Soyuz TMA-12 into orbit

Soyuz TMA-12 launched yesterday at 11:16:39 UTC with Expedition 17 and Visiting Crew-14 (South Korean astronaut Yi So-yeon). Somewhat surprisingly there are Koreans living in Baikonur and Kazakhstan (courtesy of Joseph Stalin).

Yi So-yeon (I think Yi is her surname, if last names are presented first in Chinese fashion) has the usual intimidating array of qualifications (a biosystems engineer) and is a tae-kwon-do expert. She seems very enthusiastic.

Sergei Volkov is the son of a cosmonaut, Aleksandr Volkov, and is the first second-generation cosmonaut to go into space.

“Three Rocketeers For Shenzhou”, Space Daily, 9/4. Three Chinese astronauts are to go into space and one will make China’s first spacewalk later this year (at the time of the Olympics), but there is annoyingly little information about them or the mission!

TsUP (Moscow Mission Control) has redesigned its website, so it looks a bit better, but the same annoying Javascript menu is required to navigate – if you don’t have Javascript enabled, or are using a text browser, the site is inaccessible.

ATV docked

The ATV successfully docked to the ISS on 4/4. The NASA Human Spaceflight Gallery has some nice photos from its earlier test run for the docking on 31/3.

“Response to a reporter of a Russian periodical: Upper stages Block DM built by S.P.Korolev RSC Energia are of highest reliability” on the Energiya site; apparently even some Russian reporters can’t get the facts accurate on their own country’s space program! The name of the publication isn’t given.

Sergei Krikalyov sightings in photos (he is looking ever-greyer :-( – he’ll be 50 this year!):

• 4/3: Novosti-Kosmonavtiki photo gallery: «Торжественное собрание в посольстве Чехии по случаю 30-летия первого пилотируемого полёта по программе «Интеркосмос» » (ceremonial meeting at the embassy of the Czech Republic on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the first manned flight program Intercosmos). Sergei appears in photos: 7, 28, 67, 69.
• 18/3: Energiya photo-report: “S.P. Korolev RSC Energia, Korolev, Moscow region. The Chief Designers Board meeting At OAO S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, the Chief Designers Board meeting chaired by V.A. Lopota, the Corporation President, General Designer, took place. Among the issues under review were the following: current state of the International Space Station Russian Segment and going on with its mission Program implementation, progress in prelaunch processing of Soyuz TMA-12 transport manned space vehicle and final works phase, which Expedition 16 crew will perform.” Sergei appears in photo 13.

The io9 blog mentioned a computer game based on a trilogy of novels by Russian author Alexander Zorich (actually two authors writing under the pseudonym); they write science fiction and fantasy novels, only available in Russia though (and not translated into English). The game is an alternative history where Russia has expanded into outer space and has contact (and conflict) with 4 alien races. I don’t know if I would like the novels or not if I were able to read them, but I would be curious to see how they would compare with the usual (and predictable) U.S./British sci-fi that dominates the novels available in Australia. (The sci-fi I like is of the “aliens and spaceships” sort.)

Disqualified

In a somewhat surprising announcement, the South Korean astronaut Ko San was dropped from the upcoming Soyuz TMA-12 mission because he apparently removed some training manuals from Star City without authorization. The manuals are Soyuz flight manuals – not exactly state secret material – so they seem to have been making more of a statement about his doing things he wasn’t supposed to do:

“The Russian space agency has stressed that a minor mistake and disobedience can cause serious consequences,” Lee told reporters. Lee said he believed the materials in question were not classified.

It seems a bit harsh, though. His backup is a woman, Yi So-yeon, so she will get to go up instead. (James Oberg comments at FP Space.)

There were several comments at FP Space regarding the article “NASA wary of relying on Russia”, starting with Kirill Simon and replies following.

As reported at the Buran-Energiya site, the experimental space shuttle Buran OK-GLI will be shipped to the Sinsheim Auto & Technik Museum in Germany from Bahrain where it has been languishing for over 4 years during a dispute over its ownership. The model was exhibited in Sydney in 2000 but the organization that owned it then went bankrupt. It will at last be properly looked-after, though it’s a pity it could not be returned to Russia and exhibited. (CollectSPACE thread: Buran found, sold to German museum.)

