![]() Nespoli will have to float into the Soyuz vehicles forward habitation module – from his seat in the central descent module – and then snap the photo and video imagery through the modules windows. ![]() The station move will be done using thrusters on the Russian Segment service module – named Zvezda – and the thrusters on the docked Progress 42P vehicle, an unmanned Russian cargo ship. They have scrutinized the issue and are very comfortable with the plan.” This is an unusual attitude for the station to fly during a mated mission and people have done a lot of work to make sure this is a good thing to be doing. “It will take 15 minutes to bring the whole stack around to get a side view and a really good view of Endeavour. “After they get to the station keeping point, ISS will begin to maneuver, turning 130 degrees at 0.2 degrees per second.” The attitude was designed to provide the best perspective of the ISS and Endeavour. “You will see they are a little bit above the velocity vector, above the station, and that is to keep the sun out of the pilot’s eyes.” “After the Soyuz undocks, they will back out to about 200 meters,” explained Courtney McMillan, STS-134 Station Team 4 Flight Director. They will be completing a nearly six month stint in space aboard the ISS.” Nespoli is departing with ISS Expedition 27 commander and Russian cosmonaut Dimitry Kondratyev and NASA astronaut Catherine “Cady” Coleman. The photos of the Shuttle Endeavou and ISS Space Station stack are expected on May 23, 2010. The shuttle has never before been photographed while attached to the Internalional Space Station. Atlantis is docked to the Mir Space Station on 29 June 1995 during the STS-71 mission. Space Shuttle Atlantis docked to Russian Mir Space StationĬheck out this perspective of what a space shuttle looks like when docked to an Earth orbiting space station. In order to accommodate the extra time required to accomplish the photo shoot, the Soyuz TMA-20 capsule will undock from the ISS one orbit earlier than originally scheduled, about 90 minutes, at 5:32 p.m. “With 100 percent consensus, we approved this change to the baseline mission to go add this photo documentation task as part of the Soyuz TMA-20 undock,” Todd explained. The photo opportunity will take place under what’s called a dual docked operations scenario whereby the Soyuz is undocked while a shuttle is still attached to the ISS. The AMS will search for dark matter, dark energy and antimatter to determine the origin and evolution of the Universe. Endeavour has delivered the $2 Billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station. View from the countdown clock at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Space Shuttle Endeavour launches from Pad 39 A on on the STS-134 mission. The chance to do the shuttle- station photo documentation in this way only became possible when the launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour was scrubbed on April 29 and the resulting delayed launch of the STS-134 mission on May 16 fortuitously afforded an overlapping time period that coincided with the Soyuz TMA-20 crew departure. “This is going to be a great opportunity for the spaceflight community.”Īfter months of high level international negotiations since the STS-133 mission, NASA and Russian space officials from the space shuttle and space station teams have finally agreed on a arrangement for utilizing a crewed Soyuz vehicle to record the first ever photos showing a shuttle while still docked to the massive orbiting outpost in the same field of view. “We are not calling this a Soyuz flyaround or flyabout.” We are calling this Soyuz undock with imagery,” said Kenneth Todd, chair of NASA’s space station mission management team.
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