Me-Perseus

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mission emblem
Mission emblem
Mission dates
Mission: Me-Perseus
Crew: 1
Begin: February 20, 1999, 04:18:01  UTC
Starting place: Baikonur 1/5
Departure in: Soyuz TM-29
Space station: Me
Coupling: February 22, 1999, 05:36:16 UTC
Decoupling: August 27, 1999, 21:17:01 UTC
Return flight in: Soyuz TM-29
Landing: August 28, 1999, 12:34:20 UTC
Flight duration: 188d 20h 17min
◄ Before / After ►
Mir-Pégase ISS-Andromède

Mir-Perseus was the name for a Franco-Russian research mission during which the French spaceman Jean-Pierre Haigneré was on board the Russian Mir space station for six months .

preparation

Mir-Perseus was the seventh French space flight in cooperation with the Soviet Union or Russia. This flight was based on a contract dated September 1996 between the French space agency CNES and the Russian Roskosmos .

The space flight was initially planned for a period of four months, but was then extended to the usual six months for the Russian crew members. For the first time, a French astronaut was not just a research cosmonaut, but a flight engineer for the space station. Intensive training was necessary for this.

Jean-Pierre Haigneré was nominated as a crew, his replacement was his partner Claudie André-Dehays . Both had already completed a space flight to Mir: Haigneré at Mir-Altair in 1993, André-Dehays at Mir-Cassiopée in 1996.

Haigneré was officially transferred to the European Astronaut Corps in May 1998 , but was released for the Mir mission. André-Dehays also officially stayed with CNES.

scientific programme

As in the previous missions, a wide range of scientific studies was prepared. The experiments were accompanied by the French control center CADMOS in Toulouse .

Life science

  • PHYSIOLAB : This laboratory was used again to obtain additional data to study blood circulation.
  • COGNILAB : This device for examining the nervous system was also used on previous missions.
  • EXOBIOLOGY : In this experiment, biological samples were exposed to space radiation. An outboard deployment was necessary for launching and retrieving.
  • GENESIS : The FERTILE laboratory used this experiment to observe the development of amphibians in weightlessness.

Materials science

  • ALICE : hydrodynamic and thermal studies of fluids near the critical point .
  • COMET : An attempt should be made here to collect cometary dust on the outer shell of the space station so that it can be analyzed on Earth.

technology

  • SPICA : Electronic components should be tested under space conditions.
  • CASTOR : This device was used to measure the vibrations of the Mir in different phases: during rest, work and sports hours, but also during course corrections and coupling maneuvers.
  • TREILLIS : This was a two meter long lattice structure that floated freely in space. Sensors determined the natural vibrations and transmitted the data to the DYNALAB laboratory via an infrared connection. Various methods of vibration damping were used.
  • WSG : This German experiment examined the changes in the spine during a space flight.
  • TITUS : The solidification of metal alloys in weightlessness was observed. Like WGS, TITUS was a German experiment.
  • BSMD (Bonestiffness Measurement Device) : This ESA experiment examined changes in bone structure during flight using ultrasound measurements on the tibia every two weeks.
  • MIRSUPIO : The astronauts should test a polybag . This was also an ESA experiment.

Mission history

Replacement of the 26th team

Haigneré started with the Soyuz TM-29 spaceship together with his commander Viktor Afanassjew , who carried out his third long-term stay on board the Mir, and Ivan Bella , the first spaceman in Slovakia .

The automatic connection to the Mir took place two days later. Afanassjew, Haigneré and Bella were greeted with bread and salt by the 26th Mir regular crew: Commander Gennady Padalka and flight engineer Sergei Avdejew .

Since the 27th long-term crew under the command of Afanassjew would possibly be the last, the crew had to be increased from two to three. This meant that only Padalka would return to Earth, while Avdeev would stay on board for another period.

Haigneré's first press conference with French journalists took place on February 24th.

Padalka and Bella left the Mir space station on February 28, 1999 with the Soyuz TM-28 spacecraft .

Progress M-41

Since the mission was much longer than the previous one, it was not possible to bring all of the material to the Mir in advance, but was transported with several Progress freighters.

Progress M-41 took off on April 2, 1999 and docked with the space station two days later. The 2438 kg cargo contained:

  • DYNALAB, a device from the CASTOR experiment that examines the vibrations and accelerations within the space station. This device had been on board since 1996, but was later defective and transported to Earth with Soyuz TM-28. After a repair, it was brought back to Mir with the Progress transporter.
  • Four male and four female ribbed newts and 26 containers with larvae for the GENESIS experiment.
  • The BSMD experiment
  • Material for the experiments TITUS, ALICE 2, PHYSIOLAB and EXOBIOLOGIE
  • Six pedagogical experiments that were needed on April 24th when Haigneré was hosting a class for French students.
  • The Sputnik 99 ( RS -19) satellite , which was supposed to send pre-recorded messages in the 2-meter band .
  • Fuel, oxygen, mail, food and water

First expedition

On April 16, the first of three spacecraft missions was on the program. Haigneré got out of the Kwant 2 module first , followed by Afanassjew. Afanassjew was wearing a spare space suit because the originally planned problem with the transmission of the biometric data.

Haigneré and Afanassjew installed the GERMETISATOR and EXOBIOLOGIE experiments, collected samples from COMET and INDICATOR and carried out the MIGMAS experiment.