The ATV Jules Verne ran into a technical problem after its successful launch: one of the four “electronics chains” controlling its propulsion system detected an anamoly and shut down. It is only a glitch so far; it’s unclear if the fault is with the electronics or the propulsion system.

A busy launch week

The European Space Agency’s unmanned ATV cargo spacecraft, Jules Verne, is due to launch tomorrow! At 04:03 UTC (3:03 p.m. in Melbourne). It will be the first new spacecraft (for the human space program) to enter orbit since China’s Shenzhou launch in 2003. The Space Shuttle, STS-123 Endeavour, is also to launch on 11 March at 6:28 UTC; the main components to be installed are the Japanese Experiment Module (Kibo), and the Canadian Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) Dextre robotics system. A busy week in orbit, assuming both launch on time! (Russia is getting overshadowed a bit; it has not launched a module since Pirs in 2001 – though the ATV has some Russian components and will dock to the end of Zvezda – “Our Russian colleagues look at the ATV as though it were also their own vehicle”.)

“NASA wary of relying on Russia”, MSNBC, 7/3. With the imminent retirement of the Space Shuttle, Russian Soyuz spaceships will be the only way for NASA to get its astronauts into space until the Orion spaceship is developed.

I spent most of the afternoon doing 2 pages for my “RuSpace” site about Russian space toilets! (For the ISS and Soyuz.)

I didn’t make any posts last month (February); there wasn’t much that interested me!

The new Russian President was elected on 2 March: Dmitrii Medvedev (Дмитрий Анатольевич Медведев) – to no-one’s surprise! I wonder if he will take any interest in his country’s space program. (Vladimir Putin looks set to become Prime Minister.)

Some previous collected news tidbits:

“Russia has the corner on guns in space”, James Oberg, MSNBC, 12/2. An overview of the gun carried on board the Soyuz spaceship that the relevant authorities don’t want to acknowledge!

Perhaps a year or so ago, nobody would have raised an eyebrow over “trained spacefarers” being able to grab a gun at will, for whatever reason they felt like. But in the wake of the past year’s tragic violence involving professional astronauts and space center veterans, and in light of stories now surfacing over psychological crises on past missions (including one threatened suicide that the mission commander took very seriously), the open access to such lethal hardware needs reappraisal.

At the very least, the survival kit needs to be locked, with the key (or combination) in the possession of the capsule commander. The very presence of the gun probably also needs to be reviewed again, to determine if it is a critical piece of safety gear or a space disaster just waiting to go off.

I can just imagine the headline: “Psychotic astronaut slaughters crewmates on Space Station!”

“An interview with Richard Garriott”, The Space Review, 18/2. He is also updating his journal more regularly. He seems to be missing the greater variety of foods back home!

The United Nations flag is to be taken onboard the next Soyuz flight in April with Korean guest cosmonaut Ko San.

A tidbit of information about Sergei Krikalyov from his page at Space Encyclopedia ASTROnote is that “in December 2007 he was a candidate for the Deputies of the State Duma 5th convocation on the list of the All Russia political party ‘United Russia’, the regional group № 81 (St. Petersburg). Despite the fact that the party overcame the 5% barrier, being the 16th in the list of regional groups in the allocation of seats, in the number of deputies has not shown up.” Is he getting involved in politics?

From Novosti Kosmonavtiki news №687:

In Star City (Звездном городке, Zvezdni Gorodok) an exhibition was opened of the photographic works of airman-cosmonaut, Hero of the Soviet Union and Hero of Russia Sergei Krikalyov with the symbolic name “Paintings of the Creator”. Our planet Earth is presented in an unusual perspective – from space. All photographs were taken from onboard the International Space Station.

Soyuz TMA-10 ballistic landing cause determined

Via José (and also reported at MSNBC.com):

The reason for the rough landing of Soyuz TMA-10 has been determined

29/1/2008, Lenta.ru

The reason for the ballistic descent of the descent vehicle Soyuz TMA-10 with the ISS crew members onboard during 21 October 2007, was caused by damage to a cable in the spacecraft’s control panel, said RKK Energiya leader Vitalii Lopota.

“The Commission of Inquiry for the reasons for the contingency situation finished its work and established that the reason for ballistic descent was the cable fault, which connected the control panel with the Soyuz descent equipment,” said Lopota. According to him, RKK Energiya will take all measures to avoid a repetition of this situation.

