9 people now on International Space Station

[Hog]

For the 1st time since Oct 2009 and the 2nd time since the 1st piece of ISS launched back in 1998, there are 9 people flying at 18,500mph aboard ISS at 1 time.

An Expedition normally consists of 6 people, with 2 Soyuz capsules docked to ISS, 3 people per Soyuz. Each person is custom molded a seat so the seat you arrive in, is the seat you leave in.

Each Expedition lasts 5 months and departures and arrivals are staggered.
Hypothetically: Soyuz 1 launches and its capsule docks at ISS and the 3 board ISS. Then 3 months later Soyuz 2 launches and docks with ISS, bringing a furthur 3 people to ISS for a total compliment of 6.
Then at the end of 5 months, the 3, 1st people board their Soyuz #1 and undock and then re-enter the atmosphere for a solid ground landing in Russia, leaving the last half of Expedition #1 on ISS.

Then about 2 weeks later, Soyuz #3 launches and docks with ISS and now 6 people are on station. Then 3 months later when its time for Expedition#1 to end and for Soyuz #2 to go home, they undock and come back to Earth. Now Expedition #2 has begun, then 2 weeks later Soyuz #4 brings 3 more to continue the last half of Expedition #2.

Next year there are a Russian Cosmonaut and an American Astronaut who are staying up for a full year. This is to test the human body for long durations in micro gravity. 3 or 4 of these year long rotations are scheduled over the next few years. They need to do this to get ready for Mars voyages which can take up to 6 months one way. Be sure to bring a book or 2.

Now with the Olympics occuring in Russia in February 2014, the Russians wanted to bring an Olympic torch up to ISS, so they bumped up the launch of the Soyuz by a few weeks, before the preceding Soyuz capsule was due to depart, thus bringing the crew compliment up to NINE souls, for a total of 4 days. The Olympic torch brought up today, will go home aboard Soyuz TMA-09M will come back to Earth on Sunday. Nov 10 thus ending Expedition 37. There is an actual EVA(Extra Vehicular Activity-Spacewalk) on Friday and the Olympic Torch will be "handed over" from one Expedition to the other while outside in the vacuum in space.
Fyodor Yurchikhin, RSA(Russian SPace Agency)
Karen L. Nyberg, NASA (National Aeronuatics and Space Administration)
Luca Parmitano, ESA are coming home on Sunday.(European Space Agency)

Oleg Kotov, RSA
Sergey Ryazansky, RSA
Michael S. Hopkins, NASA will stay put thus beginning Expedition 38

and
Koichi Wakata, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency)
Richard A. Mastracchio, NASA
Mikhail Tyurin, RSA

just launched last night (Wednesday night) and will also begin Expedition 38 on Sunday once the TMA-09M spacecraft undocks.


During the "Opening the Hatch Ceremony" there was a Mother of one of the Russian Cosmonauts (Mikhail Tyurin) sent his "Kisses" over the radio from Russian Space Command. I thought to myself, Wow I bet 40 years ago no one would have even imagined that a Russian(then Soviet) civilian would be allowed to send such a message from Russian Space Command up to the Russian half of the ISS, all while being rebroadcast across the world via Roskosmos and USA's NASA feeds.
We as a civilization have surely come a long way, but we have a long way to go.

The ISS has been on orbit for 5466 days 9 hours 9minutes and 9 seconds

Cumulative Crew time is:4753 day, 5 hours, 7 minutes, 31 seconds

Expedition 37 has been on orbit for 57 days 15 hours, 56 minutes,31 seconds

ISS cost $100,000,000,000 to build, it was only officially completed during the Space Shuttle penultimate (2nd last) flight in 2011 during STS-134(Stat Transport System's 134th flight. The last assembly was installing the Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS) on the Starboard 1 (S1) truss segment.
This EVA(Extra Vehicular Activity) saw the total cumulative time spent performing EVAs in support of the ISS pass the 1,000-hour mark. The three STS-134 spacewalkers spent a total time of 28 hours and 44 minutes outside the ISS on this mission.
The very 1st piece, the Russian module, Zarya was launched on November 20, 1998 on a Russian Proton rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 81 in Kazakhstan to a 400 km (250 mi) high orbit with a designed lifetime of at least 15 years. After Zarya reached orbit, STS-88 launched on December 4, 1998 to attach the Unity Module. So we are coming up to the 15 year Anniversary of the birth of the ISS.

Just in the last week of operation, the amount of scientific utilization of ISS has never been higher. This means that the amount of scientific work aboard ISS has never been higher.

ISS is planned to be de-orbited some time in the mid to late 20's.

ISS


Flame on ISS, obviously minus gravity


What happens when a 7 grams (1/4 ounce) piece of debris hits a solid billet of aluminum at 7km/second-25200 kph (23,000ft/second or 15658mph). It left a 15cm(5-7/8") crater. The ISS raises or lowers its altitude when it is probable that the ISS will be struck by a pice of debris. There has been a few times where teh crew of ISS has been instructed to close all teh hatches which divide all the various ports, docks, capsules of ISS and for them to evacuate to their respective Soyuz escape capsules while leaving the hatches open. Sometimes the debris is detected too late for the ISS to initiate an avoidance with its thrusters. If its a VERY serious risk, the above protocol is followed, but the Soyuz capsule doors and ISS hatches are closed. Then they wait, if nothing strikes the ISS enough to cause a depressurization, then they get out. Kind of leery sitting in your Soyuz capsule waiting for the ISS to depressurize.

