Soyuz TMA21

Beeker

Launch of Soyuz TMA21 on Monday April 4th at 23:18 {Irish Time} Soyus TMA21 will carry the Space Station expedition 27 crew members of Alexander Samokutyaev and Andrey Borisenko from Russia and NASA Astronaut Ron Garan. The Soyuz had been called "Gagarin" to mark the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarins flight on April 12th 1961.

lord lucan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urOu6AM_cCc

Tomk1

I saw this on RT.
Made me think of a documentry that Gagarin wasn't actually the first person into space, because the first ship crash landed on re-entry on the Chinese border. Durning the cold-war it was thought that it wouldn't of been good propaganda.

lord lucan

Tomk1 wrote: »

I saw this on RT.
Made me think of a documentry that Gagarin wasn't actually the first person into space, because the first ship crash landed on re-entry on the Chinese border. Durning the cold-war it was thought that it wouldn't of been good propaganda.

The Russians hid the fact that Gagarin didn't land with Vostok 1,he ejected and landed separately from the craft. Doesn't make any odds except to those who like to be pedantic about such things. It also shocked the bejaysus out of the Americans that the USSR had gotten ahead of them on the quiet in the space race.

FarmerGreen

On Tuesday, 05 April, 2011, 06:06:56 the ISS is directly above Cork at a
height of 357 Km.
Could be worth a look. More details at heavens-above.com

Stargate

Thanks for the reminder Beeker

As Tomk1 said , i saw it too on R T
http://rt.com/news/gagarin-anniversary-soyuz-flight/

Stargate

clln

lord lucan wrote: »

It also shocked the bejaysus out of the Americans that the USSR had gotten ahead of them on the quiet in the space race.

You can say that again!they seem to have been very upset about it at the 'Cape'(how quaint),i bet the Huntsville times sold an awful lot of issues that day at the massive price of 5 cents!

clln

Tomk1 wrote: »

Made me think of a documentry that Gagarin wasn't actually the first person into space, because the first ship crash landed on re-entry on the Chinese border. Durning the cold-war it was thought that it wouldn't of been good propaganda.

that idea had me 99.9% convinced for a long time.
it began with propaganda against his feat by some in the US, and was followed up with fake KGB documents that people sold when the Soviet Union collapsed.
they had no money and found a ready market for the documents from people who wished it was true just to sully the truth,who in fact were jealous.

there was an international agency also who said 'outer space' was a higher altitude than Gargarin reached and said the person must land with the craft,pedantic to say the least!:)
at the time the Soviets and the US had diffrient criteria's for the altitude that 'outer space' was as well.

another reason Gargarin bailed out was because the Vostoks had almost no ability to maneuveor and so the whole sphere that re-entered was covered in a heat shield including the hatch he blew to bail out.
Vostok had no engines that could fire before touchdown for a soft landing.
He felt the force of 8G's during re-entry:eek:

clln

The crew of Soyuz TMA21 lay flowers at the graves of Sergi Korolov(the Daddy of all Soviet Spacecrafts) and Yuris;



Nice to see the interview with Astronaut Nicole Stott in the video of roll-out,She is there for the launch and took a great picture of the Soyuz close up as it passed by.

http://twitpic.com/4fy6vi

her twitter name astro_Nicole.

but more important now is Ron Garan is tweeting/twitpic.his gallery at link below.
He is a nut for taking photo's and he will be onboard the ISS for the last two Shuttle missions!:)

http://twitter.com/astro_ron

Beeker

clln wrote: »

but more important now is Ron Garan is tweeting/twitpic.his gallery at link below.
He is a nut for taking photo's and he will be onboard the ISS for the last two Shuttle missions!:)

http://twitter.com/astro_ron

Looking forward to seeing his shots. Always great when someone makes the effort to document their flight:)

clln

Beeker wrote: »

Looking forward to seeing his shots. Always great when someone makes the effort to document their flight:)

Yes it is, erm by the way for Your information as you know so little about the Space Shuttle programme!April 12th is also the anniversary of STS-1's launch!:pac::pac::pac::D.

I have been doing some maths and am a bit surprised at the results as Soyuz seems to get launched almost every 2nd week.

Tonights launch all going well will be the 109th launch of Soyuz since its first one in 1967.
that includes the one that blew up at launch but the escape tower safely ejected the Cosmonauts.
it became designated Soyuz 18A and the next one was called 18 again.
18A is not one included in count.
So, so far,not to tempt fate leaving out TMA21 until it launchs safely tonight.

108 Soyuzs will have safely delivered its crew into space.
Two crews lost their lives on re-entry.
Soyuz 1,one Cosmonaut was lost when his parachute failed.

Soyuz 11,three Cosmonauts lost their lives when the cabin lost pressure during re-entry after a more than three week stay on the very first Space Station Salyut one.

There were six Vostoks,the sixth brought the first woman into space.