On 21 October 2007 the descending ship capsule Soyuz TMA-10, on which was being returned the members of the 15th ISS Expedition – Russians Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov (more half a year in orbit) and the first cosmonaut of Malaysia, Sheik Muzafar Shukor (11 days in orbit) – passed from the controlled regime to ballistic. The capsule landed 70 kilometers from the planned landing place and the cosmonauts endured overloads up to nine gravities/units.

According to the chief ballastician of Mission Control Center (TSUP), Nikolai Ivanov, the overload was short-term and did not threaten the health and life of the cosmonauts. “The ballistic descent – into the regime of which the day before, the descent vehicle with the cosmonauts of the 15th Expedition and the first cosmonaut of Malaysia, the control system transferred in the section of descent into the Earth’s atmosphere – is not a nonstandard regime, and the overload to nine units, tested by the crew and which was being continued of approximately ten seconds, did not threaten their life and health,” said Ivanov. “There was a failure, but the Soyuz control system not only did not refuse, but, that – of principal importance – successfully transferred the descent vehicle into the more reliable regime of descent into the Earth’s atmosphere. If this happened, God forbid, with the American shuttle, in which a regime of ballistic descent is not provided, then it would be necessary to go with a funeral procession to meet the astronauts inside it.”

The difference between the ballistic and controlled descent is that the controlled automation constantly orients the descent vehicle by its flat lower part to the Earth, which ensures lift due to the incidental airflow, and it ensures minimum overloads for the crew up to four gravities/units, Ivanov explained. “The descent along the ballistic trajectory without the participation of lift is comparable with a falling stone, but if we permitted it to fall like a stone, then the overload would reach a limit incompatible with human life. Therefore we constantly rotated the descent vehicle around its axis, it achieved approximately one revolution after half a minute, what contributed (to transfer) the life-threatening ‘foot-head’ overload into the more acceptable ‘chest-spin’ overload due to the centrifugal force,” said the ballistics chief.

According to the 15th Expedition commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, “The rotation of the descent vehicle was sharp, rigid, with strong vestibular irritation, which I could feel from the left seat of the capsule in which I sat. The overload increased gradually, up to a tolerable 8.56 units. After overload at seven units we ceased to report to Earth about our health in order to concentrate on maintaining our respiration. But the crew members did not experience loss of sight and consciousness, and we understood that we just had to endure the ordeal.”

“Russia may build new shuttle spacecraft by 2015”, RIA Novosti, 29/1. Energiya’s spacecraft proposal (it has 6 projects, 2 of which it will submit to the Russian Space Agency in the near future) would likely have a lifting-body design and carry a crew of 6. More via Novosti Kosmonavtiki news №682: Sergei Krikalyov, Energiya’s deputy design project leader, is convinced that several different spacecraft designs will be required to realize Russia’s space projects. “It is not possible to create a ship which would equally be suitable for flights the Moon, Mars, and for the flights to near-Earth orbit. Therefore I do not exclude that not one manned ship will be built, but several,” emphasized the cosmonaut. He said the new ship will be constructed at the new spaceport.

Energiya chief Valerii Lopota said at the 31st Academic Readings in Cosmonautics conference that the Soyuz and Progress ships would be transferred over to digital technologies in the 2008-2009 period which would increase their reliability.

30 years of Progress

Energiya press release: 20 January 2008 marked 30 years since the launch of the first Progress cargo ship. The Progress ships have served the Russian space program reliably (and mostly been ignored in the media). ESA’s Automated Transfer Vehicle cargo ship uses Russian propellant and tanks in its design, and the first launch is currently set for 22 February. It will dock to the aft of the Zvezda Service Module.

(Tass newspaper frontpage via Novosti Kosmonavtiki)

From Novosti Kosmonavtiki news №679:

20/01/2008/08:35 – Russian scientists will conduct a series of experiments to investigate the Moon, including the use of Japanese instruments

The project “Luna-Glob” (Luna-Globe) is planned to solve complex research tasks for the Study of Earth satellite, said Lev Zelenyi, the director of the Institute for Space Research at the Russian Academy of Sciences. The project “was broadened. It includes several phases, including the dumping on the surface of the Moon of so-called penetrators to study our satellite,” said Lev Zelenyi.

