Result for: soyuz

This is the fourth entry in a final series of logbooks looking back at departure, landing and re-adaptation! Strapping in in the Soyuz is not as quick as fastening your seatbelt: the space is cramped, the position uncomfortable, some of the straps are hard to reach. Additionally, as I had learned during our Sokol leak check, being weightless doesn’t make it any easier, since your body doesn’t stay put in the seat. So I was glad when everything was done: oxygen and ventilation hoses attached, com and biomedical cables connected, shoulder, lap and knee straps fastened. I didn’t tighten them, since it would still be several hours before the deorbit burn and our re-entry in the atmosphere. In spite of the physical effort of strapping in, I still didn’t feel too warm in the Sokol, so I did not turn on the suit ventilation, enjoying a few more minutes of quietness. Over the radio came the dear, familiar voice of our Soyuz instructor, Dima, who would be on space-to-ground from Moscow today, just like he had been our “control center voice” for hundreds of hours in the simulator back in Star City. He asked me for the status of our suit donning ops and I reported that I was strapped in and Anton was helping Terry in the orbital module. Then I selected the page on my command-and-control display showing the technical parameters of our vehicle. Everything looked good, except that our CO2 level was trending high, close to 4 mm Hg. I was about to report it, but Mission Control Moscow was obviously watching it already via telemetry: Dima instructed me over the radio to activate our CO2 scrubbing now, a bit earlier than it would have been foreseen in the checklist. A few more pressure reports from Terry and Anton, which I relayed to Moscow, and the leak check was deemed complete and passed: undocking from the ISS was safe. By the way, I should add that we had also performed a check of the attitude thrusters a few days before undocking. First, the flight controllers had taken the ISS in drift mode, meaning that the Station would allow itself to be brought slightly out of attitude by the Soyuz thrusters firings, without actively trying to compensate for those disturbances. Then Anton and I had taken our seats in the Soyuz, we had configured Soyuz systems so that the manual controls would control thrusters firings and Anton had deflected the controllers in all six degrees of freedom in sequence, giving us a chance to make sure that they would react properly to all control inputs, both the in primary and backup control loop. Back to the departure day, it was now Terry’s turn to strap himself in the seat. Within a few minutes Anton also joined us in the descent module, closing the hatch that separated us from the orbital module. Once we were all strapped in, we put on the gloves and closed the helmet to start the leak check of our suits. First we turned the blue regulator valve on our chests to the closed position and the simple ventilation flow from the fans blew up our suits just slightly. Then Anton gave a short 5-seconds countdown, at the end of which he started the stopwatch, as I simultaneously opened the valve that started an oxygen flow into our suits. We each monitored the increase of suit pressure on our wrist manometer and reported when we reached 0,1 atm and 3,5 atm, so that Anton could write down the “filling times”. The ground was also following along, since we had locked-in the transmit button before starting the leak check. After reaching 3.5 atm each of us let the suit deflate, controlling the flow rate with the regulator valve in order to give time to our ears to compensate for the pressure drop. Then we opened our helmet and I closed the supply line from the oxygen tanks. We would not remove the gloves any more until after landing. Good news: all of our suits had “filled up” within the required time, passing the leak check. Another potential hurdle on our departure schedule was behind us! Photo: from this screenshot from our launch video you can see how cramped it is in the Soyuz! Futura mission website (Italian): Avamposto42 avamposto42.esa.int RICORDATE DI VOTARE PER AVAMPOSTO42 AI MACCHIANERA ITALIAN AWARDS! https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=822247314539790 (Trad IT)  Traduzione in italiano a cura di +AstronautiNEWS qui: https://www.astronautinews.it/tag/logbook (Trad FR) Traduction en français par +Anne Cpamoa  ici: https://spacetux.org/cpamoa/category/traductions/logbook-samantha (Trad ES) Tradducción en español por +Carlos Lallana Borobio https://laesteladegagarin.blogspot.com.es/search/label/SamLogBook (Trad DE) Deutsche Übersetzung von https://www.logbuch-iss.de (Trad RUS) Русский перевод +Dmitry Meshkov https://samlogbook-ru.livejournal.com