Haigneré "started" the Sputnik 99 satellite (also known as RS-19) by hand. Originally this was supposed to be an amateur radio satellite that was supposed to send 400 pre-recorded texts. The Swatch company wanted to promote Swatch internet time in this way . When it became known that the satellite would also broadcast advertising messages in the amateur radio bands , there were violent protests by amateur radio associations. The day before the satellite was launched, Swatch withdrew the plan completely, so that Haigneré, himself a passionate radio amateur , released the satellite without batteries.

It was originally planned that Afanassjew and Haigneré would go to the Spektr module , but this was not done due to time constraints. When the two cosmonauts returned to the space station, the spacecraft had taken an hour longer than planned.

Scientific work

During the entire duration of the space flight, Haigneré was busy looking after the scientific experiments. Sometimes he had to fix minor defects in the equipment himself.

The GENESIS experiment suffered a setback due to the death of four male ribbed newts, which Haigneré found lifeless on April 9th. The ventilation of the dwelling may have failed. The four female ribbed newts were housed separately and showed no abnormal behavior. To minimize the risk of losing these animals too, Haigneré moved two of the females into the transport container. In May, two of the females laid eggs after hormone injections. The experiment then proceeded as planned.

Haigneré was able to observe the solar eclipse of August 11, 1999 from Mir. He saw both the eclipsed sun and the shadow of the moon moving across the earth.

leak

From the beginning of July, the cosmonauts measured a slight decrease in cabin pressure, which indicated a small leak. While this was not an immediate threat until the end of the mission, it was a problem for the time after that, when the space station was to remain unmanned but filled with air.

The cosmonauts examined the space station module by module and finally identified Kwant 2 as the cause of the problem. A more precise localization was not possible.

Progress M-42

The Progress M-41 freighter, which was moored at the Kwant module, was filled with garbage and disconnected on July 17 after its engines had lifted the orbit of the space station. It burned up shortly afterwards as planned in the earth's atmosphere. The free coupling socket was occupied by Progress M-42 the day after.

The start of Progress M-42 had been delayed again and again. On July 5, a Russian Proton rocket exploded shortly after its launch, whereupon the Kazakh authorities imposed a launch ban until the cause of the accident had been clarified. They also demanded compensation for the environmental damage that had occurred. The authorities finally reached an agreement so that the van could take off on July 16.

Progress M-42 brought among other things the new navigation computer BUPO (Blok Upravleniya Prichalivaniya i Orientatsii), with the help of which the ground station could remotely control the Mir and let it crash in a controlled manner after the last team had left the space station.

For the first time two French in space

On July 23, 1999, an American space shuttle took off for the STS-93 mission . The French spaceman Michel Tognini was on board as a mission specialist . This was not only the first time that two French were in space at the same time, it was also the first time that space travelers were simultaneously guests on Russian and US missions.

There was radio contact between Mir and Columbia , and Haigneré and Tognini, as well as Commanders Afanassiev and Eileen Collins , exchanged greetings and congratulations.

Second outboard mission

On July 23, Afanassjew and Avdejew left the Mir to work on the outside of the space station, while Haigneré monitored, photographed and filmed the activities from inside.

Afanassjew and Avdejew tried to install a foldable antenna, but they did not succeed completely. The search for the leak in the Kwant 2 module was also unsuccessful. Although they were able to retrieve samples from the EXOBIOLOGY experiment, not from SPICA due to lack of time. After six hours, the two had to hurry back to the space station because a filter in Afanassiev's space train had overheated.

Third outboard mission

Afanassjew and Avdejew undertook another exit on July 28, 1999 in order to erect the antenna, which was done without any problems by changing the cables. Haigneré gave the command from the interior to unfold the antenna to its full size of around six meters in diameter. Since it was not an operational antenna, just a test, it was subsequently rejected.

End of mission

The return date has been postponed several times, partly at the insistence of the CNES. Eventually August 27 was set. The crew was supposed to leave the Mir unmanned, but it was not yet clear whether a new crew would come on board at a later date.

The three cosmonauts deactivated module by module and brought the Mir into a remotely controllable state. Garbage was loaded onto the Progress M-42 freighter, equipment and scientific experiments onto the Soyuz TM-29 spacecraft.

The hatches closed at 18:12 UTC on August 27, 1999, and the spacecraft disengaged at 21:17. The brakes were fired at 23:46 and at 00:34 on August 28, Soyuz TM-29 touched down in the Kazakh steppe.

This marked the end of an almost ten-year era of space travel, during which at least one spacecraft crew had been in space since September 5, 1989.

Haigneré had set a new long-term record for space travelers from guest nations at 188 days, which is still there today. Haigneré's record for the longest total time (209 days) was broken by Thomas Reiter in August 2006.

meaning

Scientifically, the Perseus mission was a complete success. The French researchers had the opportunity to use weightlessness and cosmic rays for several months and immediately address any problems that a French spaceman might encounter.

Due to the impending loss of Mir due to the lack of funding, it was no longer possible to repeat this mission. The sequel would take place on the new International Space Station (ISS), which was already under construction. The first two modules were put into orbit in November and December 1998. The first permanent occupation took place in November 2000.

The French space agency CNES already had a contract for another research mission, which was carried out in October 2001 by Claudie Haigneré under the name ISS-Andromède . But this was again a short-term stay.

Web links and sources