He explained that penetratory (impact penetrating probes) are planned to be fired from the automatic spacecraft, which will be placed in the Moon’s orbit. The probes under the action of lunar gravity will drive away also at a high speed and enter into the soil of the Moon at the depth of several meters. The on-board sensors, which operate from autonomous power supplies, can transmit information about the composition and the properties of lunar soil, and the seismic characteristics of Earth’s natural satellite. “It was decided to use penetrators of Japanese production, since the Russian technologies in this region can be considered lost,” reported L. Zelenyi.

Besides the use of impact probes, the “Luna -Glob” project provides for the launch of lunar orbital apparatuses, and over the long term and the creation of a rover landing station, which will travel across the lunar surface.

The equipment installed on the orbital devices, in the words of L. Zelenyi, in particular, will have to investigate the exosphere of the Moon, the space around it, and also magnetic and gravity anomalies whose nature is not yet clear.

Furthermore, on the orbital lunar apparatus will be established the instrument “LORD”, designed to study ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. The device would capture elementary particles with enormous speed and energy. Under normal circumstances, such a particle can not be caught by any devices, since they can easily pass through layers of any substance. The “LORD” instrument will recover those particles of superhigh energies, which “after piercing” the Moon, will be slowed down, said L. Zelenyi.

“The China gambit”, The Space Review, 21/1. Article by Dwayne Day on how the USA could involve China in its space program (mainly the ISS) and use such involvement as leverage against Russia should the latter country become hostile and deny astronauts access to space via Soyuz flights once the Shuttle program is shut down. A pragmatic plan I guess, though it comes across as somewhat patronizing; of the dominant country “managing” others. Equally, Russia and China could team up to “manage” the USA! So it’s a 3-way game.

Manber’s proposal is clever and thought-provoking. He has not simply proposed cooperation with China for its own sake, or even for the benefit of improving relations with China, but to use such cooperation as a lever against the Russians. This is not the first time that someone has proposed that encouraging China in space could have strategic benefits for the United States—four years ago I wrote about the benefits of a cooperative/competitive space race with China (see “The benefits of a new space race”, The Space Review, April 26, 2004), suggesting that we encourage them to spend money on human spacecraft instead of missiles. But Manber is apparently the first to suggest that we use China to moderate the Russians, something that Nixon gained as a side benefit of his China rapprochement nearly four decades ago.

“Russia To Raise Space Funding, Build New Space Center”, 22/1, RIAN/Space Daily. Space funding is to be raised by 13% (doesn’t say the actual amount).

“Russian space center to launch boosters”, Space Daily, 23/1. The new Vostochnii space center will be built near Uglegorsk in the Amur region of eastern Russia. Manned flights are expected to begin by 2018.

“Ivanov Says Russia Must Not Turn Into Space Cabman”, Space Daily, 24/1. Russia shouldn’t rely on revenue from launches of foreign satellites for most of its space funding, and should focus on creating the new space center, Vostochnii, to ensure the country’s access to space (rather than risk being blackmailed by Kazakhstan, which leases out Baikonur to Russia).

Mars over Moscow

In this nicely symbolic photo by Seiji Yoshimoto at the NPO Intercos site, the red planet Mars is visible over the red star of the Kremlin! (Full photo page of Moscow scenes here – there are a lot of high-resolution photos on the one page.) Let’s hope that is a good omen! (As in landing there one day.)

From Novosti Kosmonavtiki news №677:

10/01/2008/00:02 – The cost of the Mars flight simulation experiment will exceed 15 million dollars

The total cost of the Russian project on the “Mars-500” flight simulation to the Red Planet, which will take place at the site of the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IMBP, Moscow), will exceed 15 million dollars, reported the project leader, the first deputy director of IMBP Victor Baranov. “If some additional expenditures appear, then general expenditures will be increased,” he added.

Among the first unplanned expenditures V. Baranov named was the elimination of some deficiencies and observations, that were revealed in the activities of the experimental complex during the daily technical experiment carried out during November. He also reported that the material reward of volunteers for the participation in the “Mars-500” experiment will compose 50 thousand Euros. This number was announced by the European space agency, which participates in the experiment. “We have an understanding with ESA that the payment for the Russian and European participants must not differ,” said V. Baranov.