Back in the Soyuz sim today with Terry and Anton, this time wearing the Sokol and set to practice an emergency descent after undocking. These scenarios are always very intense but, on the other hand, somewhat shorter than a normal descent, because we rush to make an early opportunity to turn on the engine for a braking burn, about 40 min after opening the hooks to undock from ISS. Today we started out with a leak in the Soyuz, to which we added a second failure that, in itself, would lead to an emergency descent: a depressurization of the high-pressure helium lines. There are no pumps in the Soyuz propulsion system: it’s a simple and robust design that uses high-pressure helium to pressurize the propellant tanks. If the helium starts leaking, we need to turn on the engine before the pressure becomes to low for the deorbit burn. So, with a leaking descent module and leaking helium tanks, we were all set for a ballistic reentry using Program 5, which I have explained in this previous logbook. Except that Dima, our evil instructor, also threw a main computer failure at us, so we had to revert to flying our ballistic reentry in the so-called “analog loop” – it’s the older computer from the previous Soyuz series, which leaves a lot of work up to the crew and has a lot less built-in automatic checks. Main thing: you need to build the attitude and turn on the engine manually and, if the engine fails, you need to manually shut it down and turn on the backup thrusters. We had an engine failure so early on in the burn today that we burned on the backup thruster for over half an hour (instead of the nominal 3 min and 41 seconds) and we ended separating from the service module by thermal sensors, instead of by command… how that works, is a story for another logbook! Futura mission website (Italian): Avamposto42 avamposto42.esa.int #SamLogbook  #Futura42 (Trad IT)  Traduzione in italiano a cura di +AstronautiNEWS qui: https://www.astronautinews.it/tag/logbook/ (Trad FR) Traduction en français par +Anne Cpamoa ici: https://spacetux.org/cpamoa/category/traductions/logbook-samantha/ (Trad ES – Currently not updated) Tradducción en español aquí: https://www.intervidia.com/category/bitacora/

It’s a beautiful summer week here in Star City and Terry, Anton and I are keeping up our proficiency in all thing Soyuz. I’ve had training sessions in manual approach, manual docking and manual descent and today we were all three back together in the Soyuz simulator. We flew a rendezvous and docking profile, the first time as part of a nominal flight, which takes 6 hours (4 orbits) from launch to docking. The second time we simulated having transitioned to the old two-day flight profile because of some malfunction. If you’re wondering what we would be doing for two days, waiting to rendezvous with Station… well, I’m not sure how we would decide to kill the time, but one thing is certain: most of the time we would be spinning! In fact, when there are no dynamic operations (i.e.: there’s no need to fire the thrusters or the main engine), the Soyuz is put in gyroscopic stabilization with the solar panels pointed at the Sun to maximize power generation. It’s actually not the greatest thing for the crew: any space sickness you’re experiencing, the spinning is guaranteed to make it worse (or to give you symptoms, if you didn’t have any). But unless you actively stabilize the attitude with thrusters, the only way to keep a stable orientation is to rotate on an axis. Btw, I’ve explained this a little bit more in this post from – wow! – almost three years ago (I have been studying the Soyuz for a while, haven’t I?) In the picture you can see the periscope view in the simulator as we were approaching the ISS. Looks like we were at a distance of about 200-250 meters: at that point we would be doing the fly-around to align ourselves with the docking port. The computer is still flying the approach, but the hand controllers are in the working positions (they’re pulled out before approach start), so that Anton can reach them if it’s necessary to transition to manual control. Futura mission website (Italian): Avamposto42 avamposto42.esa.int #SamLogbook  #Futura42 (Trad IT)  Traduzione in italiano a cura di +AstronautiNEWS qui: https://www.astronautinews.it/tag/logbook/ (Trad FR) Traduction en français par +Anne Cpamoa ici: https://spacetux.org/cpamoa/category/traductions/logbook-samantha/ (Trad ES – Currently not updated) Tradducción en español aquí: https://www.intervidia.com/category/bitacora/

