ISS-Andromède

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Mission emblem
Mission emblem
Mission dates
Mission: ISS-Andromède
Crew: 1
Space station: ISS
Start: October 21, 2001, 08:59  UTC
Started by: Launch of Soyuz TM-33
The End: October 31, 2001, 04:59 UTC
Ended by: Landing of Soyuz TM-32
Duration: 9d 19h 59m
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ISS Andromède was the name of a Franco-Russian research mission in which the French space traveler Claudie Haigneré spent nine days on board the International Space Station (ISS) together with her colleagues Viktor Afanassjew and Konstantin Kosejew . The main crew of the ISS during this period was ISS Expedition 3 .

preparation

ISS Andromède was the eighth French space flight in cooperation with the Soviet Union and Russia. This flight was based on a contract dated September 1996 between the French space agency CNES and the Russian Roskosmos .

Claudie Haigneré was nominated as a crew, her replacement was the Russian cosmonaut Nadeschda Kuschelnaja . Haigneré had already completed a space flight to the Mir station with Mir-Cassiopée in 1996 . Kuschelnaja had been a cosmonaut since 1994, but had not yet completed a space flight.

Haigneré had officially switched from the French space agency CNES to ESA in the European Astronaut Corps in November 1999 , but she was released for this purely French-Russian ISS mission.

Mission history

Haigneré started with the Soyuz TM-33 spaceship with her commander Viktor Afanassjew, who carried out his fourth mission in space, and the space novice Konstantin Kosejew on October 23, 2001 for the ISS. The automatic coupling to the ISS took place two days later, where they were greeted by the crew of ISS Expedition 3. These were ISS commander Frank Culbertson from the USA and the ISS flight engineers Vladimir Deschurow and Mikhail Tyurin from Russia .

The mission served, among other things, to exchange the rescue spaceships, the Soyuz TM-32 spaceship, docked on April 30, 2001 , had almost reached its "mission limit" and thus served as a return capsule, while Soyuz TM-33 remained with the ISS. The hatches between Soyuz TM-32 and the Pirs module closed on October 30, 2001 at 22:37 UTC and the spacecraft disconnected the next day at 01:39 UTC. At 04:59 Soyuz TM-32 touched down in the Kazakh steppe.

1st day of flight

Take off from Baikonur at 8:59 UTC on board Soyuz TM-33 for a two-day trip to the ISS. In less than nine minutes, orbit was reached. Haigneré had a teddy bear with him as a talisman.

2nd day of flight

Flight phase towards the ISS. Soyuz flights took two days to reach the space station at the time. Radio contact with the Russian space control center only existed for 10-20 minutes while the spaceship was over Russian territory.

3rd day of flight

At 10:44 UTC the Soyuz spacecraft docked automatically on the ISS as planned. After opening the connection hatches at 12:16 UTC, Claudie Haigneré was the first to float from the Soyuz capsule into the space station. She became the first European woman on the ISS. The French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin as well as representatives from CNES, ESA, Roskosmos and the company RKK Energija observed the first images of the greeting from the control center in Moscow. Jospin sent congratulations to the Andromède crew.

The newcomers first brought supplies and other payloads from the Soyuz to the space station. Then the personal equipment, in particular the spacesuits and the custom-made seats, were transported to the Soyuz TM-32 return capsule.

4th day of flight

With the beginning of the scientific experiments, Haigneré began to concentrate mainly on the COGNI experiment (Cognitive Process for 3-D Orientation Perception and Navigation in Weightlessness). A problem with the keyboard delayed the experiment. The COGNI experiment aimed to gain a better understanding of how the brain uses gravity to orient itself in three-dimensional space. All three members of the Andromède crew were involved and had to look at and identify computer-generated images. The measurements are to be taken twice during the flight and compared with those on Earth (before and after the flight). The aim was to determine how the brain adapts to an environment in weightlessness.

Work was also continued on the Aquarius experiment. This experiment investigated the early development of amphibians and yeasts in weightlessness. The Cardioscience experiment examined phenomena relating to circulatory disorders that can be uncomfortable for the astronauts when they return to Earth.

5th day of flight

In the morning, Haigneré spoke to the French Minister of Science Schwartzenberg in Paris. One of the essential aspects of the Andromède mission is the collaboration with school children and students for research on the ISS and so Haigneré expressed her particular commitment to this collaboration.

With help from Earth, Haigneré continued to work on the problem with the keyboard in the COGNI experiment. A backup procedure was planned for the next day.

The Andromède crew also tested the so-called Mirsupio bag, which had already been used on the 1999 Mir-Perseus flight. In this elastic bag, smaller items can be quickly stowed away and taken out again without using a zipper or other fastening systems. The astronauts can see what is in the respective pocket through the transparent flap.

The progress of the mission was good and the crew had adapted to life on the station. Haigneré confirmed in a television interview that she was able to get used to the conditions on the ward very quickly, also because of the experiences from her mission to Mir in 1996.

6th day of flight

After the problems with the COGNI experiment had been resolved, Claudie Haigneré and her colleagues were able to begin the planned investigations in full. The tests on memory and responsiveness in weightlessness were also continued.

The Plasma Crystal Experiment (PKE), which was ongoing throughout the mission, began to take pictures of patterns of macroscopic particles in a plasma.

On that day, the International Space Station also received the 2001 Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation. The then Crown Prince of Spain, Don Felipe, congratulated the two crews in the presence of ESA astronaut Pedro Duque from a ceremony in Oviedo, Asturias.

7th day of flight

On this Saturday there was a reduced workload to allow the astronauts some rest after a busy week.

The most important event for Haigneré was a television conference on the Cité de l'espace , a space theme park in Toulouse. She answered questions from students there. During this time she was relieved of the weekly cleaning work on the station that the rest of the crews were busy with.

Data backups were made for the individual experiments.

In the evening Haigneré was able to exchange a few words with CapCom and ESA astronaut Michel Tognini .

8th day of flight

On the morning of this Sunday, Haigneré showed a video tour of the space station recorded the previous day together with Afanasiev. The video showed the Soyuz capsule at the space station with the robotic arm from Canada in the background, the modules from the Russian segment to the Destiny module and the Airlock module in which she had set up her living room and bedroom. Live she also presented the first, and at the time still new, one-euro coin from space.

She then dealt with the Aquarius experiment and carried out both tests on the COGNI experiment . During conversations with the ground station about the Plasma Crystal Experiment , she impressed with her language skills, as she switched between Russian, German and English technical terms.

10th day of flight

During the daily conference to plan the activities, Alain Labarthe, the head of the Andromède project at CNES, thanked the team. ESA astronaut Reinhold Ewald , who was in the Moscow control center during the entire mission, emphasized Haigneré's special achievement.

After problems with the Cardioscience experiment the day before, the measurements were ended prematurely after the batteries were empty. The complete data of the plasma crystal experiment have been saved for later evaluation on earth.

The Granada Crystallization Facility contributed by ESA , in which protein crystals have grown since the beginning of the mission, should return to Earth, as well as a frog and salamander larvae from the Aquarius experiment .

11th day of flight

The hatch to the space station was closed at 22:37 UTC the day before, the decoupling then took place at 01:39 UTC. The Soyuz capsule then touched down on schedule at 04:59 UTC in northern Kazakhstan.

meaning

The French space agency CNES had no other contract for further independent research missions on the ISS. In February 2008, however, flew Léopold Eyharts with the shuttle mission STS-122 to the ISS and completed a one-month stay as part of Expedition 16 .

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