ISS expedition 33

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Mission emblem
ISS Expedition 33 Patch.svg
Mission dates
Mission: ISS expedition 33
Crew: 6th
Rescue ships: Soyuz TMA-05M , Soyuz TMA-06M
Space station: International space station
Start: September 16, 2012, 11:09 pm UTC
Started by: Decoupling from Soyuz TMA-04M
The End: November 18, 2012, 10:26 PM UTC
Ended by: Decoupling from Soyuz TMA-05M
Duration: 62d 23h 17min
Number of EVAs : 1
Total length of the EVAs: 6h, 38min
Team photo
v. l. To the right: Sunita Williams, Juri Malentschenko, Akihiko Hoshide, Evgeni Tarelkin, Oleg Nowizki and Kevin Ford
v. l. To the right: Sunita Williams, Juri Malentschenko, Akihiko Hoshide, Evgeni Tarelkin, Oleg Nowizki and Kevin Ford
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ISS Expedition 34

ISS Expedition 33 is the mission name for the 33rd long-term crew of the International Space Station (ISS). The mission began on September 16, 2012 with the decoupling of the Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft from the ISS and ended on November 18, 2012 with the decoupling of the Soyuz TMA-05M .

team

Additionally from October 25, 2012:

Substitute team

Since Expedition 20, no official replacement team has been announced due to the permanent training for the six-person crew. Unofficially, the backup crews of the two Soyuz feeder spaceships TMA-05M and TMA-06M (see there) are used as backup crews for Expedition 33. As a rule, these crews are deployed two missions later.

Mission description

During the approximately two-month mission on board the International Space Station, mainly scientific experiments were supervised and the station was kept in good condition. Most of the more than 200 current experiments run automatically or controlled from Earth. Another part deals with the physical and psychological changes that people are exposed to when they stay in weightlessness or in relative isolation for a long time. There is a large number of devices with which investigations are carried out. EKGs or EEGs are taken regularly , sometimes overnight, the body is 'x-rayed' with ultrasound , the activity of the cardiovascular system is studied, changes in the body are tracked using blood and urine samples and tried using special diets, exercise or medication to counteract muscle wasting, bone loss and a weakening of the immune system. Psychological support includes confidential conferences between space travelers and specialists on the ground, as well as filling out electronic questionnaires or taking tests on the PC.

In addition, earth exploration also played a major role, as one could react quite flexibly to certain events. Of particular interest here were extraordinary weather phenomena, environmental pollution or catastrophic events on earth. Sometimes, however, cameras were also controlled or programmed by groups of pupils or students on the ground.

Additional experiments with a manageable amount of supervision were biological studies, for example on plants, fish or bacterial cultures and physical-technical investigations. The latter included plasma crystal 3 plus, which was activated several times, especially in the last weeks of the mission. The development of charged particle clouds in weightlessness was recorded here. During this process, under various pressure and temperature conditions, agglomerations of particles formed which can resemble crystals.

From the arrival of the Soyuz TMA-06M spacecraft on October 25th, several medakas have been in a specially equipped aquarium. The fish are semi-transparent, so changes in their body are immediately visible. The biological experiments also included Bioemulsija, in which a strain of bacteria was cloned, whereby the probiotics are said to produce certain substances more effectively than their ancestors. Bacteria can also serve as biological factories for certain substances.

Freight traffic & evasive maneuvers

ATV moves away from the stern of the station

Right at the beginning of Expedition 33, preparations were made for the departure of the unmanned transport spacecraft ATV 3 Edoardo Amaldi. ATV 3 docked at the stern of the ISS on March 29 and was then unloaded. Orbit raising maneuvers were performed several times with the freighter's engines. The mean height of the runway was again increased considerably. Finally, materials and waste that were no longer needed were loaded into the ATV.

The decoupling was actually supposed to take place on September 26th, but had to be postponed by 2 days because the ATV did not respond to the command to cast off. The problem was that the command sent by radio accidentally contained the wrong spacecraft number (34 instead of 35). Of course, the ATV did not respond to the command, as it was not actually meant.

On September 28th, the casting off worked. On October 2nd, the engines were ignited for almost 14 minutes for the first brake thrust, 3 hours later for another 15 minutes. The spaceship entered dense layers of the earth's atmosphere on October 3, around 3:30 a.m. CEST, broke up and largely burned up. During the breakup, data on acceleration and temperature were recorded by a device called REBR and transmitted to a ground station via satellite phone.