Last Friday, on the day after our arrival in Baikonour, we left early in the morning for the cosmodrome, where the Soyuz TMA-13M is being prepared for launch on May 28th. In fact, this so-called “first fit check” drives the entire schedule of the crews in the weeks before: they have to be in Baikonour in time for this event. Anton and I already had a chance to sit in the spaceship of Max, Reid and Alex back in Moscow a few months ago, when we did the acceptance verification. But this time it was a very different feeling: this assembly of metal and electronics will bring our friends to space in less than two weeks, their lives will depend on it functioning properly. With that in mind, even more than if it were our own spacecraft, the one thing we kept telling ourselves was: “Don’t break anything!” We went inside one first time in our blue flight suits for a general familiarization and to go over a checklist to verify the overall configuration. Then we went inside a second time in our Sokol suits, and this time we really focused on moving carefully and deliberately to avoid any incident. It’s a very cramped space and entering from above from the orbital module is obviously a lot more cumbersome than using the “fake” side hatch we have in the Star City simulators. Both we and the prime crew went through a verification procedure of the communication system. In addition, the prime crew fully strapped in, since their seat liners were in place, and had a chance to experience the extension of the seats. When they’ll come back to Earth in six months, their seats will extend before landing to arm the shock absorbers, which would damped the impact force in case of a failure of the retrorockets. Picture credit: Victor Zelentsov More pics here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/astrosamantha/sets/72157644330297400/ #SamLogbook  #Futura42 (Trad IT)  Traduzione in italiano a cura di +AstronautiNEWS qui: https://www.astronautinews.it/tag/logbook/ (Trad ES) Tradducción en español aquí: https://www.intervidia.com/category/bitacora/ (Trad FR) Traduction en français par +Anne Cpamoa ici: https://spacetux.org/cpamoa/category/traductions/logbook-samantha/

Maybe you remember that last December Anton and I went to Energia to do the acceptance verification of the Soyuz that will bring Max, Reid and my fellow Shenanigan Alex to space end of May. As I wrote back then, it’s quite a rare treat for non Russians to be able to go. Well, it happened again! Anton, Terry and myself we got to go as a crew this morning to the acceptance verification of our own Soyuz! Now that hasn’t happened in years, we’ve been told. I’ll let you read about the acceptance verification in the L-358 logbook. But let me tell you, even if the task was the same, it was a very different feeling to be inside our own spaceship. How you can instantly be in love with a collection of metal, hoses and cables! She’s just a beauty. In the afternoon, we had a fire sim with Terry and Anton in preparation for the upcoming Soyuz exam. A fire scenario is one of the most rushed and complex, so we thought it was a good idea to practice it again. You can read more about fire on the Soyuz in this previous logbook. We also got all kinds of small and big malfunction making our life hard, but hey… we can take it by now. As a crew we’re as prepared as we’ll be! Photo: our instructor Dima at the control panel as our descent module simulator starts filling with smoke. #SamLogbook  #Futura (Trad IT)  Traduzione in italiano a cura di +AstronautiNEWS qui: https://www.astronautinews.it/tag/logbook/ (Trad ES) Tradducción en español aquí: https://www.intervidia.com/category/bitacora/ (Trad FR) Traduction en français par +Anne Cpamoa ici: https://spacetux.org/cpamoa/category/traductions/logbook-samantha/