This picture shows the orbital debris around Earth. The distinctive ring are the satellites in Geostationary orbit(orbit which paces the rotation of the Earth, these satellites appear to remain motionless from the Earths surface)


STS-135-Atlantis (the last Shuttle mission took the heaviest ever load of MPLM(Multi Purpose Logistics Module) of 25,500lbs. They absolutely packed that MPLM to the brim with supplies as this was the last Shuttle mission ever, then supply runs would be 100% reliant on NASA's new COTS(Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) and NASA's CRS(Commercial Resupply Services) in which NASA supplied seed money to Space X and Orbital Sciences to develop and launch their rockets and spacecraft to supply the ISS. In addition there is already the unmanned Russian Progress, Japanese HTV(H-II Transfer Vehicle)-named Kounotori-meaning Oriental Stork/White Stork , the ESA's (European Space Agency) ATV(Automated Transfer Vehicle) the 2nd ATV was named Johannes Kepler
ATV1 wasJules Verne
ATV3 was named Edoardo Amaldi
ATV4 was named Albert Einstein
ATV5 was named Georges LeMaitre to launch sometime in 2014

Now under the COTS agreement we have:
Space X's Dragon spacecraft launched upon Falcon 9 launch vehicle
and
Orbital Sciences Cygnus Spacecraft launched upon Antares Launch vehicle(AKA known as Taurus II)


Space-Exploration(Space-X) CRS(Commercial Resupply Service)
COTS Demonstration flight#1 Dec. 8/10 success
COTS Demo 2/3 fit into 1 flight and approached ISS and was grappled by the CANADARM 2 and berthed to ISS on May 25/12 and offloaded its cargo
CRS-1 1st operational Space X mission on Oct 8/12 1995lbs of cargo upmass, and the same 1995lbs of cargo downmass
CRS-2 Launched Mar.1/13 with 1500lbs of cargo/brought down 3,022lbs of cargo
CRS-3 manifested for February 11/2014
CRS-4 manifested for April 6/2014.
CRS-5- 2014
CRS-6-
CSR-7-
CRS-8-
CRS-9-
CRS-10-
CRS-11-
CRS-12-

Orbital Sciences CRS(Commercial Resupply Service)
Cygnus ORB D1 launched Sept 18
Cygnus ORB 1 to launche Dec 15/13
Cygnus ORB 2 to launch 2014
Cygnus ORB 3 to launch 2014
Cygnus ORB 4 to launch 2015


It should be noted that out of all the unmanned resupply vehicles, only Space-X's Dragon spacecraft is designed to re-enter the atmosphere and land on water or land. Anything that you bring down from psace is referred to as downmass. Dragon has an unpressurized downmass capability of 7,300lbs or 5,500 lbs of pressurized downmass. Dragon has some external cargo hatches that are not pressurized.
This downmass capability is sorely missed since STS's retirement. The Space SHuttle could return 35,000 lbs of downmass cargo and had an upmass capability of 60,000lbs to low earth orbit. The most upmass the Dragon can lift is 7300 lbs.
EDIT: The rest of the Transport vehicles are packed full of Station garbage, then unberthed and slowed down to allow them to burn up in the atmosphere

One of the last pictures of a Space Shuttle docked to ISS. This was taken during STS-134, the penultimate Shuttle mission, and last mission of Shuttle Endeavour. There was not a Soyuz or other craft available to undock to take pictures of Atlantis while she was docked to ISS during the last Shuttle mission STS-135. Not sure if there are pictures of Discovery on station during STS 133. I did get to personally see STS-133 and STS-134 with my own eyes just after they had undocked from ISS. I could see 2 distinct bright dots as the Endeavour and Discovery both chased ISS across the sky. I saw STS 133 Discovery in the dusk sky to the North of me, and I saw STS 134 Endeavour at about 5:00am as it went almost directly over my house at an altitude of 331 kilometers. It was an amzing sight.




Replays of last nights Soyuz FG launch and of Soyuz TMA-09M iundocking on Sunday can be watched on NASA TV.
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

[efnfast]

Thanks Hog, kept my attention.

[XfireZ51]

If you haven't seen GRAVITY w Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, GO! The visuals are stunning. Its the closest many of us are going to get to see what its really like in Earth orbit. Very intense movie BTW.

[efnfast]

Gravity was my first Imax 3D movie, blew me away.

[Hog]

I need to see that movie, Ive heard it was good.
Thanks guys.

NASA TV Daily Schedule (All Programs Eastern Time Zone)

November 10, Sunday
2:30 p.m. - ISS Expedition 37 Farewells and Hatch Closure Coverage (will include a replay of the Expedition 37/38 Change of Command Ceremony held earlier in the day; hatch closure scheduled at 3 p.m. ET) - JSC (All Channels)
6 p.m. - ISS Expedition 37/Soyuz TMA-09M Undocking Coverage (undocking scheduled at 6:26 p.m. ET) - JSC (All Channels)
8:30 p.m. - ISS Expedition 37/Soyuz TMA-09M Deorbit Burn and Landing Coverage (Deorbit burn scheduled at 8:55 p.m. ET, landing near Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan scheduled at 9:49 p.m. ET) - JSC via Kazakhstan (All Channels)
11 p.m. - Video File of the ISS Expedition 37/Soyuz TMA-09M Landing and Post-Landing Activities - HQ (All Channels)

The Olympic torch was handed over from one Cosmonaut to another in the vacuum of space outside ISS during an almost 6 hours maintenance spacewalk.
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html