Look inside the Soyuz rocket while she sends astronauts to the space station

Astronauts sit in worse seats than the coach on trips to the International Space Station (ISS). A video published by the European Space Agency (ESA) proves it Monday.

It shows the launch earlier this month of Soyuz MS-09 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The indoor cameras offer a view of NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor, Commander Roscosmos Sergei Prokopyev and astronaut and flight engineer from ESA Alexander Gerst locked in the Soyuz spacecraft while he's heading to the space outpost.

The video also includes the first camera shots attached to the outside of the Soyuz rocket 50 meters high.

"The intense launch lasts less than 10 minutes, the Soyuz spacecraft is propelled over 1640 km (1020 miles) and gains 210 km (130 miles) of altitude," ESA said in notes accompanying the video. . "Every second for nine minutes, the spacecraft accelerates an average of 50 km / h (31 mph) as the rocket boosters burn their fuel and are thrown away."

While astronauts experience forces of up to 4g (four times the attraction of the Earth), Commander Soyuz uses a stick to press the buttons on the control panel because it is too far to reach with her hand. The bags above their heads are full of supplies for the ISS, the ESA noting that "all space is used" aboard the tiny spacecraft.

Oh, and you may be wondering what these little furry toys do, swaying in front of the astronauts. In addition to acting as mascots and lucky charms, they also provide the crew with an easy way to see when the spacecraft is in orbit, as they will begin to float under conditions that will make it easier for them to move. weightlessness. You can see it coming towards the end of the video.

Launch of the manual

It was a manual launch, with the Soyuz rocket propelling astronauts to their cruising speed of about 28,800 km / h (17,895 mph).

But it was a difficult trip for the trio as they had to spend two days stuck inside the spacecraft as they circled the Earth 34 times before arriving at the space station Friday, June 8th.

A faster trip of 4 orbits / 6 hours or 2 orbits / 3 hours is usually possible, but the space station positioning requirements to ensure a day landing to the Soyuz MS-07 crew at the beginning of the week launch prevented a faster trip for the new crew, reported SpaceFlight.com.

Here are the key moments of the launch, with the schedules displayed according to the timestamp at the bottom right of the video:

-00: 12 Launch command issued
-00: 10 engine turbopumps at the speed of flight
-00: 05 Maximum thrust engines
Launch of 00:00
+1: 54 Separation of the emergency rescue system
+1: 57 First separation
+2: 38 Fairing separation
+4: 48 Second stage of separation
+4: 58 Separation of the tail adapter
+8: 45 Third-stage engine shutdown in orbit
+8: 49 Separation Soyuz, deploy solar networks and antennas