One Year Crew Returns from International Space Station

Astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko have returned to Earth after spending almost one year living and working in low-Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station.

The One Year crew alongside their Soyuz commander Sergey Volkov bid farewell to the International Space Station as the hatches between the station and the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft were closed at 9:43 p.m. GMT on March 1.

Year in Space crew members Kelly and Kornienko shortly after landing in Kazakhstan
after spending 340 days aboard the International Space Station.
credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

The Soyuz craft departed the complex a couple of hours later when it undocked from the space station's Poisk module at 1:02 a.m. on the morning of March 2.

Following a series of orbital maneuvers, the Soyuz performed its de-orbit burn to reduce the spacecraft's speed and altitude for a fiery re-entry through the Earth's atmosphere.

Just over three hours after departing the ISS, Volkov, Kelly and Kornienko landed their vehicle in the remote steppe of Kazakhstan at 4:26 a.m. - bringing the Year in Space mission to an end. The crew were then placed in reclining chairs next to their Soyuz before being carried a short distance to an awaiting medical tent to get the crew out of their Sokol launch and entry suits to participate in brief field tests.

These field test studies are conducted to see the effect that long term weightlessness has on the astronaut's ability to stand from a seated position, walk through obstacles and stand upright. This will help investigators further understand what future space farers will be able to do once they've landed on Mars having spent months in a weightless commute.

In a recent interview with NASA TV, Kelly was asked what he thought was the biggest accomplishment of this flight - "We absolutely accomplished an incredible amount of work both on the US Operational Segment and on the Russian Segment."

"Our time here has demonstrated not only the capability for us to stay in space for a long time and to do well, but also the capability of ground teams to support us, the sytsems that keep us alive and the resuspply in a way that is forward thinking towards a potential flight to Mars. We've collected a lot of data during our time here and that data is something that's going to be analysed later.. but I think it's been a great success and a real privilege to part of it."

Over the past 340 days, Kelly and Kornienko:

• Completed 5,440 orbits of the Earth.
• Ran over 640 miles on the station's treadmill.
• Travelled 143,846,525 miles - roughly the distance from Earth to Mars. A return journey to the red planet is expected to last 500 days or longer.
• Conducted over 400 scientific experiments during the course of their stint aboard the complex.

Coming Home: Kelly, Volkov and Kornienko tightly packed inside their Soyuz
credit: NASA

"Misha and I are only one data point. You need a lot more numbers to draw specific conclusions but I'm hoping what we find is a lot of information that will help us eventually continue on our path toward Mars."

Another unique investigation conducted over the past year is the Twins Study. Former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, Scott Kelly's identical twin has served as the control subject for his brother on orbit. This study hopes to investigate if the effect of long-duration spaceflight has any difference on the body on a genetic level.

Today's landing brings to an end the fourth spaceflight for Scott Kelly who has now logged 520 days in space and sets the record for the most time in space for an American. Mikhail Kornienko now logs 516 across two space station expeditions. Soyuz commander Sergey Volkov returns to Earth with 548 days in space across three long-duration stays aboard the International Space Station.

The departure of the Soyuz marked the official beginning of Expedition 47 after Kelly handed over the reigns of the orbiting laboratory to Tim Kopra of NASA. Kopra remains aboard the station with cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and ESA astronaut Tim Peake.

The trio will be joined on March 19 when the Soyuz TMA-20M docks to the vacant docking port on Poisk - bringing Alexei Ovchinin, Oleg Skripochka and Jeff Williams to the station for a six month mission.

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Space Station Trio Return to Earth

The crew of the Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft have returned to Earth after completing their 141 day-long mission to the International Space Station.

Soyuz commander Oleg Kononenko alongside crew mates Kjell Lindgren and Kimiya Yui landed their vehicle in the remote steppe of Kazakhstan at around 1:12 p.m. GMT.

Kononenko, Lindgren and Yui bid farewell to their Expedition 45 crew mates early this morning before hatches between the station and the Soyuz were closed. This was followed at 9:49 a.m. by the undocking of the spacecraft, marking the official beginning of Expedition 46.

Lindgren tweeted: "All loaded up! Farewell to our Exp 45 crew mates
and the magnificent International Space Station! Hello Earth!"
credit: NASA

Expedition 45 flight engineer Sergey Volkov, who remains aboard the station with One Year Crew members Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko had time to wish the departing crew one final goodbye shortly after undocking; "Don't miss us too much- we'll see you in March."

The Soyuz TMA-17M crew have been living aboard the orbiting laboratory since July and have conducted hundreds of scientific experiments across a wide range of scientific fields including physics, Earth observation and human physiology experiments. Three Extra-Vehicular Activities(spacewalks) were also conducted during Expedition 44/45 to maintain the station.

