posted 10-10-2008 09:48 AM               

The Soyuz rocket mated with the Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft rolled out Friday morning to the launch pad at the Baikonaur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Launch is scheduled for 2:01 a.m. CDT on October 12.

Although Russian tradition considers it to be bad luck for the Soyuz crew -- Expedition 18 commander Mike Fincke, flight engineer Yuri Lonchakov and spaceflight participant Richard Garriott -- to witness the rollout, Garriott's father, former U.S. astronaut Owen Garriott, was there along with other family members to see the rocket's tranfer erection at the pad.

posted 10-12-2008 02:02 AM               

Fincke, the only American to launch twice on a Soyuz, will serve as commander of the six-month Expedition 18 mission. The mission's main focus will be preparing the ISS to house six crew members on long-duration missions.

As Soyuz commander, Expedition 18 flight engineer Lonchakov chose "Titan" as the TMA-13 call sign and had a polar bear doll -- a gift from his son -- as his talisman and 'zero-g indicator'. The same doll previously flew with Lonchakov on Soyuz TMA-1.

The Expedition 18 crew is scheduled to arrive at the station on Tuesday, with docking scheduled for 3:33 a.m.

After the hatches are opened, ISS 17 commander Sergei Volkov and spaceflight participant Garriott will become the first children of previous space fliers to greet each other in orbit.

Garriott is the son of former NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, who was a member of the Skylab 3 and STS-9 crews. Volkov is the son of veteran cosmonaut Alexander Volkov, who flew three Soyuz missions.

Garriott will return to Earth on October 23 with Volkov and Expedition 17 flight engineer Oleg Kononenko, who have worked aboard the station since April 10.

Garriott is also the first member of collectSPACE to fly in space after joining (in 2002)!

posted 10-12-2008 02:03 PM               

• Soyuz TMA-13: Crew portraits
  
• Soyuz TMA-13 mission patches
  
• ISS 18: Crew portraits
  
• ISS Expedition 18 insignia
  
• Richard Garriott, son of NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, flying to the space station in Oct 2008
  
• Spaceflight participant Richard Garriott's personal mission patch
  
• Richard Garriott's Challenger Center for Space Education student insignia
  
• TMA-13: Ardis Shanks' ISS Ladies patch
  
• Seiko's Spring Drive Spacewalk watch

posted 10-14-2008 10:47 AM               

ISS welcome ceremony recorded and uploaded to YouTube by collectSPACE:

posted 04-07-2009 09:37 PM               

Soyuz TMA-13 is scheduled to undock from the station at 10:52 p.m. for a landing in Kazakhstan at 2:16 a.m. Wednesday.

posted 04-08-2009 02:20 AM               

This was the first time that all three Soyuz crew members were returning for a second time from the International Space Station.

Space Station Crew Lands in Soyuz after Successful Mission

Two members of the 18th crew to live and work aboard the International Space Station and a spaceflight participant returned to Earth at 2:16 a.m. CDT Wednesday. NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, Russian cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov and spaceflight participant Charles Simonyi safely landed their Soyuz spacecraft in the steppes of southern Kazakhstan.

The Expedition 18 crew members undocked their Soyuz from the station at 10:55 p.m. April 7. The deorbit burn to slow the Soyuz and begin its descent toward Earth began at 1:24 a.m. April 8. The landing was moved to a more southerly landing site because of poor landing conditions at the original site.

Fincke commanded the Expedition 18 mission, which saw the station go to full power and begin water supply recycling. He spent 178 days in orbit on this flight and has accumulated a full year in space during his career. Launching to the station on Oct. 12, 2008, he also became the first American to fly to and from the space station twice aboard a Russian Soyuz. Fincke served almost 188 days as a flight engineer on the Expedition 9 crew, which launched April 18, 2004, and returned to Earth on Oct. 23, 2004.

Lonchakov completed his first long-duration spaceflight. He spent nearly 12 days aboard the space shuttle Endeavour in 2001. He spent nearly 11 days in space in 2002, launching aboard one Soyuz craft and landing in another while carrying different crews to the space station and back. With this mission, he has accumulated a total of more than 200 days in space.

Simonyi, an American, spent 11 days on the station under a commercial agreement with the Russian Federal Space Agency. He is the only spaceflight participant to visit the station twice.

The Expedition 18 crew worked with a variety of experiments, including human life sciences, physical sciences and Earth observation. Many of the experiments are designed to gather information about the effects of long-duration spaceflight on the human body, which will help with planning future missions to the moon and beyond. Other experiments involved practical solutions to extended mission challenges such as repairing electrical components and fighting fire in microgravity.

Before undocking, Fincke and Lonchakov bid farewell to the new station crew, Expedition 19 Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Mike Barratt, who launched to the station on a Soyuz March 26. Remaining on the station with Padalka and Barratt as an Expedition 19 crew member is Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata. Wakata launched to the orbiting laboratory on space shuttle Discovery's STS-119 mission on March 15.

The Expedition 19 crew will be joined in orbit by Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk in May, inaugurating the station's first six-person crew. It also will be the first time that crew members from all five International Space Station partners will be living aboard at the same time.

posted 04-09-2009 11:02 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Philip:
Pity there're isn't any press coverage on the return of the "space participant" who flew twice in space.

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• AP: Russia space capsule carrying US billionaire lands
  
• Space.com: Russian Spacecraft Carrying Billionaire Space Tourist Lands Safely
  
• InformationWeek: Former Microsoft Exec Returns From Space
  
• ComputerWorld: Former Microsoft exec lands safely after 14 days in space

posted 04-09-2009 03:06 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by SPACEFACTS:
Has someone seen the coordinates of the landing point?

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Planned: 48°34'N, 69°17'E; 144 km NE of Zhezkazgan
Actual: 48°33'56"N, 69°23'51"E; 151 km NE of Zhezkazgan

posted 04-10-2009 07:40 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
And the list goes on, and on, and on...

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