ISS symmetrical

A busy few days at the ISS. STS-119 undocked after having installed the fourth and last set of solar arrays, so the Station looks symmetrical again (NASA photos). Soyuz TMA-14 launched on 26/3, carrying Expedition 19 and space tourist Charles Simonyi on his second visit to orbit.

I rather liked this comment in a NASA Watch article:

You have to note the differences between the shuttle and Station crews. The shuttle people appear to be very hyped up, still living in 1983 and full of false bravado (and what’s with those MIT baseball hats the wrong way around and cheesy embroided polo shirts, they look like an OAPs golf club on tour). Where as the station crew (presumably with its heavy slavic influence) is reassuringly nonchalant about the whole thing. “Spacewalk to connect some pipes? We do that every week.”

Vive la difference! I can’t wait for the permanent european and japanese crew members to arrive. Then we might be somewhere close to Kubrick’s best-guess. From the shuttle-heavy NASA coverage you might think it was Uncle Sam who built and paid for everything.

– Posted by: Ben at March 22, 2009, 5:14 p.m.

“Valley Girls: Esther Dyson”, BBC News, 29/1. Interview with Charles Simonyi’s backup, Esther Dyson.

“My parents were European. Mum was a mathematician and dad a physicist. We travelled a lot and knew about the world. I actually thought salesmen were the scum of the earth. I have certainly changed my opinion on that,” she said.

Her original opinion was correct! She has a website, and a Flickr account with photos.

Russian moon rocket – maybe

I have not posted much as I just haven’t felt like it, and there has been little space news to interest me.

“Final European crewmembers announced for human Mars mission simulation”, 26 February 2009. Selected for the prime crew are Oliver Knickel, a mechanical engineer in the German army, and airline pilot Cyrille Fournier from France. Cedric Mabilotte and Arc’hanmael Gaillard, both from France, are assigned as backup crewmembers.

“Russia to approve new Moon rocket”, BBC News, 16/3. Anatoly Zak reports that Russian space officials are to select the winning proposal for a new rocket intended to carry cosmonauts on missions to the Moon. The rocket is to fly its first test mission in 2015 (if all goes to plan).

According to the objectives given by the Russian space agency (Roscosmos) to industry, a future rocket should be able to hoist a payload three times heavier than Russia’s veteran Soyuz spacecraft, including twice the number of crew, and use environmentally friendly propellants. The development of the new rocket should be accompanied by work on Russia’s next-generation manned spacecraft, which will use it to get into orbit. Russian space officials say the yet-to-be-named rocket should carry its first manned spacecraft in 2018.

Expedition 18 completed a spacewalk (#21A) from the Pirs docking module wearing Russian Orlan-M spacesuits on 10 March. This is the last time the -M designation will be worn; the next Russian spacewalk will test the new -MK suits with digital controls.

• Yurii Lonchakov (EV1, Orlan-M №26, blue stripes)
• Michael Fincke (EV2, Orlan-M №27, red stripes)
• 4h 49m (16:22-20:11)
• ISS Daily Report; NASA

Suits Orlan-M №26 & 27 have an on-orbit lifetime till 30 June 2009. In future they will be jettisoned respectively as RadioSkaf-2 and RadioSkaf-3 satellites in Russian spacewalks: the first of them will be launched during EVA #24 in November/December, the second of them – in 2010.

In the next Russian spacewalk (EVA #22, 5 June 2009) the new Orlan-MK spacesuits will be tested. At this time there will be three modernized spacesuits onboard ISS. The first of them, Orlan-MK #4 (#1170004) with blue stripes, was delivered by Progress M-65 cargo ship on 17 September 2008. The second of them, Orlan-MK #5 (#1080005) with red stripes, arrived aboard Progress M-66 on 13 February. The third spacesuit, Orlan-MK #6 (#1080006) with blue stripes, will be delivered by Progress M-02M on 12 May. (via Anik)

STS-119 Discovery launched on 15 March. It carries the S6 truss segment, and ISS 18-19 Flight Engineer-2, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata, who will be the first long-duration Japanese astronaut on the ISS.

The March 2009 edition of Russian Space, «Российский космос», has an article, «Надежда – мой компас…» (“Nadezhda/Hope – my compass…) on what former cosmonaut Nadezhda Kuzhel’naya, Надежда Кужельная, is doing now with her life: an Aeroflot pilot of the A-320. She was never given a space flight despite waiting ten years, and resigned in 2004. I have yet to do a translation of the article.

One item of information I am coveting but have been unable to find is a diagram of the TsUP/Moscow Mission Control Room, similar to this one of the new FCR-1. I have looked on the TsUP site, but there doesn’t seem to be anything. I would like to know the positions and roles of the TsUP flight controllers! (I posted this request at NASASpaceflight.com forum, but it has languished unanswered.)

I happened upon a copy of The Thrillionaire® by Nik Halik in my local library (Nik was Richard Garriott’s backup for Soyuz TMA-13 in October 2008). I have not actually read the book yet; just skimmed through parts of it. Nik is an Australian of Greek descent, born 1971. His book is evidently self-published (being a millionaire, he can obviously afford it!). Some advice: for a professional-appearing book, don’t:

• use the Photoshop “3D text effect” for your cover page title (looks tacky);
• double-space paragraphs rather than indent (double-spacing is the default for webpage paragraphs, but is hard to read on printed pages).

The “Thrillionaire®” title is rather gag-worthy (and the “registered trademark” symbol after it gets irritating). The book mostly consists of a bored rich guy’s adventures – namely undertaking activities such as deep-sea diving to the Titanic, climbing mountains, staying with a bemused Tuareg tribe, presumably to see how “the other half live” (I can imagine them muttering amongst themselves, “Who the f**k is this wanker?” or whatever the equivalent is in Tuareg :-); incidently the men veil themselves rather than the women – a nice change!), and so on. There are also a lot of “motivational” stories of the corporate variety (which I regard with eye-rolling cynicism). So that’s my impressions without actually reading the book. He’s certainly not shy about promoting himself.