First of all, happy Cosmonautics Day! I can’t imagine a more suitable place to be in today than here in Star City, where it all started. Well, I guess next year will be even better, as I will be on ISS! But there’s still a lot of training to be completed before that and the coming weeks promise to be an exciting time. This is for me the “back-up trip” to Russia: Reid, Alex and Maksim will launch on May 28th and Terry, Anton and I will be their shadows until then. Just like them we’ll take the qualification exams, we’ll participate in all the pre-launch ceremonies and traditions and we’ll fly to Baikonour for a two-week quarantine time. And then we’ll watch them blast off to space! So this past week I’ve resumed my Soyuz “routine”. I had several manual flying sims (rendez-vous & docking as well as descent), while yesterday Anton and I were back together in the Soyuz simulator. First we practiced the transition from the nominal quick profile (launch-to-docking in six hours) to the two-day profile. If you have followed the last Soyuz launch, you know that this is a very real possibility: Soyuz 38S had a minor issue with one of the burns and they had to interrupt the nominal profile to eventually dock two days later. In our sim, however, after the transition we also got a leak in the pressurization lines of the propellant tanks: basically we were loosing pressure in the helium tanks that pressurize our fuel and our oxidizer, so that they flow to the combustion chamber when the appropriate valves are opened. No pressure, no engine firing! So we had to immediately initiate an emergency descent, before the pressure became too low. A nice refresher sim, as we wait for Terry to join us next time. I attach a picture of Anton and myself that Terry took a while back… with some artistic liberty. #SamLogbook  #Futura (Trad IT)  Traduzione in italiano a cura di +AstronautiNEWS qui: https://www.astronautinews.it/tag/logbook/ (Trad ES) Tradducción en español aquí: https://www.intervidia.com/category/bitacora/ (Trad FR) Traduction en français par +Anne Cpamoa ici: https://spacetux.org/cpamoa/category/traductions/logbook-samantha/

Today we finally had our first real Soyuz sim with our complete crew! Terry joined Anton and myself for a pretty adventurous afternoon in which we had to practice fighting for our life when smoke started to fill up the small volume of our descent module just after our simulated injection into orbit. In situations like this, your best friends are good crew coordination and your pressure suit! Normally air from the cabin is circulated through the suit. In case of smoke, however, we would immediately close the helmets, turn off the ventilation and start instead pure oxygen flow into the suit from the oxygen tanks. The continuous flow of fresh oxygen prevents fogging of the helmet, but it also means that we’re introducing oxygen into the cabin via the suit relief valve. As the oxygen concentration in the descent module grows, so does the flammability of the atmosphere. Latest at a concentration of 40% we want to fully depressurize, venting all the atmosphere to space. At that point we rely fully on the suits to keep us alive: they are designed to maintain an internal pressure of 0,4 atm, enough to avoid symptoms of decompression sickness, but also to make the suit very rigid. In a fire scenario we need to act very quickly: before we can depressurize we need to leak check the suits to make sure we’re not going to kill a crewmember when we vent the atmosphere. And in parallel we need to initiate the sequence that will lead us to a timely deorbit burn and a safe reentry. It was a very busy and very fun sim! And also, as we like to joke, a free sauna: with the helmet closed, the ventilation off and only the (smaller) oxygen flow, it gets quickly warm in the Sokol! #SamLogbook (Trad IT)  Traduzione in italiano a cura di +AstronautiNEWS qui: https://www.astronautinews.it/tag/logbook/ (Trad ES) Tradducción en español aquí: https://www.intervidia.com/category/bitacora/ (Trad FR) Traduction en français par +Anne Cpamoa ici: https://anne.cpamoa.free.fr/blog/index.php/category/logbook-samantha

I mentioned in yesterday’s Logbook that the Soyuz commander has a periscope view available. You can see the actual periscope in the attached picture. As you might have noticed, it has two circular openings offering two views that are offset by 90 degrees. To change between views a mirror inside the periscope is rotated. Most of the time the view of interest is the one “straight out” along the axis of the periscope. Whenever there is a need to fire the engines, the reference orientation in which the Soyuz puts itself is along the local vertical: in this orientation the periscope faces towards Earth. The optical setup is such that the commander sitting in the center seat will see the entire globe symmetrically in the field of view if the Soyuz is properly oriented. Also, any feature on the surface of the Earth will be running from top to bottom (or from bottom to top if it’s a braking attitude). When we approach the Station for rendez-vous the mirror is turned so that the commander can now have a forward view. This is the view we would use to align the Soyuz manually if we had to fly a manual docking. Should the mirror remain stuck on the initial position – you guessed it – we have backup option. We can use a camera view and a second target which is aligned with the camera: that’s the circular target on yesterday’s picture! Picture credit: NASA #SamLogbook (Trad IT)  Traduzione in italiano a cura di +AstronautiNEWS qui: https://www.astronautinews.it/tag/logbook/ (Trad ES) Tradducción en español aquí: https://www.intervidia.com/category/bitacora/ (Trad FR) Traduction en français par +Anne Cpamoa ici: