ISS expedition 11

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mission emblem
Mission emblem Expedition 11
Mission dates
Mission: ISS expedition 11
Crew: 2
Rescue ships: Soyuz TMA-6
Space station: ISS
Start: April 17, 2005, 02:20 UTC
Started by: Coupling of Soyuz TMA-6
The End: October 10, 2005, 21:49 UTC
Ended by: Decoupling from Soyuz TMA-6
Duration: 176d 19h 29min
Number of EVAs : 1
Total length of the EVAs: 4h 58m
Team photo
(from left) Sergei Krikaljow and John Phillips
(from left) Sergei Krikaljow and John Phillips
navigation
Previous
mission:
ISS expedition 10 		Next
mission:
ISS expedition 12

ISS Expedition 11 is the mission name for the eleventh long-term crew of the International Space Station . The crew lived and worked on board the ISS from April 17 to October 10, 2005.

team

Substitute team

Mission overview

The two spacemen Krikaljow and Phillips worked as the eleventh permanent crew on the International Space Station and carried out 39 scientific experiments. An important part of their mission was the repair of the defective Elektron oxygen treatment system. Krikalev and Phillips also received a visit from Space Shuttle Discovery ( STS-114 ) and performed a five-hour space exit on August 18, 2005 .

Mission history

The eleventh long-term crew of the International Space Station (ISS) started on April 15, 2005 with Soyuz TMA-6 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. On board were Sergei Krikalev and John Phillips, as well as the Italian ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori . After a two-day flight, the Soyuz spacecraft automatically docked at the Pirs docking module .

Soyuz TMA-6 night launch

The current ISS crew , consisting of the American Leroy Chiao and the Russian Salischan Sharipov , instructed the newcomers on the operations of the space station on the following days and handed over command while Vittori completed his research program. After a week, Vittori, who had taken a copy of the draft EU constitution with him on behalf of the European Union , returned to earth with Sharipov and Chiao on April 24th.

The first time Krikalev and Phillips worked with the Russian device electron. It generates the vital oxygen on board by splitting water into its components oxygen and hydrogen. Even during the previous crew it had failed repeatedly, so that the breathing air had to be enriched with oxygen from storage tanks. The space travelers also prepared the arrival of a space shuttle and practiced using the robotic arm .

Krikalev trying to repair the oxygen generator

In May, the team maintained the station's computer network and repaired the TVIS (Treadmill with Vibration Isolation and Stabilization) treadmill, which the astronauts use to keep fit, which had failed at the beginning of the month. Because electron continued to fail, the middle of the month began to generate oxygen using so-called SFOG “candles” (Solid Fuel Oxygen Generators). These release oxygen when the chemical contained in them, potassium perchlorate, is heated.

Progress M-52 takes off from the ISS

On June 15, 2005 at 20:16 UTC, the Russian transport spacecraft Progress M-52 , which had been sent to the ISS in March, was decoupled from the space station and burned up four hours later in the Earth's atmosphere. The next day the next freighter took off at 23:09 UTC: Progress M-53 docked two days later at the Zvezda module of the ISS. This time, the last 120 meters of the maneuver had to be done manually by Sergei Krikalev because a Russian ground station could not send the last navigation commands. There were 2.1 tonnes of cargo on board the 18th ISS supplier. Food (279 kilograms), oxygen (110 kilograms), water (420 liters), fuel (180 kilograms), medical equipment, fresh linen, and other necessities, including 40 SFOGs and spare parts for the oxygen generator.

Flight engineer Phillips tested a new computer program for the first time on June 27th: Clarissa will in future make the work of space travelers much easier, because commands can be given verbally. In weightlessness, for example, it is difficult to hold the manual during complicated repairs and to follow the instructions step by step if you need both hands to work. Clarissa was developed by the Ames Research Center , is controlled via a headset and understands 75 commands.