The spacecraft landed in a flurry of snow storms in darkness which marked only the sixth night landing of a Soyuz vehicle returning from the International Space Station, and the first of such landings to take place after sunset. The crew were extracted one by one from the vehicle by Russian search and recovery forces at the landing site and immediately flown to the remote town of Dzhezkazgan for primary medical testing and a welcoming ceremony.

Kononenko will board a Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center plane for a flight back to Star City to be reunited with his family. Lindgren and Yui will board a NASA plane for a flight back to Houston.

Altogether the crew have traveled 59.6 million miles in space since their launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 22 last.. 

This afternoon's landing concludes the third long duration space flight for Kononenko who has now logged a total of 533 days in space. NASA astronaut Lindgren and JAXA astronaut Yui, both returning from their first space flight, log 141 days in space.

In the meantime, station commander Scott Kelly along with Russian flight engineers Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov will remain aboard the station until March 2 2016. Kelly and Kornienko have been living aboard the ISS since March of this year and are the first station crew members to participate in a year-long mission living and working aboard the laboratory.

Kelly, Kornienko and Volkov will be alone on the station for just four days before being joined on December 15 by the crew of the Soyuz TMA-19M comprising of veteran cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and rookie space flier Tim Peake of the European Space Agency. Th trio are set to launch aboard a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 11:03 a.m.

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Japanese Cargo Vessel Arrives at International Space Station

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's H-II Transfer Vehicle(HTV), or "Kounotori" has arrived at the International Space Station on its fifth mission to resupply the orbiting complex.

Carrying 5.5 tonnes of cargo for the crew aboard the orbiting laboratory, HTV-5 lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan under clear skies aboard a H-IIB rocket at 11:50 a.m. UTC on Wednesday, August 19 bound for a five day trip to the station.

HTV-5 was captured by Canadarm2 at 10:28 a.m. UTC
Credit: NASA

On Monday August 24 the HTV performed a rendezvous with the International Space Station before being grappled by the station's 57 foot long robotic arm, Canadarm2. Assisted by Kjell Lindgren of NASA, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui was at the controls of Canadarm2 from the robotics workstation in the Cupola. He was given the "Go for grapple" command by fellow Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata who was serving as CAPCOM(The voice link between astronauts on the ISS and Mission Control on Earth) during the on-orbit operations in Mission Control in Houston.

Yui then handed over control of the robot arm to teams back on Earth who issued a series of commands to Canadarm2 to slowly berth HTV-5 to the Earth-facing port of the Harmony Module of the ISS.

Included in the launch manifest is a space radiation observatory to search for dark matter, which will be installed on the exposed facility of the Japanese Experiment Module, pumps and filters for the station's Water Recovery System as well as food, water and other crew commodities for the astronauts and cosmonauts serving as part of Expedition 44.

HTV-5 is expected to remain docked to the station until late September before being loaded up with trash and other unwanted items and detached- destined for a fiery demise by burning up in the Earth's atmosphere.

Meanwhile back on Earth in Baikonur, Kazakhstan the crew of the Soyuz TMA-18M are undergoing final preparations and tests before launching to the station on September 2. Soyuz commander Sergei Volkov, making his third flight to the station will be flanked by rookie astronauts Andreas Mogensen of the European Space Agency and Kazakh cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov.

Volkov is scheduled to remain on board the station for the next several months as part of Expedition 45/46 while Mogensen and Aimbetov will be busy conducting scientific experiments during a short 10 day "Taxi mission" to the orbiting complex. This will allow crews to effectively swap out Soyuz vehicles, with Mogensen and Aimbetov returning to Earth on the Soyuz TMA-16M with veteran cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, who will come home after spending 170 days living and working in space.

ISS One Year Crew members Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko will return to Earth aboard the Soyuz TMA-18M with Volkov in March 2016.

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Progress Cargo Ship Launches to Resupply Space Station

The Russian Progress M-28M cargo vehicle has successfully launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, marking the beginning of a two day-long commute to resupply the International Space Station.

The Progress lifted off from Pad 1A at the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 5:55 a.m. Irish Time carrying 2,381kg of food, fuel and supplies for the crew of Expedition 44.

Progress M-28M launched from Baikonur at 5:55 a.m.
Credit: Roscosmos 

After a flawless ride into orbit aboard a Soyuz-U rocket, the Progress separated from the rocket's third stage after eight minutes and forty-nine seconds of powered flight, deploying its antennas and solar arrays a short time later. 

Initial views from video cameras on board the Progress confirmed that everything was nominal and that all systems were "Go" for mission controllers in Korolev in Moscow to send commands to the vehicle to perform a series of orbital manoeuvres to reach the International Space Station.

Progress is scheduled to dock with the Pirs Docking Compartment on the Russian segment of the orbiting complex at 8:13 a.m. on Sunday morning.

This morning's launch comes just two months after the Progress M-27M was lost after the vehicle went into an uncontrolled spin and burned up in the Earth's atmosphere several days later.

It also comes in the wake of the disintegration of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a SpaceX Dragon capsule to resupply the station just 139 seconds into flight on June 28.