On October 8, the first regular Dragon freighter took off for the ISS. During take-off, there was an engine failure on the first stage of the launcher. Even so, the spacecraft reached Earth orbit and the space station two days after take-off. After the spaceship Dragon-CRS 1 was uncoupled on October 28 and splashed down, it became known in the course of the evaluation that one of the three main computers was restarting during the flight, probably due to radiation. The failure of a GPS module is also attributed to radiation. Both systems are multiple redundant on board the spaceship. After splashing down, water seeped into a compartment with electrical components. This was apparently associated with a loss of electrical power, which heated the contents of a freezer unit from −95 ° C to −65 ° C. Apparently, however, there was no damage to the blood and urine samples contained therein.

Shortly after docking the Progress-M 17M freighter, which had started a few hours earlier, the ISS carried out an evasive maneuver on the night of November 1. The engines of the spaceship Progress-M 16M coupled to the Pirs module were used for this.

Laser communication in test mode

On October 2nd, a new communication system was tested in the Russian part. Data is transmitted to the earth by means of a laser beam. Here the impulses were received by a ground station in the North Caucasus. In this first test, a total of 2.8 GB of information was transmitted at a data rate of 128 MBit / s. According to those responsible, the successful test paves the way for a broad introduction of such systems in space travel. With laser communication systems, data transmission rates of up to 10 Gbit / s can be achieved.

Small satellites from a large satellite

3 small satellites were launched from the Japanese part of the station

On October 4th, 4 Japanese small satellites and a Cubesat from Hanoi University (Vietnam) were catapulted into space with a special device from the Kibo module. The launch system and satellites had previously been transported to the ISS by the Kounotori 3 transport spacecraft. The satellites are RAIKO , FITSat 1 , We Wish , F-1 and TechEduSat .

Outboard use

On November 1, Sunita Williams and Akihiko Hoshide disembarked from the ISS for 6 hours and 38 minutes to perform a repair. First a radiator (heat emitter) was separated from the coolant circuit and retracted. A spare radiator was then connected to the cooling circuit and extended. Both radiators are located on the lattice structure element P6 (port 6) and serve to cool the control and charging electronics housed here. P6 is one of 4 grid elements, which is equipped with 4 large solar cell panels, which provide most of the electrical energy for the ISS. In addition, Sunita Williams inspected and cleaned a swivel joint for tracking the solar cell panels so that they can always be aligned with the sun.

Completion of the mission

On November 17th, the handover of command from Sunita Williams to Kevin Ford took place. The following evening, the spacemen Juri Malenchenko, Sunita Williams and Akihiko Hoshide went into their spaceship and closed the hatches to the space station at around 8:10 pm. With the decoupling at around 11:26 p.m. CET, ISS expedition 33 finally ended; the landing took place in the early morning of November 19 at around 2:56 a.m. CET in the Kazakh steppe.

See also

Web links

Commons : ISS Expedition 33  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Expedition 33. NASA, accessed October 19, 2012 .
  2. ↑ Soyuz-TMA 06M started on time. Raumfahrer.net, October 23, 2012, accessed June 18, 2013 .
  3. ↑ Soyuz spaceship arrived at ISS. Raumfahrer.net, October 25, 2012, accessed June 18, 2013 .
  4. ↑ ATV 3 burns out. Raumfahrer.net, October 3, 2012, accessed June 18, 2013 .
  5. ↑ Klaus Donath: Ice cream for the ISS: SpaceX starts tonight. Raumfahrer.net, October 7, 2012, accessed June 18, 2013 .
  6. ↑ Dragon in space despite engine failure. Raumfahrer.net, October 8, 2012, accessed June 18, 2013 .
  7. ↑ Dragon CRS 1 arrived at the ISS. Raumfahrer.net, October 10, 2012, accessed June 18, 2013 .
  8. ↑ Dragon CRS 1 capsule safely embarked. Raumfahrer.net, October 29, 2012, accessed June 18, 2013 .
  9. ↑ Progress-M 17M on the fast path to the ISS. Raumfahrer.net, October 31, 2012, accessed June 18, 2013 .
  10. ↑ Laser communication and satellite ejection. Raumfahrer.net, October 6, 2012, accessed June 18, 2013 .
  11. ↑ Laser communication and satellite ejection. Raumfahrer.net, October 6, 2012, accessed June 18, 2013 .
  12. ↑ ISS expedition 33 ends. Raumfahrer.net, November 18, 2012, accessed June 18, 2013 .
  13. ↑ Soyuz capsule landed. Raumfahrer.net, November 19, 2012, accessed June 18, 2013 .