He also did not exclude that the basic material reward of the highly professional participants will be above average. According to V. Baranov, there was also discussed the question of encouragement by rewarding those participants who carry out the experiment more honestly. “But this question will be linked with the personal contracts with each of the testers,” the Russian scientist specified.

The Mars flight simulation experiment will be prolonged more than 520 days – precisely this many days will be required in order to fly so far to the planet, to spend 30 days on its surface and then to return. All this time the six testers will be located in the isolated modules, fulfilling the functional duties of participants in the Martian expedition. Two participants in the experiment will be selected from ESA, which signed with the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IMBP) of RAN (Russian Academy of Science) an agreement on participating in the project. Four more will be selected by the IMBP specialists.

“Russia set to develop new launch vehicle despite problems”, RIAN, 11/1. The Angara rocket is supposed to launch from the «Восточный», Eastern space center, but the rocket has yet to be developed.

Mars-500 updates

“Mars-500 Simulated Space Mission”, 24/12: image gallery at RIA Novosti. The latest issue of Novosti Kosmonavtiki magazine, №1 2008, has an article about the recent Mars-500 experiment on its site: «В ИМБП стартовал проект «Марс-500»», “IMBP began the Mars-500 project”, including an interview with cosmonaut Sergei Ryazanskii (use Babelfish for a rough translation – the article is very long and I do not have the energy to struggle to correct the translator’s convoluted attempts!).

Sergei Krikalyov seems to have been dropped from the Soyuz TMA-14/ISS-19 crew as commander; he is no longer in the latest ISS flight crew roster up to ISS-21, though the roster is not yet finalized. (Via Olaf and this thread at the Novosti Kosmonavtiki forum, posted in August.) So perhaps he was moved to a later mission? Or will he be in management for a few years, though he is still an active cosmonaut?

ISS cosmonaut roster, December 2007

Expedition	Prime crew	Backup crew
ISS-17	Sergei Volkov, Oleg Kononenko	Maksim Sura’ev, Oleg Skripochka
ISS-18	Salizhan Sharipov	Yurii Lonchakov
ISS-18S (6-person crew begins)	Gennadii Padalka	Maksim Sura’ev
ISS-19S	Yurii Lonchakov	Dimitri Kondrat’ev
ISS-20S	Mikhail Kornienko, Roman Romanenko	Aleksandr Skvortsov, Oleg Skripochka
ISS-21S	Maksim Sura’ev	Fyodor Yurchikhin

Anatoly Zak has a new article on his website: “Russian space program: a decade review (2000-2010)”, 3/1. After the near-catastrophic social turmoil in the 1990s, Russia’s space program is slowly being reinvigorated, but it is dangerously dependent upon continued high oil prices for most of its funding.

Russia-bashing

NASAWatch notes the excessive “Russia-bashing” contained in this Bill being put forward by a Congressman Weldon to prolong the operations of the Space Shuttle to 2015 (rather than the current end date of 2010). “RUSSIA IS NOT A RELIABLE PARTNER”, etc… (There is a long discussion thread at NASASpaceflight.com.) What a Paranoid Patriot Weldon is (a Republican, not surprisingly)! The thought of someone like him becoming U.S. President is dismaying!

Progress M-61 undocked from the ISS yesterday (22/12) at 3:57 UTC. It will remain in autonomous orbit for about a month, performing a series of technical experiments. Progress M-62 launched today at 7:12:35 from Baikonur.

12 December: Cosmonaut candidates visit the Khrunichev Center

Today, for the purpose of acquaintance with the activities of one of the most important enterprises of the rocket-space industry, the cosmonaut candidates and the instructors of the Yu. A. Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center visited GKNPTs Khrunichev.

The state space scientific and industrial center named after M.V. Khrunichev was selected on purpose. The old enterprise has almost a half-century length of employment in the field of creation and operation of rocket-space technology.

The Center has a special role in the implementation of the manned programs of the USSR and Russia. Here was created the “Salyut” orbital manned stations and the TKS transport supply ships, the large-dimension modules for the Mir orbital complex, and the FGB Zarya and SM Zvezda modules for the International Space Station. At present, according to the ISS program, work is conducted here on the creation of the third module, the Multifunctional Laboratory Module.

