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.

Space tourist oral histories

“Very Stunning, Very Space, and Very Cool”, Technology Review, Jan/Feb 2009. An oral history of the launch of space tourism.

Ansari: I didn’t let them see it. I thought, “Oh my God, they will think I’m stupid. I have my vomit floating around the cabin.” I managed to grab a bag before it got too bad. I just had a little bit of it floating around. The good thing about it is it’s floating, so you can catch it. I was able to catch it with a napkin and put it in the bag before they all could see it.

[…]

Simonyi: The final checkout is in a doctor’s office, with a medical team of three or four doctors. It’s the most junior one who gives you the enema.

Garriott: The thing is to try to make sure you don’t need to use the rest room on board the Soyuz.

Olsen: Here’s the reason: on the Soyuz capsule, there’s a ­facility for a bowel movement, but you really don’t want to make a bowel movement on it. Imagine using a teapot to make a bowel movement. All right?

And similar “delightful” anecdotes! These are laypersons’ views of space travel, rather than those of professional astronauts and cosmonauts, so are of particular interest to the general public.

“Russia: No more space tourists after 2009”, MSNBC.com, 21/1. Russian Space Agency chief Anatoly Perminov said there won’t be any more room for space tourists when the ISS crew expands from 3 to 6. The last commercial flight is to be made by Charles Simonyi (again!); he previously went up on Soyuz TMA-10 in April 2007.

New NASA Columbia report

NASA has released a Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report (16.2 MB PDF – press release page) featuring a detailed description of the sequence of events for the crew and orbiter during its breakup. A summary from the report is below:

1.1.1 Events with lethal potential

There were five events identified with lethal potential to the crew.

1. The first event with lethal potential was depressurization of the crew module, which started at or shortly after orbiter breakup.The majority of the SCSIIT findings related to the first lethal event were connected to the operational incompatibilities of the advanced crew escape suit (ACES) with the orbiter. The launch and entry suit was added in response to the Challenger accident, rather than as a part of the original vehicle design. The ACES was the successor to that suit. The suit protects the crew in many scenarios; however, there are several areas where integration difficulties diminish the capability of the suit to protect the crew. Integration issues include: the crew cannot keep their visors down throughout entry because doing so results in high oxygen concentrations in the cabin; gloves can inhibit the performance of nominal tasks; and the cabin stow/deorbit preparation timeframe is so busy that sometimes crew members do not have enough time to complete suit-related steps prior to atmospheric entry.

   As Columbia entered the atmosphere, one crew member was not yet wearing the ACES helmet and three crew members were not wearing gloves. Per nominal procedures, the crew wearing helmets had visors up. There was a period of about 40 seconds after the orbiter loss of control (LOC) but prior to depressurization when the crew was conscious and capable of action. Part of this short timeframe was undoubtedly employed in recognizing that a problem existed, as the indications of LOC developed gradually. The crew members could have closed their visors in this timeframe but did not. The SCSIIT attributed this to the training regimen, which separates vehicle systems training from emergency egress training and does not emphasize the transition between problem resolution and a survival situation. Once the cabin depressurization began, the rate of depressurization incapacitated the crew so quickly that even those crew members who had fully donned the ACES did not have time to lower their visors. Although circulatory systems functioned for a brief time, the crew could not have regained consciousness upon descent to lower altitudes due to the effects of the depressurization.

2. The second event with lethal potential was unconscious or deceased crew members exposed to a dynamic rotating load environment with nonconformal helmets and a lack of upper body restraint. The orbiter lost control, probably when the hydraulic systems failed due to hot gas intrusion in the left wing. The resulting motion was not lethal but did require bracing by the crew. The forebody (crew module and forward fuselage) eventually separated and the crew module lost pressure at orbiter break- up. When it separated, the forebody began a multi-axis rotation at approximately 0.1 revolution/second. Loads due to deceleration significantly decreased at the moment of breakup due to the change in ballistic number, but began to climb as the forebody continued to decelerate.

