Soyuz Delivers Fresh Crew To ISS

RedOrbit: Soyuz Delivers Fresh Crew To ISS

The International Space Station (ISS) is once again host to a full house. A Russian Soyuz capsule docked at the orbiting lab yesterday to deliver cosmonaut Sergei Volkov, NASA astronaut Mike Fossum and Japan’s Satoshi Furukawa, AP is reporting.

This brings the number of crew at the station to six as they join station commander Andrey Borisenko, cosmonaut Alexander Samokutyaev and NASA’s Ron Garan, who have been aboard the station since April 6. The full crew will orbit 220 miles above the surface of the Earth and run their experiments until a fresh crew is sent up to relieve them later this year.

The ISS is being prepared for a visit from the final shuttle mission in July. NASA’s Atlantis shuttle is due to arrive July 10 for an eight-day stay and is devoted to delivering a year’s worth of supplies to the outpost, Reuters reports. The mission will end 30 years of shuttle flight

After this final flight for the shuttle program, the NASA intends to allow commercial firms to begin delivering cargo to the outpost. The extra supplies are being stockpiled in case of any last-minute delivery delays.

Human flights to the ISS will be the sole responsibility of the Russian Soyuz crafts until the shuttle replacement program gets off the ground. It is expected to be several more years until the US is ready to launch with that delivery platform, AFP reports.

This Soyuz launch is Russia’s first manned space flight under new Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin after Perminov’s sacking in April. Popovkin is in charge of reforming an agency still reeling from a string of embarrassing space failures in recent times.

It was only last December when three navigation satellites crashed into the ocean instead of reaching orbit. This and other technical issues cast a shadow on the 50th anniversary year in 2011 of Yuri Gagarin’s first space flight, still celebrated in Russia as one of its greatest technological achievements.

However a new version of the Soyuz spacecraft has been used to ferry crew and equipment to the ISS. The new spacecraft has a new onboard movement control and navigation system as well as a new onboard measuring system and has a greater cargo capacity than previous Soyuz spacecraft.