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WRITTEN HISTORY FOR NEWS FROM CBS AND USED WITH AUTHORIZATION
A Soyuz rocket carrying a Russian commander, a NASA co-pilot and a cosmonaut from the United Arab Emirates left Wednesday Kazakhstan, chased the International Space Station and rushed for a perfect image at the berthing, giving the shot sending to an unprecedented annual calendar that includes up to a dozen outings in space.
Soyuz commander MS-15 / 61S, Oleg Skripochka, flying, flanked to the left by flight engineer Jessica Meir and to the right of Hazzaa Ali Almansoori, the Soyuz-FG rocket came back to life and : 57: 43. EDT (18:57 local time), the moment when the rotation of the Earth resulted in the pad in the plane of the station's orbit.
The launch came a day after the Japanese space agency launched an unmanned HTV freighter cargo ship to the station carrying a set of replacement batteries for the solar power system and laboratory equipment to repair a battery detector. cosmic rays worth $ 2 billion.
After an unhindered climb into space, Skripochka and Meir watched a four-orbit rendezvous with the space station, before settling in the back port of the Russian Zvezda module at 15:42.
Commander of Expedition 60, Alexey Ovchinin, cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano and NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Christina Koch and Drew Morgan stood close of their new teammates. The first important point on the agenda of the expanded crew is the arrival of the cargo HTV Saturday morning.
Five spacewalks are planned next month to replace 12 used batteries with six more powerful lithium-ion power packs in the HTV luggage compartment.
A half-dozen more EVAs are planned in November and December to repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, an unprecedented sequence that will take place in the midst of ongoing cargo delivery missions, extensive on-board research, exit in Russian space and possible visits of commercial crews under construction. by Boeing and SpaceX.
Meir, who holds a private pilot's license and a PhD in marine biology, served as Skripochka's co-pilot in Soyuz's cramped cockpit. He had been trained to take over in case of emergency and pilot the probe if necessary. She has also received exit training in space and hopes to be able to leave the station at some point during her stay.
Skripochka is making her third trip to the station and is expected to participate in an outing to the Russian space in November. He is a veteran of three previous EVAs.
"He's a great guy," said Meir. "He's an experienced cosmonaut, so he brings a lot of knowledge and experience. This is my first space flight and Hazzaa Ali Almansoori, the first ever UAE astronaut, is also new, having trained for just one year as an astronaut. So we often turn to Oleg for advice.
Almansoori is the tenth "Spaceflight participant" to visit the lab complex and the first since Guy Laliberte of Cirque du Soleil in 2009.
"This mission is an important step, for me personally and for my country, the United Arab Emirates, and for the entire Arab region in general," said Almansoori in a preflight briefing. "I look forward to joining the station team, working with them daily and conducting experiments. I look forward to returning with knowledge and experience to share with everyone. "
Almansoori, jet fighter pilot, is sponsored by the UAE government. But as for previous "space tourists", it will benefit from a relatively short orbit stay – eight days – before returning to Earth on Oct. 3 with Ovchinin and Hague, who complete a mission of 202 days.
Ovchinin, The Hague and Koch took off on March 14 aboard the Soyuz MS-12 / 58S spacecraft. Koch's stay aboard the station was extended until February and she will join Skvortsov and Parmitano to return home aboard their Soyuz MS-13 / 59S spacecraft. after almost a year – 328 days – in space.
Koch will set a new record for the longest flight of a single woman on December 28th, surpassing Peggy Whitson's mark in 289 days.
Almansoori will occupy Koch's seat on the MS-12 / 58S ferry on 3 October. Morgan, who launched Skvortsov and Parmitano on July 20, will join Skripochka and Meir on their return to Earth next April. His flight will last 255 days.
The launch of Soyuz on Wednesday, as well as the Japanese launch of a HTV freighter Tuesday (US time), gives the kickoff to one of the most challenging station programs ever attempted with up to ### 39, to 11 exits in the space planned from here to the end of the year and a Russian EVA in November.
In addition to the arrival of the HTV-8 on Saturday, the crew is expected to accommodate three more freighters and possibly the Boeing CST-100 Starliner Ferry if NASA allows its launch before the end of the day. 39, year for an unexpected flight test for a long time.
Boeing and SpaceX both build commercial ferry vessels to end NASA's dependence on the Soyuz. But the program has had a series of funding shortfalls and technical problems, and it has not yet been clarified whether either company would decide to launch astronaut crews during the first test flights.