The manager of the rocket-space plant, Victor Latyshev, described all this to his guests. The instructors of TSPK – V. Kolyasnikov, A. Radchenya and A. Larin – and also the cosmonaut candidates O. Novitskii, A. Ovchinin, S. Ryzhikov, A. Misurkin, M. Ponomarev, E. Serova and N. Tikhonov visited the assembly shops of the space center, and with their eyes they saw the process of assembling the “Proton-M” heavy carrier rocket, and boarded the full-scale copy of the legendary complex Mir.

Taking into account that the encounter in GKNPTs Khrunichev passed on the threshold of the New Year, the center management presented memorable gifts to the cosmonaut candidates.

«Кандидаты в космонавты посетили Центр имени Хруничева», Khrunichev.

Redesigning space sites

NASA’s website launched a newer, more modern design on 30 November - it looks much nicer and the clunky HTML table layout has been dumped at last! (The site does, however, require Javascript to display properly, and takes nearly a minute to load on broadband because of the huge amount of JS files loaded.)

Now if only the Russian space websites would redesign and upgrade! Some quick observations:

• Energiya: site appearance is neat and somewhat conservative, but the HTML layout consists of old-fashioned tables and is a bit messy.
• Federal Space Agency: tables layout and navigation requires Javascript to function, so it is not very accessible.
• TsUP: design looks outdated (color scheme is not very attractive) and the site menu is Javascript-based, so without this enabled the site can’t be accessed
• IMBP: ugh! Uses frames and an image map. Very outdated and totally inaccessible.

News tidbits:

Mark Wade has abandoned his Pausanius blog. He sounds as disillusioned as I do, though for different reasons.

“AstroMom and Basstronaut, revisited”, The Space Review, 19/11. What happened to the space-tourists-who-weren’t, Lori Garver and Lance Bass. To me it was another example of how dismally avaricious the Russian space program has become – the word that come to mind is “prostitution”.

“Russia To Launch Manned Spacecraft From New Site In 2018”, Space Daily, 22/11. The new site is to be called Восточный, Vostochnyi (“Eastern”), so you can guess in what direction it is located. Baikonur will continue to be used until at least 2020.

Ivanov confirmed that Russia would continue to use the Baikonur launch site until at least 2020, and would also build new facilities at the Kazakh center under the joint Baiterek project to support launches of the future Angara family of launch vehicles.

At the same time, the first deputy premier called for urgent measures to develop the country as a leading space power rather than to turn it into a provider of launch services for other countries. “I would like to stress that Russia should not turn into a country providing only launching services – a kind of space hauler, although this alarming trend has been taking shape lately,” Ivanov said. “This trend may become a reality, unless proper measures are taken urgently to develop all aspects of space activities,” he said.

On 15 November, Space Adventures offered anyone who could come up with the $3 million fee a chance to train as space tourist Richard Garriott’s backup. The contender was announced in the 26/11 Herald-Sun: a 38-year-old Australian businessman, Nik Halik. (Note that the article might disappear.) I have not seen this mentioned anywhere else yet.

“Russia Conducts First Experiment In Preparation For Mars-500”, RIA Novosti/Space Daily, 30/11. A short test of the modules was conducted by a Russian crew (5 men, 1 woman) from 15-29 November. There is disappointingly little information on the Mars-500 site, though.

Novosti Kosmonavtiki news №669 has a more detailed report on the recent completion of the first Mars-500 short test run, including short biographies of the participants, who all have intimidatingly impressive qualifications. (Yes, I am envious of them.)

30/11/2007/00:03 – Flight to Mars from the Khoroshevskogo highway of the capital city

Within the framework of the “Mars-500” project – an international crew flight simulation to the Red Planet – the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems of the Russian Academy of Science held a two-week experiment involving six testers.

The purpose of the two week experiment, which was conducted in IMPB RAN with the active assistance of the Federal Space Agency, was checking the conformity of the technical and operating characteristics of the modules and their systems to the requirements of the developed technical and operational documentation under the conditions maximally approximating real operation. The experiment was conducted in two modules of the medical-technical complex: EU-150/ЭУ-150 (habitable module with a volume of 150 m³) and EU-100/ЭУ-100 (medical module with a volume of 100 m³). In the course of the experiment, the crew lived and worked in these completely isolated modules. During the experiment was tested newly-developed life-support systems, monitoring and control, information management and the local tele-medical network.