On July 19, the Soyuz spacecraft, with which the two space travelers reached the ISS, was relocated. Krikaljow and Phillips took their places in the command module, disconnected from the Pirs adapter at 10:38 UTC and reconnected to the Zarya module 30 minutes later . This transfer maneuver was necessary because Pirs was still to be used as a lock for an exit.

An analytical photo of the Discovery's heat shield

After a two-day flight, on July 28, for the first time after an interruption of two and a half years - STS-113 last visited the ISS at the end of 2002 - another US space shuttle approached the space station with STS-114 . Before the Discovery moored at PMA-2 at 11:18 UTC , Phillips and Krikaljow had to take action and photograph the orbiter's heat shield with high-resolution digital cameras. NASA ordered this item after the investigation into the Columbia crash revealed that it was caused by one or more broken tiles. Starting with this flight, the underside of the shuttle is examined several times for damage. While the Discovery commander Eileen Collins let the orbiter do a somersault 180 meters away, the ISS residents took many detailed photos that were sent to the ground control in Houston for evaluation . When the hatches were opened, the station's crew had grown to nine people.

The workload for the next week and a half was very extensive: Krikaljow and Phillips, supported by the shuttle crew, were mainly occupied with unloading and loading the multi-purpose module Raffaello, which had been delivered by Discovery with seven tons of cargo. Wendy Lawrence and Jim Kelly operated the station's robotic arm, while Steve Robinson, along with Sōichi Noguchi , supervised by Andy Thomas , performed three outboard operations. A platform was installed, a defective gyroscope was exchanged, repairs to heat protection tiles were simulated and protruding filler strips were removed from the heat shield of the ferry.

On August 6, the US space shuttle separated from the station at 7:24 UTC. After almost nine days of working together, Commander Krikaljow and flight engineer Phillips stayed on the space station. The Discovery landed at Edwards Air Force Base three days later .

John Phillips works outside the station

After a week of intensive preparation, Sergei Krikalev and John Phillips went on a spacecraft mission on August 18th. Dressed in Orlan-M spacesuits , the two space travelers left the ISS via the Pirs module at 19:02 UTC after releasing the pressure 17 minutes earlier. First a sample container was brought back into the station, which was attached to the station by the last crew eight months ago. It was one of three canisters of the Russian medical experiment Biorisk, with which the influence of space on bioorganisms was examined. Before the “dropouts” brought three more experiments back into the lock, a camera was mounted on the Zvezda module, which will in future support the coupling of the European ATV freighter - the maiden flight was planned for early 2006 at the time. On their way back, Krikaljow and Phillips took the SEED (Space Environment Exposure Device) experiments, which tested possible building materials for future spacecraft for their space suitability, MPAC (Micro-Particles Capturer), with which micrometeorites and space junk were collected, and Matroshka - a life-size phantom body in a spacesuit with which the radiation exposure of the human organism is examined (attached when exiting on February 27, 2004) - with. The laying of a bracket for the Strela-2 crane could not be tackled because the two space travelers had already fallen 45 minutes behind schedule. The exit ended after four hours and 58 minutes. For Krikaljow, who had only set the previous long-term space record of 747 days two days earlier, it was the eighth mission in free space. Phillips, on the other hand, was a novice to outboard.

The next time the two men had to prove themselves as freight forwarders: The supplies that had been delivered with the shuttle were inventoried and stowed. On the other hand, disused devices, packaging, dirty laundry and rubbish were put on the Progress freighter.

On August 23, Commander Krikalev succeeded in repairing the Wosduch apparatus, which had failed twelve days earlier. The device filters the exhaled carbon dioxide from the room air. In the meantime, the American CDRA (Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly) took over this task.

The air traffic control gave the two men a day off on August 27 - it was Sergei Krikalev's 47th birthday. He was also allowed to have two conversations with family members on earth.