   After the crew module depressurized and the crew lost consciousness, the seat inertial reel mechanisms failed to lock despite the off-nominal motion. The reels were not defective; they were simply not designed to lock under the conditions the forebody experienced. The upper harness straps failed at some point prior to the forebody breakup, causing the straps to recoil back into the inertial reel mech- anism. Because the reel mechanisms did not lock, the unconscious or deceased crew members were exposed to cyclical rotational motion while their upper bodies were inadequately restrained. Helmets that did not conform to the head and the lack of upper body restraint resulted in injuries and lethal trauma.

3. The third event with lethal potential was separation from the crew module and the seats with associated forces, material interactions, and thermal consequences. This event is the least understood due to limitations in current knowledge of mechanisms at this Mach number and altitude. Seat restraints played a role in the lethality of this event. The breakup of the crew module and resultant exposure of the crew to entry conditions was an extremely significant event but was very difficult to characterize since many related events occurred in a short period of time. The consequences of exposure to entry conditions included traumatic injury related to seat restraints, high loads associated with deceleration due to a change in ballistic number, aero- dynamic loads, and thermal events. All crew were deceased before, or by the end of, this event. The ACES has no performance requirements for occupant protection from thermal events and may not provide adequate protection even for egress scenarios involving heat and flames. There is no known complete protection from the breakup event except to prevent its occurrence.
4. The fourth event with lethal potential was exposure to near vacuum, aerodynamic accelerations, and cold temperatures. The ACES system is certified to operate at a maximum altitude of 100,000 feet, and certified to survive exposure to a maximum velocity of 560 knots equivalent air speed. The operating envelope of the orbiter is much greater than this. The actual maximum protection environment for the ACES is not known.
5. The final event with lethal potential was ground impact. The ACES system provides protection from ground impact with a parachute system. The current parachute system requires manual action by a crew member to activate the opening sequence.

There are some “Redacted” sections; presumably containing details about the crew’s remains that the report authors didn’t want to be made public. There were reports of body parts found scattered over the landscape (sorry, this brings out my inner ghoul):

Reports of body parts being found started coming in Saturday night as emergency workers and residents searched hundreds of square miles of Texas and Louisiana for bits of what once was space shuttle Columbia.

In Hemphill, near the Louisiana state line, hospital employee Mike Gibbs reported finding what appeared to be a charred torso, thigh bone and skull on a rural road near what was believed to be other debris. Billy Smith, an emergency coordinator for three East Texas counties, confirmed the find.

“I wouldn’t want anybody seeing what I saw,” Gibbs said. “It was pretty gruesome.”

On a farm not far away, two young boys found a charred human leg, The Dallas Morning News reported Sunday. “From the hip to the foot, it’s all there, scorched from the fire,” said their father, Bob White.

I wonder if the bodies broke up during re-entry or on impact? Human bodies aren’t designed for high-g forces, as innumerable airplane crashes have demonstrated. [According to Dad, bodies that are found in pieces mean they have been shredded when in a fragmenting aircraft in the air; if not they turn into a “blob of jelly” when they impact the ground and all the bones shatter. So that’s some trivia you probably didn’t want to know.]

On a more cheerful note, Expedition 18 completed a spacewalk last week on 23 December wearing Russian Orlan spacesuits. Yurii Lonchakov (EV1, Orlan-M №26) and Michael Fincke (EV2, Orlan-M №27) were outside for 5h 38m (00:51-06:29 UTC). Reports: ISS Daily Report, NASA.

A random observation: I visit various spaceflight forums (see my links list) and it is rare to encounter other females! I don’t know why that is, as there are plenty of women in the aerospace industry (at least there are in the USA and Europe). (I did have a chance to begin a career in the industry a long time ago, but as with so much of my life, I botched that chance.)

Haigneré suicide attempt?

Yesterday there was the rather surprising news that former ESA astronaut Claudie Haigneré had attempted suicide:

First Frenchwoman in space hospitalised after suicide attempt

Paris (AFP) – The first Frenchwoman in space and former government minister Claudie Haigneré was hospitalised late Tuesday after attempting suicide, a French government source said.

Haigneré, 51, was rushed to hospital after being discovered at her Paris home, where according to another source, she had overdosed on pills. She was conscious when hospitalized, the source said.

Haigneré was an astronaut with the French space agency CNES, flying on a mission to the Mir space station in 1996 and to the International Space Station in 2001, the first European woman to do so.

She later entered politics, serving as minister for research and new technologies from June 2002 to March 2004, before becoming European Affairs minister in the government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a post she held until May 2005.

She is married to another French astronaut, Jean-Pierre Haigneré, who flew on two missions to the Mir space station, in 1993 and 1999, the second for a six-month stay.

Although there is another report with her husband saying that the overdose was accidental (at the Le forum de la conquête spatiale, in French), so the circumstances are unclear as yet. I can’t understand why someone with such a successful career (unlike this writer) would want to take her own life as she would have everything to live for (she has a daughter also).

The news has been reported in a few spaceflight forums but – as with the case of Lisa Nowak (6/2/2007 entry) (whose trial is still ongoing) – there are some who get all sanctimonious about the topic and want to lock it.

Mars-500 ESA final selections

The final 4 participants, all male, were selected for the 105-day study/test mission to begin on 31 March 2009; their training begins on 26 January 2009. Two of the group will undergo the mission, while the other 2 are backups. Four Russian crew (as yet unnamed) will also participate in the mission. The 4 Europeans are: Cyrille Fournier (France), Arc’hanmael Gaillard (France), Oliver Knickel (Germany), Cedric Mabilotte (France).

• “ESA presents European participants in Mars-500 isolation study”, 5 December 2008
• “European Mars-500 participants announced”, 11 December 2008

The «Программа «Марс-500»» page at the IMBP site lists the crew (in Russian).

• Europeans (two are prime crew, the other two are backups):
  • Cyrille Fournier (France)
  • Arc’hanmael Gaillard (France)
  • Oliver Knickel (Germany)
  • Cedric Mabilotte (France)
• Russians (includes one woman):
  • Oleg Germanovich Artem’ev, Артемьев Олег Германович
  • Aleksei Viktorovich Baranov, Баранов Алексей Викторович
  • Sergei Nikolaevich Ryazanskii, Рязанский Сергей Николаевич
  • Sergei Alekseevich Spitsa, Спица Сергей Алексеевич
  • Marina Petrovna Tugusheva, Тугушева Марина Петровна
  • Aleksei Vasil’evich Shpakov, Шпаков Алексей Васильевич

“Russians Close In on Cause of Soyuz Landing Anomaly”, James Oberg, IEEE Spectrum, December 2008. Electromagnetic interference (EMI) from plasma flows over the surface of the ISS is thought to have damaged one of the pyrotechnic bolts that fire to separate the Soyuz segments, and thus initiated a ballistic landing, for Soyuz TMA-10 and -11.

“New space toilet has no door…yet”, MSNBC.com, 19/12. The new Russian-made toilet, installed in the Destiny Lab module, has no privacy screen but is otherwise functional. A second toilet will be much-needed, especially with the occasional breakdowns the original one has had! The design is generally reliable, though.

Charred cosmonaut

A thread at the CollectSPACE.com forum links to an online photo of what are purportedly the remains of cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, who died on impact in the Soyuz-1 landing after its parachutes malfunctioned. Being the ghoulish and morbidly curious type, I have to post the photo below (in case it disappears):

From one post:

I think these paragraphs in the Kamanin Diaries 1967-68 (General Kamanin is on the right adjusting his tie) give the context of when the picture was taken:

Kamanin returned to the place of the accident and ordered a group of doctors to remove Komarov’s body from the ship’s wreckage…at 21.45 (Moscow time) Komarov’s remains were placed aboard the II-18 airplane. Ten minutess before departure an An-12 arrived from the cosmodrome with General Kuznetsov and the Soyuz-2 prime and back-up cosmonauts, who would accompany their perished colleague to Moscow… Komarov’s remains were transferred to the morgue of the Burdenko hospital in Moscow, allowing doctors to write an official report on the cause of death. Subsequently the remains were cremated and an urn with the ashes was placed in the central House of the Soviet Army later that day were endless line of people came to pay their respects. The following day Komarov’s ashes were interred in the Kremlin Wall.

My initial impression on looking at that was “lump of charcoal” – not much left of him! He died immediately on impact, then the capsule burst into flame.

From Challenge to Apollo, page 587:

Finding the body had been a difficult job. One of the rescuers recalled:

The group’s physicians set to work – they shoveled away the top layer of dirt from the top of the mound from the hatch cover. After the dirt and certain parts of instruments and equipment were removed, the cosmonaut’s body was found lying in the center chair. The physicians cleaned the dirt and the remnants of the burned helmet phone from the head. They pronounced the death to be from multiple injuries to the cranium, spinal cord and bones.

[…]

In a grisly aside to his death, not all of Komarov’s remains were found during the initial search, and a group of Young Pioneers, the equivalent of Boy Scouts in the Soviet Union, discovered additional remains that were later buried at the crash site itself. Reportedly, Party officials took great pains to hide this from the general public.

I wonder how they could determine so much detail from those remains, if they are him.

Progress M-01M/№401, the first of the new Progresses with new onboard computer, TsVM-101, a digital telemetry system, launched on 26/11.

10 years of the ISS

“Nations Around the World Mark 10th Anniversary of International Space Station”, NASA, 17/11. 20 November marked 10 years since the first element of the International Space Station, the Zarya Functional Cargo Block («Заря» ФГБ, Функционально Грузовой Блок, Funktsional’no Gruzovoi Blok). James Oberg also provides an overview: “What a trip! Space station turns 10”, MSNBC, 20/11.

“Buran – the Soviet ‘space shuttle’ ”, BBC News, 20/11. Article by Anatoly Zak of RussianSpaceWeb.com.

A new version of the Russian Orlan spacesuit, the Orlan-MK, was delivered to the ISS in September 2008 on Progress M-65 (Orlan-MK №1170004, blue stripes). Two more will be delivered in 2009: Orlan №005 (red stripes) on Progress M-66, and №006 (blue stripes) on Progress M-02M. As with previous Orlans, NPO Zvezda are the designers and makers of the MK. I have a page on my website about it.

Grumpy Old Moonwalker

As reported at NASA Watch, former Moonwalker Harrison “Jack” Schmitt resigned from the Planetary Society, apparently miffed over the direction their goals have taken (as stated in this press release): namely, focus on a manned mission to Mars first (rather than the Moon) as a goal, and strive for international co-operation. These are laudable goals in my opinion (the Moon has been landed on and is rather boring anyway – unless there happen to be mysterious alien monoliths to be discovered!), but it’s brought out the Cranky Conservatives in the comments, who are paranoid and insular, and are horrified at the prospect of co-operating with “them foreigners”. I posted a somewhat irate comment:

He’s a cranky old conservative with outdated, insular views (like some of the posters above :-P ). I’d love to see an INTERNATIONAL Mars mission!! [From an exasperated 38-year-old female :-)]

He also thinks global warming a hoax, which doesn’t say much for his scientific credibility.

One would think that the humbling experience of seeing the Earth from the Moon would have broadened his views, but apparently not.

I would, in fact, rather have seen an international Mars mission launched, rather than the ISS project, but too late for that now.

“40 Years Later, It’s Moon Race 2.0”, TIME magazine, 13/11. The media seems obsessed to a tedious degree with the prospect of a “space race”. Nations new to spaceflight are sending out space probes, namely India (who landed a probe last week from the Chandrayaan-1 Moon satellite) , China and Japan. Russia barely gets a mention except as providers of the Soyuz taxi service to the ISS; a sad contrast to the Soviet era.