The experiment began on 15 November at 11:00 and was completed on 29 November at 14:00.

The crew successfully managed the tasks entrusted to it. During 14 days there was performed the estimation of modules and their systems in terms of their suitability to conducting of the more prolonged experiments, which are part of the Mars-500 program.

The deputy chief of the Federal Space Agency, V.A. Davydov, and the chief for the administration of the manned programs Roskosmos, A.B. Krasnov, became acquainted with the progress of the experiment and the work of the support systems during a visit to IMBP on 22 November.

The experiment was attended by major developers: ФГУП ЦЭНКИ/FGUP TsENKI, ЗАО МИУС/EAO MIUS, ОАО ВНИСИ/OAO VNISI, ОАО НИИХИММАШ/OAO NIIKhIMMASH, ФГУП ЦНИИМАШ ЦУП-МФ/FGUP TsNIIMASH TsUP-MF, ЗАО ЦВТ/EAO TsVT. During the experiment some elements of the crew uniforms were tried, designed and provided by ЗАО НПО «Динафорс»/EAO NPO “Dinafors” working within the framework of the partnership program for the project “Mars-500”.

The crew consisted of five men and one woman:

• Artamonov, Anton Anatol’evich/Артамонов Антон Анатольевич (1982). Engineer physicist, and IMBP engineer-programmer. After graduating from the physical chemistry department of Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys, he specialized in the department of theoretical physics in the region of the superconductivity of nanomaterial. His research interests are the properties and the functioning of muscular apparatus, and the application of laws governing physics of materials in biomechanics. At present he works on his thesis.
• Artem’ev, Oleg Germanovich/Артемьев Олег Германович (1970). Mechanical engineer, he graduated as RKK Energiya engineer and finished at N.E. Bauman MGTU. His specialization is technology and low-temperature physics. After the successful completion of general space training, he obtained qualified as a cosmonaut-researcher and was enrolled as a cosmonaut-tester in the RKK Energiya group, specializing in extravehicular activity. Has a number of publications in this region.
• Kovalev, Aleksandr Sergeevich/Ковалев Александр Сергеевич (1982). Engineer, works in the telemedicine laboratory at IMBP. He graduated from the MAI in the specialty “Engineering in the biomedical practice”. He participated in the experiments on the study of the influence of the simulated effects of microgravity on the human organism. His scientific interests are the influence of the extreme conditions of living environment on the cardiorespiratory system of the body.
• Perfilov, Dmitrii Vladimirovich/Перфилов Дмитрий Владимирович (1975). Doctor, works in the IMBP telemedicine laboratory. Graduated from Moscow Medico-stomatological University, specializing in therapeutic matter. Upon completion of his clinical internship, he qualified as a therapeutist and has additional qualification as a anesthesiologist-resuscitator. Scientific interests: pain sensitivity by changing the factors of space flight, which assumes the possible correction of the existing scheme of the treatment of cosmonauts.
• Ryazanskii, Sergei Nikolaevich/Рязанский Сергей Николаевич (born 1974), expedition commander. Graduated from the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov in the specialty of biochemistry. In 2005, after completing training he received general space training and cosmonaut-researcher qualifications. He is a member of the Bioethical Commission SRC RF IMBP-RAS. According to the results of studies performed, he has published 19 works, and made 12 reports, eight of them in international conferences. In 2006, he defended his candidate’s thesis on the specialty “physiology” and “aviation and space medicine”.
• Tugusheva, Marina Petrovna/Тугушева Марина Петровна (1983). Biologist, Researcher IMBP. She graduated with honors from the biological department of the Tverskii State University in the department “Anatomies and physiologies of man and animals”. After completion of university she was invited to undertake full-time post-graduate study at GNTS RF of the RAN Institute of Biomedical Problems in the specialty “Aviation, space and sea medicine”. She is at present a graduate student in her 3rd year of learning and a scientific worker in the division of Barophysiology and Diving Medicine. She participated in the conferences of young scientists in the years 2006-2007, in the 8th International Congress for Adaptive Medicine in 2006, and also in 2007 in the I.P. Pavlov Congress of the Physiologists and the “Cosmos and Medicine” conference . She has repeatedly participated in experiments.

(A blog gripe: I hate having to think up a title for each blog entry; I find it hard to come up with anything, sometimes!)