Latest Soyuz Stories
For the first time since his landing on Tuesday, ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli was again in the public eye yesterday at a press conference. A smiling Paolo talked about his ride back to Earth and how he was feeling gravity again after his long stay in space."It was really an experience!" said Paolo at the press conference. "After a nice and quiet life in space, the reentry was then rapid, cruel and rough "“ we were like shaken with a big hammer!"The return and landing of Soyuz TMA-20 on...
NASA said on Tuesday that a new spacecraft to take humans into deep space will be based on designs of the Orion crew exploration vehicle. The Orion capsule is a surviving component of the Constellation manned space exploration program that President Barack Obama scrapped last year for being behind schedule and over budget. NASA administrator Charles Bolden said the designs for Orion would be used to push ahead with a new spacecraft known as the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV), which would...
Expedition 27 Commander Dmitry Kondratyev and Flight Engineers Cady Coleman and Paolo Nespoli safely landed their Soyuz spacecraft on the Kazakhstan steppe Monday, wrapping up a five-month stay aboard the International Space Station.The trio landed at 10:27 p.m. (8:27 a.m. on May 24 local time) at a site southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan. Kondratyev, the Soyuz commander, was at the controls of the spacecraft as it undocked at 5:35 p.m. EDT from the station's Rassvet module. Once the Soyuz...
WASHINGTON, May 23, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Expedition 27 Commander Dmitry Kondratyev and Flight Engineers Cady Coleman and Paolo Nespoli safely landed their Soyuz spacecraft on the Kazakhstan steppe Monday, wrapping up a five-month stay aboard the International Space Station. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The trio landed at 10:27 p.m. (8:27 a.m. on May 24 local time) at a site southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan. Kondratyev, the Soyuz commander,...
The European Union (EU) said on Monday that the launch date for the first two satellites of its Galileo navigation system will be October 20. Antonio Tajani, the EU industry commissioner, said the launch would take place at 7:00 a.m. local time and the satellites would carry the names of Belgian and Bulgarian children. The system is intended to rival the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) and Chinese and Russian projects. The program's costs have risen to $7.2 billion. The Galileo...
HOUSTON, May 12, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA Television will cover the return of three International Space Station crew members and the launch of three new station residents in the coming weeks.(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) For the first time, a Soyuz undocking is expected to take place while a space shuttle is docked. Endeavour is set to launch May 16 on the STS-134 mission to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and continue station outfitting. All...
A spokesman for launch operators Arianespace said on Tuesday that the maiden launch of the veteran Soviet-Russian rocket Soyuz from Europe's space base in South America has been scheduled for October. Spokesman Mario de Lepine said, "Right now we are looking at mid-October" for the first launch.He said Soyuz will carry the first two satellites in Europe's Galileo navigation system, the competitor to the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS). The European Space Agency (ESA) and Russia...
The official ceremony marking ESA's handover of the Soyuz launch site to Arianespace took place today at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, after the site was declared ready for the first flight and the completion of a simulated launch campaign.The French space agency, CNES, as prime contractor for the building work, along with its European and Russian partners, has spent recent months qualifying the site.In March, the "˜acceptance review' declared that it was ready for its first rocket...
Space Adventures announced on Thursday that it will add another seat to a Soyuz spacecraft, which will take space tourists into orbit by 2015. The company said it will be adding a second habitation module to the Soyuz TMA lunar complex."Space Adventures will once again grace the pages of aerospace history, when the first private circumlunar mission launches. We have sold one of the two seats for this flight and anticipate that the launch will occur in 2015," Richard Garriott, vice...
The final countdown before its maiden flight later this year has begun for Soyuz with a simulated launch campaign at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.This dry run ensures that the Soyuz and the new facilities work together perfectly, while allowing the teams to train under realistic launch conditions. It also validates all the procedures during the final phase before launch, except the fuelling of the vehicle. Last Friday, one of the two Soyuz launchers already at the Spaceport was...
Latest Soyuz Reference Libraries
Frank De Winne is a Belgian Air Component officer and an ESA astronaut. He was born Frank Viscount De Winne on April 25, 1961 in Ledeberg, Belgium. He is married to Lena Clarke and has three children from a previous marriage. He enjoys football, concerts, and gastronomy. In 1979, he graduated from the Royal School of Cadets, and in 1984, he graduated from the Royal Military Academy with a Master of Science degree in Engineering. In 1991, after graduating from the Belgian Air Component at...
Valery Bykovsky was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew three manned space mission space flights: Vostok 5, Soyuz 22, and Soyuz 31. He was born Valery Fyodorovich Bykovsky on August 2, 1934 in Pavlovsky Posad in Moscow. In 1951, he graduated from middle school and entered Kachinsk's Myasnikov High Aviation School. After graduation in 1955, he served with the Soviet Air Force. In 1960, Bykovsky was accepted into the Soviet cosmonaut unit and then underwent the full space preparation course and...
Ivan Bella is a Slovak Air Force officer who became the first Slovak citizen to fly in space. He was born on May 25, 1964 in Brezno, Czechoslovakia. He graduated from Banská Bystrica, a military high school, in 1983. He earned his pilot license, and he then went to a Military Aviation University SNP, where he graduated in 1987. In 1993 he was stationed to serve on the 33rd air base flying Mig-21 and Su-22 fighters. Five years later he headed to Russia for space mission training. In August...
Georgy Beregovoy was a Soviet cosmonaut who commanded the space mission Soyuz 3 in 1968. He was born Georgy Timofeyevich Beregovoy on April 15, 1921 in Fedorivka, Ukrainian SSR. In 1941, he joined the Soviet air force and was assigned to a ground-attack unit flying the Ilyushin Il-2. He flew almost 200 combat raids during the World War II and became a Captain and Squadron Commander by the end of the war. Following the war, he became a test pilot and rose to the rank of Colonel and Deputy...
International Space Station -- Continuing on from the United States' Skylab and Russia's Mir, the International Space Station (ISS) represents a permanent human presence in space. The space station is located in orbit around the Earth at an altitude of approximately 386 km, a type of orbit usually termed low Earth orbit. (The actual height varies over time by several kilometres due to atmospheric drag and reboosts.) It is serviced primarily by the Space Shuttle, and Soyuz and...