On September 10th, the next mail ship, the Progress M-54, reached the space station and docked automatically at 14:42 UTC. It brought around two and a half tons of goods: including fuel (798 kilograms), equipment for scientific experiments, a new liquid container for the electron oxygen generator, current on-board documentation, clothing, 62 containers with food (including a two-person feast with Italian Parmesan cheese, Carbonade and inlaid tongues so that Krikalev could celebrate his birthday later), water (210 liters), oxygen (110 kilograms) as well as letters and parcels. Three days earlier, the two cosmonauts had decoupled the old Progress capsule from the ISS complex and let it burn up in the atmosphere.

As planned, the three-day changeover of all station computers to the latest R9 software version began on September 12, with most of the work done without the intervention of the crew. Phillips and Krikaljow had previously made backups of the hard drives of the three most important laptops and then installed the R9 update. One of the most important differences between the R8 and R9 is the change in operating system - from Solaris to Linux .

On September 15, the two astronauts repaired the Elektron device, which had been inactive for months. Under the guidance of the Russian engineers in the control center, the liquid container supplied with Progress was installed. The activation of the oxygen generator did not take place until four days later, because optimal conditions for a detailed telemetry monitoring then existed again. Commissioning went smoothly on September 19 at 13:30 UTC.

As Hurricane Rita was approaching Houston , the Johnson Space Center closed on September 21 after all staff were evacuated. As a result, the main control of the space station, which is shared by the USA and Russia, was transferred to the Russian control center Korolev . It took six days for the controllers in Houston to put their consoles back into operation.

As scheduled, the changing of the guard for Krikalev and Phillips arrived on October 3 at 17:27 UTC on board the space station: Commander William S. McArthur and his flight engineer Valeri Tokarew . The expedition 12 was accompanied by the space tourist Gregory Olsen .

On October 10, 2005 at 6:44 p.m. UTC, the hatches between the space station and the Soyuz spacecraft TMA-6 with the crew of ISS Expedition 11 and space tourist Gregory Olsen on board were closed; Soyuz docked at 9:49 p.m. UTC TMA-6 from the International Space Station. The landing took place on October 11 at 01:09 UTC in Kazakhstan , 85 km (according to other information 58 km) from Arkalik .

Sergei Krikaljow set a new long-term record with this flight. Its total flight time is now 803 days, 9 hours and 41 minutes.

See also

Web links

Commons : ISS Expedition 11  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

swell

  1. ^ Soyuz rocket launches in 2005. In: russianspaceweb.com. February 28, 2005, accessed November 9, 2018 .
  2. ↑ RIA Novosti: New ISS crew leaves Soyuz ( Memento of November 22, 2005 in the Internet Archive ), April 17, 2005 (English)
  3. ↑ NASA: International Space Station Status Report # 05-22 , April 24, 2005 (English)
  4. ↑ http://www.de.rian.ru/articles/20050530/40439957.html (link not available)
  5. ^ RIA Novosti: Spacecraft "Progress M-52" sunk in the Pacific , June 16, 2005
  6. ↑ NASA: International Space Station Status Report # 05-32 , June 18, 2005 (English)
  7. ↑ NASA: International Space Station Status Report # 05-34 , July 1, 2005 (English)
  8. ^ RIA Novosti: Soyuz spaceship successfully coupled to the Zarya module , July 19, 2005
  9. ↑ NASA: STS-114 MCC Status Report # 05 , July 28, 2005 (English)
  10. ↑ NASA: STS-114 MCC Status Report # 23 , August 6, 2005 (English)
  11. ↑ RIA Novosti: Space station crew makes spacewalk , August 19, 2005 (English)
  12. ↑ NASA: International Space Station Status Report # 05-44 , September 10, 2005 (English)
  13. ↑ RIA Novosti: Efforts to sink cargo spacecraft begin , September 7, 2005 (English)
  14. ↑ NASA: International Space Station Status Report # 05-45 , September 16, 2005 (English)
  15. ↑ SPACE.com: NASA Closes Johnson Space Center as Hurricane Approaches , September 21, 2005 (English)