There were two VOSKHODS,(modified Vostoks)
one was the first two man craft(designed to beat Americas Gemini for that honor!:))
the other was fitted with an Airlock to allow them carry out the first Space walk(just to annoy America again!:))

So that means by the 50th anniversary on April 12th, 166 Manned launchs(+1 all going well tonight) will have taken place from the Soviet Union/Russia.

on the American side.

Six manned launch's from Mercury Spacecraft.
Ten manned launch's from the Gemini Spacecraft.
Fifteen Manned Launchs by Apollo.(including threee to Skylab and one for Apollo Soyuz.)
132 Manned Shuttles made it into orbit(poor Challenger crew did not even get the flight,small consolation i know but Columbia's crew did.)

So in total 330(+1 if Soyuz TMA21 launch's by the 12th)Spacecrafts have launched crews into space since Yuri fired the gun for the Space race.

I will leave the difficult thing to somebody else to figure out on a wet Wednesday!:)

Since so many Cosmonauts and Astronauts have flown multiple Spaceflights and Shuttle crews especialy have Varied in numbers.

How many People will have flown into Space by April 12th?:pac::pac::pac:

Doh!!!! forgot about China's Shenzou 5,6 and 7 that launched men into Space, So 333 +1 tonight!

Beeker

clln wrote: »

How many People will have flown into Space by April 12th?:pac::pac::pac:

522:)
Demographics..........STS-133.....Soyuz TMA-21

Total Fliers..............520.....522
Nations....................38......38
Male......................465.....467
Female.....................55......55
Total Tickets...........1,158...1,161

United States.............335.....335
United States men.........290.....290
United States Women........45......45

USSR.......................72......72
USSR Men...................70......70
USSR Women..................2.......2

CIS........................37......39
CIS Men....................34......36
CIS Women...................1.......1

Non US/Russian.............76......76

Men........................71......71
Women.......................7.......7
Men with 7 flights..........2.......2
Men with 6 flights..........6.......6
Women/6.....................0.......0
Men/5......................17......17
Women/5.....................6.......6
Men/4......................58......58
Women/4.....................6.......6
Men/3......................76......76
Women/3.....................7.......7
All/2.....................146.....147
All/1.....................196.....197

Info courtasty of William Harwood "CBS". The list above does not include STS-51L as it was not a spaceflight. If you wanted to include 51L then add 3 more {Smith, Jarvis and McCauliffe} who were all first time fliers.

Better list here
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/home/spacecalc/demonext.html

Beeker

clln wrote: »

Yes it is, erm by the way for Your information as you know so little about the Space Shuttle programme!April 12th is also the anniversary of STS-1's launch!:pac::pac::pac::D.

Ahh sure don't I remember a young Beeker barely able to contain himself in front of the TV watching Leo Enright's live coverage on that Sunny Sunday morning 30 years ago:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_PUF7DiKp8

clln

Beeker wrote: »

Ahh sure don't I remember a young Beeker barely able to contain himself in front of the TV watching Leo Enright's live coverage on that Sunny Sunday morning 30 years ago:)

I knew you would not be able to resist posting that!:D

Beeker

Beeker

Just over half an hour

clln

Hi Beeker, Do we get any 'Hero of the Soviet union" medals for watching this?;)

clln

Watch it live in HD.Launch is due in about 15 minutes!

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-hd-tv

Beeker

clln wrote: »

Hi Beeker, Do we get any 'Hero of the Soviet union" medals for watching this?;)

We should:D Got to get myself on a holiday to watch one of these launches:)

Beeker

5 minutes

clln

Beeker wrote: »

We should:D Got to get myself on a holiday to watch one of these launches:)

Nice cuddly doggy and a present from his daughter awwww!



T-3

Beeker

On her way:)

Beeker

Beeker

Beeker

In orbit...weightless doggy:D

Beeker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhpDMbN6np0

clln

Image 1 / 1
The Soyuz-FG rocket booster with Soyuz TMA-21 space ship carrying a new crew to the International Space Station, ISS, flies in the sky at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Monday, April 4, 2011. Circular star tracks around the Polar Star and track of the rocket a the result of the long time exposure. The Russian rocket carries U.S. astronaut Ron Garan , Russian cosmonauts Alexander Samokytyaev and Andrei Borisenko. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)
Photo Credit: AP | April 4, 2011

clln

With docking of the Soyuz TMA-21 due for docking to the ISS about 00.18 Summertime UTC. and NASA TV not due to start live coverage shortly before that,People might like to view the live feed from the ISS which might catch early views of Soyuz at link below.

the 'Live Station' view from list of options on the right only supports windows media player now though.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

clln

Well Yuri must have been watching over them,they had a flawless docking ten minutes ahead of schedule,which might explain why there were only brief but beautiful live views from camera's.

done an image search to see if i could find one but got nowhere;
i did find this one though of the first man and woman to have entered space.