This is a critical issue for NASA, as the Russians plan to launch only two Soyuz satellites next year, one in March and the other in October. In the absence of an American ferry, the crew of the station will grow from six to three in April when Skripochka, Meir and Morgan return to Earth.
The first SpaceX piloted test flight, known as the Demo-2, is on hold following an explosion during an April ground test that destroyed an older vehicle. The Demo-2 mission, regardless of its final destination, will transport two NASA astronauts to the station for an eight-day mission.
The first piloted test flight from Boeing, a mission known as CFT, will last six months. It is on this flight that NASA expects the station to remain staffed until one or both companies begin the rotation flights of operational crews.
"A lot of meetings with the sales teams have been a little changing lately," Meir said. "But it looks like we should be attending the (non-piloted) flight on Boeing. I believe that this will happen during our mission and that I receive training on the ground to ensure the success of this mission.
"Of course, we also hope to meet some of the first commercial crew astronauts during our mission. It would be excellent. … The key is to be flexible and to be able to adapt. It's something that our training really allows us to do. We will be ready for any scenario.
The next spacewalk is the biggest challenge in the short term: it takes five batteries to install the batteries on board the HTV-8 satellite and half a dozen to repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a high priority experience in particle physics mounted on the farm of the station.
The AMS instrument was not designed to be repaired by astronauts who are walking in space. NASA planners said the EVAs needed to repair a failed pump and make further upgrades, which represents the most complex space exits since the Hubble Space Telescope repair. The AMS EVA will be realized by Parmitano and Morgan.
The battery installation is not technically complex, but it poses additional problems because it requires astronauts to work close to the reach of the robot arm at the left end of the solar structure. from the station. NASA has not yet named the astronauts who will do the battery work, but Meir, Koch and Morgan have all been trained.
"I'm really looking forward to going out into space, because that's really what I've always planned to do, in fact, all my life," said Meir.
The station's power plant stretches across a football field and includes eight huge solar wings, four at each end, arranged in pairs. The dies rotate like idling wheels when the station flies over its orbit to maximize the amount of sunlight reaching the solar cells.
When the station is in the light of the sun, the power supply is directly fed by the myriad of electrical systems of the laboratory. At the same time, they recharge four sets of massive batteries housed at the base of each set of dies. When the station enters orbital darkness, the stacks sink seamlessly to keep the station powered.
The station's eight power supply channels were originally powered by 48 nickel-hydrogen – NiH2 – batteries, six per channel. Twenty-four batteries, divided into two sets of 12, were installed at the base of the solar generator wings on the starboard side or on the right side of the station's main farm, with two sets of 12 units on the left or side left.
But the original batteries have lost power over the years and NASA is replacing the four sets with 24 more efficient lithium-ion batteries, Li-Ion. Replacement units are twice as good, so you only need six per game.
The HTV-6 cargo ship delivered the first set of replacements in December 2016. They were installed on the starboard 4 or S4 solar generator segment during two spacewalks in January 2017. NASA installed a second game delivered by the cargo HTV-7. ship, last September on port 4, or P4 bays.
The third set, launched Tuesday, will be installed at the far left, or at port 6, of the farm segment.
Assuming the work is running smoothly, NASA officials hope to begin repair work at AMS early or mid-November. Five to six outings in the space may be necessary.
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, with a budget of $ 2 billion, is led by Nobel laureate Samuel Ting. It was designed to detect high energy cosmic rays and measure any antimatter likely to know more about dark matter, black energy and, by extension, the evolution of the cosmos. . The instrument was brought to penultimate mission of the shuttle and installed in May 2011
"It's a pretty incredible machine. It actually measures high energy radiation, cosmic rays from different stars, it looks for evidence of antimatter and dark matter to start answering more questions about the origin of our universe, "Meir said. .
"Unfortunately, one of the vital pumps for the thermal control system of this instrument has failed. Well, it's not broken yet, but it's degrading. So we will do a series of exits in space during the mission to repair this pump. … It was not designed to be repaired (in space). "
This makes the work "a bit like in the Hubble Space Telescope scenario, in which you have not actually designed a tool or interface for the telescope," said Meir. "So it's a very complex and difficult outing in the space, and we're very happy to lead it during our mission."
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