posted 11-16-2016 05:23 PM               

Soyuz MS-03: viewing, questions, comments

This thread is intended for comments and questions about the Soyuz MS-03 mission.

Soyuz MS-03 will launch three new crewmembers to the International Space Station: Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, NASA's Peggy Whitson and Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency.

Soyuz MS-03 is the 132nd flight of a Soyuz spacecraft since 1967.

posted 11-18-2016 10:53 AM               

Go behind the scenes: with camera in hand, NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson draws back the curtain on pre-launch activities at the Baikonur Cosmodrome as she prepares for her second Soyuz launch to the International Space Station. Whitson gives viewers a closer look at technical aspects of the operation as well as some personal insights into getting ready to leave the planet for six months.

posted 11-19-2016 08:55 PM               

After launching Nov. 18, Kazakh time, in their Soyuz MS-03 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Expedition 50-51 Soyuz Commander Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos and Flight Engineers Peggy Whitson of NASA and Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency arrived at the International Space Station Nov. 19 and were welcomed aboard the orbital complex by station Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA and Flight Engineers Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko of Roscosmos.

posted 06-02-2017 06:56 AM               

The reins of command of the International Space Station were passed from NASA's Peggy Whitson to Fyodor Yurchikhin of Roscosmos during a ceremony on the orbital outpost on June 1.

Although Whitson is remaining on the station as an Expedition 52 crew member, Yurchikhin will serve as Expedition 52 commander until he, Whitson and NASA's Jack Fischer return home in early September.

posted 06-02-2017 09:53 AM               

It is called parachute "breathing", and is quite common. It is a natural consequence of the flexibility of the parachute shape. It is initiated in the initial inflation, where the parachute will always over-inflate, and then oscillate around a mean inflation state.

posted 06-02-2017 11:08 PM               

Here is how he described it in a NASA interview in March 2015:

I came to know about the nature of this flight, the duration of this flight, already being on orbit. On the ground, prior to the flight, there were negotiations and discussions regarding the actual status of the Mir station program, but the decision was not made as to which sequence we are going to entertain when it comes to flying on the station. I was prepared that my flight might turn out to be a little bit longer, but I never thought it would twice as long.

And moreover, I came to know that not even the people on the ground, not from the Mission Control Center folks, but I came to know about that from the crew that arrived on orbit to replace my first half of the expedition.

Namely, it was French cosmonaut Jean-Pierre Haigneré, and he told me, "You know, the French space agency was thinking to fly for about a month, but recently, all of sudden, it turned out it is going to be a full blown flight — six months."