TMA-17 docked

Soyuz TMA-17 docked on 22 Dec 2009 at 22:48 to Zarya FGB nadir port with ISS-22/23 on board, adding to Maksim Suraev and Jeffrey Williams. Maksim is still keeping his Orbital Log (link in my blog links to the right).

There was a post at the Mars-500 Livejournal blog (in Russian) that a Chinese volunteer might be included in Mars-500 (replacing one Russian volunteer).

From 15 to 18 December 2009 a meeting was held between IBMP specialists and Chinese Cosmonauts Training Center (KTSPK). The meeting was devoted to discussing issues related to the possible participation of Chinese experts in the project “Mars-500”. As a result of the meeting was agreed on the possibility of inclusion in the scientific program of the 520-day isolation in the framework of the project “Mars-500” three scientific methods. In addition, discussed the possibility of inclusion in the crew of a Chinese volunteer.

Connected at last

Good news for orbiting Internet addicts – the ISS has access at last (though experimental at the moment) – 3/12/2009 On-Orbit Report:

At ~11:05 a.m. EST, Jeff Williams conducted a one-hour video-based training session on the exciting new CSL (Crew Support Local Area Network) capabilities and hardware. [Crew Support LAN Phase 1 will provide live Internet access to the ISS crew (initially only USOS crewmembers) as safely, securely and reliably as possible whenever Ku-band is available. The access will be accomplished by connecting to a remote desktop session on a remote server (Citrix server) located on the ground, which hosts the virtual desktops, and the crew sees only an image of the remote desktop which does the Internet surfing. Video and audio can be received (but may be choppy or sometimes out of sync). The CSL, a virtual network completely separate from the station-wide Ops LAN, will use existing IBM A31p laptops and existing network hardware. Initially, there will be only one CSL laptop (Client 1) and one CSL server (CREWLAN SERVER) both set up in Node-2. After the initial testing, the CSL will be expanded to include up to four clients.]

The Roskosmos/Russian Space Agency site has had a makeover (though still using tables for layout, tsk, tsk) – the English-translated pages seem to have gone. Hopefully they will return? Also, my links in previous blog entries to their pages now seem to be broken – I hate it when that happens!

Soyuz TMA-15 landed on 1 Dec 2009 at 07:16 UTC with ISS-21 aboard. (NASA photo gallery)