“Russian ISS spacecraft producer Energia gets $106 mln loan”, RIAN, 17/11. Energiya managed to get bank credit to allow them to construct more Soyuz and Progress spacecraft (2.9 billion rubles for a period of up to 12 November 2010).

“A Russian resurgence? (part two)”, The Space Review, 17/11.

I neglected to mention that this blog is now just over 2 years old! Not that it is hugely popular…

My Firefox browser is currently reporting the Russian Federal Space Agency site as an attack site, possibly through third-party applications (a reason not to use these):

Malicious software is hosted on 3 domain(s), including mmcounter.com, yanndex.su, ff-freehosting.com. 2 domain(s) appear to be functioning as intermediaries for distributing malware to visitors of this site, including yanndex.su, mmcounter.com.

Hope they fix that soon! Considering it’s an official government site, it is rather poor!

Buran 20th anniversary

Been depressed and haven’t felt much motivation to write here. Turning 38 doesn’t help my mood!

Soyuz TMA-12 landed on 24/10 at 03:36 UTC with no incidents (i.e. a normal not a ballistic landing). Expedition 18 is now on the ISS. STS-126 Endeavour launched successfully; its crew will install equipment (such as a regenerative environmental control and life support system) to enable the ISS’s crew to expand to 6 next year.

More money woes for Energiya (a familiar lament): “No Money, No Spacecraft, Russian Producer Warns”; “Finances may threaten Soyuz construction”, Space Daily, 24/10.

Astronaut Leroy Chiao has a blog entry about getting a look at a Chinese spacesuit.

“A Russian resurgence? (part one)”, The Space Review, 10/11. The situation for Russia’s space program has much improved since the dismal 1990s, but there are still funding problems to contend with, and the economy is precarious.

14 November marked 20 years since the first and only launch of the Buran space shuttle; a rather poignant anniversary of what could have been.

Today, 14 November, the Rocket and Space Corporation Energiya marked the 20th anniversary of the flight of the space shuttle Buran.

In the Conference Room, Energiya brought together those who took part in creating this unique system, the representatives of various enterprises rocket and space industry of Russia, whose combined efforts made this flight possible.

Leading the commemorative meeting, the president and general designer of RKK Energiya, Vitalii A. Lopota presented a welcoming speech, congratulated the anniversary and screened a documentary about the creation of the Buran system. Those actors in the film were familiar – the guests and employees of Energiya recognized their much younger selves. A scene of the Buran landing was met with thunderous applause.

At the meeting, several shared their memories of that time: Vitalii Khusseinovich Doguzhiev (Виталий Хуссейнович Догужиев), Minister of General Machine- Building in the Soviet Union between 1988-89; Oleg Dimetrievich Baklanov (Олег Дмитриевич Бакланов), Minister of General Machine-Building USSR between 1983-88 and the secretary of the CPSU Central Committee in 1988; Yurii Pavlovich Semenov (Юрий Павлович Семенов), Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, General Designer of RKK Energiya, 1989-2005, and one of the leaders of the Buran development; Vakhtang D. Vachnadze (Вахтанг Дмитриевич Вачнадзе), Director General of NGO Energiya between 1977-1991; Maj. Gen. Vladimir Evgeni’evich Gudilin (Владимир Евгеньевич Гудилин), head of training and of the start-up launcher Energiya and the universal space-rocket transportation system Energiya-Buran.

All speakers pointed out that the achievements of the time and date are unique in the world, and regretted the closure of the Energia-Buran program, said that today Russia needs to pay more attention to space programs, and improve support and development of the personnel policy branch.

In conclusion, V.A. Lopota once again congratulated all the participants of the meeting. “Who knows whether history will repeat its mistakes,” said Vitalii Alexandrovich, thus expressing the mood and aspirations of all those present.

A cosmonaut from Kazakhstan will fly on the ISS in October 2009. There are two in the Cosmonaut Group with the qualification of cosmonaut-tester (космонавт-испытатель): Mukhtar Aimakhanov (Мухтар Аймаханов) and Aidyn Aimbetov (Айдын Аимбетов). Both joined the 2003 selection group.