2011, which officially fit into long-term flight assignments.

Her first flight as a flight engineer on the ISS 48/49 expeditions introduced aboard soyuz MS-01, the first flight of the new Soyuz MS spacecraft, on July 7, 2016 alongside Russian cosmonaut Anatoli Ivanishin and Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi. At launch, she became the sixty-seventh woman to fly into space.

During the 48/49 expeditions, she was the first user to make DNA series in the area and did two walks through the area along with NASA astronaut Jeffrey Williams.

Returning to Earth throughout Ivanishin and Onishi on October 30, 2016. Su reallocation for a moment, the flight arrived exceptionally temporarily for a NASA astronaut of the existing Space Station era alone, just 3 years after returning from his first flight. member of his astronaut organization to fly twice in space.

Yours is NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei.

The mission:

The launch marked the flight of the Soyuz 2. 1a propeller team, which officially succeeded veteran Soyuz-FG with the launch of soyuz MS-16 in April 2020.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has been sweeping the planet since November 2019, more precautions were taken while the team was ready for their adventure to the station. Similar precautions were taken prior to the launch of the Soyuz MS-16 and the historic SpaceX Demo. 2, any of whom left the planet in the midst of the pandemic.

Roscosmos has trained a two-member reserve team (uploaded to backup) to load the loading precautions and ensure that the release was made on time, even if a member of the main or rescue team becomes ill. Russian Cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Andrei Babkin assumed the duties of reserve commander and flight engineer 1, respectively, while NASA decided not to assign reservations to Rubins and Vande Hei.

The launch placed the Soyuz MS-17 in its original orbit, where the spacecraft separated, deployed its solar panels and communication antennas, and when it returned its position and speed knowledge to Mission Control, Moscow, to determine intelligent insertion and orbit capability. to make the appointment ultra-fast.

Once this knowledge was confirmed, the team arrived at the ISS in approximately 3 hours and 12 minutes, where they docked at Rassvet Pier at 0848 UTC (4:48 am EDT). Once docked, they will enroll in expedition 63 team members. Chris Cassidy, Anatoli Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner, who have occupied the station since April of this year and are expected to depart at the end of this month.

As members of Expedition 64, they are expected to be united through SpaceX Crew-1, the first operational rotary flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon team and NASA’s Commercial Crew program. The flight will send NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi to the ISS for a six-month stay.

Crew-1 was originally scheduled to enroll in Expedition 64 at the end of October; however, a challenge with the fuel turbines of a SpaceX Falcon nine rocket, launched in September that did not belong to NASA, resulted in a delay as soon as “from early to mid-November. “

During Expedition 64, Ryzhikov and Kud-Sverchkov must take two spacewalks, the first to perform regime maintenance in the Russian segment and a time to prepare the Pirs docking compartment for separation, as the module is programmed to leave the station. in early 2021 to make way for the arrival of Nauka’s long-delayed laboratory module.

Soyuz MS-17 and 3 team members are expected to leave the ISS in April 2021 before returning to the Kazakh steppe, with an expected total flight time of 177 days.

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