In a NASA public affairs event yesterday, astronaut Scott Kelly was asked how the crew were feeling ahead of the launch of this latest Progress; "Third time's a charm I hope. We're hoping that we get this one obviously.. If these next two get delayed or move out beyond September or October it will cause problems but we're as confident as we can be."

Progress will spend several months docked to the International Space Station before it is loaded with waste, undocked and sent to burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.

Today's launch will be followed in August by a Japanese HTV flight. Orbital ATK is moving ahead with plans for its next launch later this year.

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SpaceX Dragon Lost Just Minutes After Launch to Space Station

The SpaceX Dragon cargo vehicle making its seventh resupply mission to the International Space Station has been lost just minutes after launching from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The rocket and vehicle have both been lost.

The Falcon 9 appeared to have exploded just after the separation of the rocket's first stage. All data with the vehicle was lost, two minutes and nineteen seconds into the flight.

The vehicle appeared to disintegrate just minutes into launch
credit: NASA TV

It is currently unclear what exactly caused today's failure. According the Pam Anderson of SpaceX there were no problems with the performance of the first stage of the Falcon 9, and telemetry with Dragon was received by teams on the ground shortly after the incident occurred.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk said on Twitter; "There was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank. Data suggests counterintuitive cause."

ISS programme managers have assured the public that anomalies such as the one which happened today are planned for and as a result, it is estimated that the crew currently has enough supplies to last until late October.

Some of the cargo which was being flown aboard Dragon includes a number of student experiments, plant growth experiments, a space suit as well as provisions for the crew on board the station.

Another item also lost today was the International Docking Adapter-1(IDA-1) which was due to be installed on the Pressurised Mating Adapter located on the forward facing port of the Harmony. This would allow commercial crew vehicles built by Boeing and SpaceX to dock with the station thus allowing them to transport astronauts from the United States to the International Space Station. The first flight of Commercial Crew are slated to occur no later than 2017.

This is the third space station resupply ship that has been lost in the past eight months. Today's anomaly occurred exactly two months after a Russian Progress resupply ship spun out of control and burned up in the Earth's atmosphere several days later. An Orbital Sciences Cygnus cargo craft exploded shortly after lift-off from the Wallops Flight Facility last October.

A Russian Progress resupply ship is scheduled to launch cargo to the station this coming Friday, July 3 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. This will be followed in August by a Japanese HTV flight. Orbital ATK is moving ahead with plans for its next launch later this year.

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Space Station Trio Return to Earth after Extended Mission

The crew of the Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft have returned to Earth after completing their 199 day-long mission to the International Space Station.

Virts, Shkaplerov and Cristoforetti in their reclining chairs
shortly after landing credit: NASA

Soyuz commander Anton Shkaplerov and crew mates Terry Virts and Samantha Cristoforetti landed their vehicle in the remote steppe of Kazakhtan at 14:45 UTC. under the setting Kazakh sun.

Shkaplerov, Virts and Cristoforetti said their goodbyes to their Expedition 43 crew mates early this morning before hatches between the station and the Soyuz were closed. This was followed at 11:20 by the undocking of the spacecraft, marking  the beginning of Expedition 44.

Expedition 43 commander Virts handed over the reigns of the station to Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, marking his fourth stint at the commander of the complex.

The Soyuz TMA-15M crew were originally slated to return to Earth last month, but the failure of the Russian Progress 59 resupply ship destined for the complex led to the postponement of their return home.

Shortly after landing in perfect conditions the crew were extracted one by one from the vehicle by Russian search and recovery forces at the landing site. They then sat for a short period in reclining chairs as they got a chance to come to terms with gravity once again after spending six and a half months in the microgravity environment aboard the ISS. The trio were then carried a short distance to an inflatable medical tent for brief testing and were also able to don some more comfortable clothing for a two hour helicopter ride to the staging city of Karaganda in Kazakhstan for a short welcoming ceremony. 

Altogether the crew have travelled 84.2 million miles in space since their launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan last November. 

"I'm going to miss these guys up here. Congrats on your safe return to Earth"
-Scott Kelly on Twitter

This afternoon's landing concludes the second long duration space flight for Shkaplerov who has now logged a total of 364 days in space. Terry Virts who has also just wrapped up his second flight to the station having previously flown there for a 13 day-long space shuttle mission in 2010 now has a total of 212 days of space flight experience under his belt. As for Cristoforetti, fresh from completing her first flight into space having been selected as an astronaut by the European Space Agency in 2009 now holds the record for the longest single space flight by a female, previously held by NASA astronaut Suni Williams.

In the meantime, Commander Padalka and his Expedition 44 crew mates Mikhail Kornienko and Scott Kelły will remain by themselves aboard the station for the next six weeks. They will be joined in late July by Oleg Kononenko, Kjell Lindgren and Kimiya Yui- the crew of the Soyuz TMA-17M.

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