October 16, 2004. Korolev, Moscow Region.
The Russian Soyuz TMA-5 manned transport spacecraft docked
to the Orbital Complex of the International Space Station
(ISS).
Following a two-day free flight in near-earth orbit and
upon completion of all the required rendezvous operations
until the station-keeping in an automated mode relative
to the Space Station, Soyuz TMA-5 spacecraft approached
the ISS Orbital Complex. At the final rendezvous and birthing
stage at a distance of about 50 m from the Complex the crew
instructed by the Flight Director switched to the manual
control mode, and performed all subsequent operations (spacecraft
escape from the Complex, station-keeping relative to the
Complex, rendezvous, birthing and docking to the Complex)
in interaction with the Mission Control Center (MCC-M) in
Moscow area in compliance with the onboard procedures.
At 8:16 Moscow summer time the spacecraft docking assembly
came into contact with the docking port of the docking compartment/module
Pirs of the ISS, when the spacecraft and Complex were within
the Russian ground site coverage.
The spacecraft rendezvous and berthing operations were observed
by the Expedition Nine Crew (ISS-9) staying onboard the
station and Russian and U.S. Mission Control Centers personnel,
by using the trajectory measurements, telemetry and television
information including information coming from the onboard
TV cameras accommodated on the ISS Russian and U.S. On-orbit
Segments.
The transfer hatches between the spacecraft and Pirs module
were open at 11:22 upon completion of the mechanical capture,
retraction and joint pressure integrity check operations.
The joint International crew consisting of Russian cosmonauts
G. Padalka (ISS-9 commander), S. Sharipov (ISS-10 flight
engineer), Yu. Shargin (VC-7 flight engineer), U.S. astronauts
Michael Fincke (ISS-9 flight engineer), Leroy Chiao (ISS-10
commander) stay onboard the Orbital Complex. They will have
to perform an 8-day joint activity onboard the ISS.
The ISS-9 crew is scheduled to return to the ground with
Soyuz TMA-4 on 24 October 2004 and land at 4:31 Moscow time.
At present the ISS Orbital Complex of about 189.5 tons is
operating in orbit in the following configuration: Functional
Cargo Block Zarya, Service Module Zvezda, Docking Module/Compartment
Pirs, manned spacecraft Soyuz TMA-4, Soyuz TMA-5, cargo
vehicle Progress M-50 (Russian Segment), as well as modules
Unity, Destiny, airlock Quest and multi-link truss structure
with the deployed solar arrays (U.S. On-Orbit Segment).
The ISS Russian Segment flight is commanded by the Moscow
Mission Control Center (Korolev, Moscow area) in close cooperation
with the US. Mission Control Center (Houston, the USA).
The Flight Director is Pilot-Cosmonaut V.A. Soloviev.
The ISS Complex is flying in a near-earth orbit with the
following parameters: maximum altitude of 374.5 km, minimum
altitude of 358.8 km, orbital period of 91.7 min.
The onboard systems of the transport spacecraft and station
modules operate normally. The ISS joint crew is performing
on-orbit flight program activities.
During the Soyuz TMA-5 spacecraft final rendezvous and docking
operations with the ISS MCC-M was attended by co-chairmen
of the State Board: N.F. Moiseev, Deputy Director of Roskosmos,
and V.A. Grin, Deputy General Director of TsNII of Machine-Building,
Yu. P. Semenov, Technical Manager of the Russian Manned
Space Programs, General Designer of S.P. Korolev RSC Energia,
Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Frederick
D. Gregory, NASA Deputy Administrator, N.A. Anfimov, General
Director of TsNII of Machine-Building, Academician of RAS,
as well as representatives of Roskosmos, NASA, Russian enterprises
and organizations participating in the implementation of
the ISS program.
After the docking N.F. Moiseev, Deputy Director of Roskosmos,
Yu.P. Semenov, General Designer of S.P. Korolev RSC Energia,
Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Frederick
D. Gregory, NASA Deputy Administrator, V.V.Tsibliev, Director
of Yu.A. Gagarin CTC RGNII, V.A. Soloviev, Flight Director,
Pilot-Cosmonaut, A.B. Krasnov, Head of Piloted Programs
Department of Roskosmos answered the questions put by the
representatives of the Russian and foreign mass media.
Key data on the experiment program to be performed during
the flight of the Expedition Ten Crew ISS-10 and visiting
crew VC-7 is presented in Internet at RSC Energia site at
addresses:
www.energia.ru/eng/iss/iss10/res.html,
www.energia.ru/eng/iss/soyuz-tma-5/iss-seventh_russian.html.
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