posted 03-27-2015 08:32 AM               

This thread is intended for comments and questions about the Soyuz TMA-16M mission and the updates published under the topic: Soyuz TMA-16M mission to the space station.

TMA-16M is launching three crew members for Expedition 43 on the International Space Station (ISS): Roscosmos cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko, and NASA astronaut Scott Kelly.

Kelly and Kornienko will spend a year in space to better understand how the human body reacts to the microgravity environment.

TMA-16M is the 125th flight of a Soyuz spacecraft since its first flight in 1967.

For discussion of Kelly's and Kornienko's one-year mission, see here.

posted 03-27-2015 05:40 PM               

Liftoff!! Just watched my brother @StationCDRKelly launch into space.

The first manned American space flight lasted 30 minutes. And now, my brother @StationCDRKelly will spend a #YearInSpace. We've come a long way.

In these photos (credit: NASA), Giffords met with Johnson Space Center director Ellen Ochoa, astronaut Mike Fossum and flight director Tony Ceccacci.

posted 08-27-2015 04:13 PM               

Soyuz Move Sets Stage for Arrival of New Space Station Crew

Half of the residents of the International Space Station will take a spin around their orbital neighborhood in the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft on Friday, Aug. 28. NASA Television coverage will begin at 1:45 a.m. EDT (0645 GMT).

Expedition 44 commander Gennady Padalka of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Flight Engineers Scott Kelly of NASA and Mikhail Kornienko of Roscosmos will move the Soyuz from the station's Poisk module to the Zvezda docking port. The relocation maneuver will begin with undocking at 2:12 a.m. and end with redocking at 2:37 a.m. CDT.

The relocation will free up the Poisk module for the docking of a new Soyuz vehicle, designated TMA-18M, carrying three additional crew members, and scheduled to launch to the station Wednesday, Sept. 2 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Aboard will be Expedition 45 crew member Sergei Volkov of Roscosmos, and visiting crew members Andreas Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency) and Aidyn Aimbetov of the Kazakh Space Agency.

Mogensen and Aimbetov will return to Earth with Padalka on Saturday, Sept. 12 in the Soyuz TMA-16M. In March 2016, the Soyuz TMA-18M will return with Volkov, as well as one-year mission crew members Kelly and Kornienko, who arrived on station in March to begin collecting biomedical data crucial to NASA's human journey to Mars.