1.
International Space Station
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The International Space Station is a space station, or a habitable artificial satellite, in low Earth orbit. Its first component launched into orbit in 1998, and the ISS is now the largest man-made body in space, the ISS consists of pressurised modules, external trusses, solar arrays, and other components. ISS components have been launched by Russian Proton and Soyuz rockets, the ISS serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which crew members conduct experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology, and other fields. The station is suited for the testing of systems and equipment required for missions to the Moon. The ISS maintains an orbit with an altitude of between 330 and 435 km by means of reboost manoeuvres using the engines of the Zvezda module or visiting spacecraft and it completes 15.54 orbits per day. The ISS is the space station to be inhabited by crews, following the Soviet and later Russian Salyut, Almaz. The station has continuously occupied for 16 years and 156 days since the arrival of Expedition 1 on 2 November 2000. This is the longest continuous presence in low Earth orbit. It has been visited by astronauts, cosmonauts and space tourists from 17 different nations, Soyuz has very limited downmass capability. The ISS programme is a joint project among five participating space agencies, NASA, Roscosmos, JAXA, ESA, the ownership and use of the space station is established by intergovernmental treaties and agreements. The station is divided two sections, the Russian Orbital Segment and the United States Orbital Segment, which is shared by many nations. As of January 2014, the American portion of ISS is being funded until 2024, Roscosmos has endorsed the continued operation of ISS through 2024 but has proposed using elements of the Russian Orbital Segment to construct a new Russian space station called OPSEK. On 28 March 2015, Russian sources announced that Roscosmos and NASA had agreed to collaborate on the development of a replacement for the current ISS. NASA later issued a statement expressing thanks for Russias interest in future co-operation in space exploration. According to the original Memorandum of Understanding between NASA and Rosaviakosmos, the International Space Station was intended to be a laboratory, observatory and factory in low Earth orbit. It was also planned to provide transportation, maintenance, and act as a base for possible future missions to the Moon, Mars. In the 2010 United States National Space Policy, the ISS was given roles of serving commercial, diplomatic. The ISS provides a platform to conduct scientific research, the ISS simplifies individual experiments by eliminating the need for separate rocket launches and research staff
2.
Soyuz TMA-2
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Soyuz TMA-2 was a Soyuz mission to the International Space Station launched by a Soyuz FG launch vehicle. The spacecraft docked with the ISS 2003-04-28 and undocked 2003-10-27. Soyuz TMA-2 was the flight for the TMA modification of the Soyuz spacecraft. Alexander Kaleri and Michael Foale were assigned as the backup crew, mass,7136 kg Perigee,200 km Apogee,250 km Inclination,51. 7° Period,88. During his stay on the station, Malenchenko became the first person to get married in space and his bride was in Texas where long distance marriages are legal. The spacecraft returned to Earth on October 28, with both the Expedition 7 crew as well as Pedro Duque on board, Duque was launched with Soyuz TMA-3 and spent only one week on board of the ISS. RussianSpaceWeb. com, Soyuz TMA-2 SpaceRef. com, Soyuz TMA-2/6S Lands On Target
3.
Yuri Malenchenko
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Yuri Ivanovich Malenchenko is a retired Russian cosmonaut. As of June 2016, Malenchenko ranks second for time in space due to his time on both Mir and the International Space Station. Malenchenko was born in Khrushchev, Kirovohrad Oblast, Ukrainian SSR and he and his wife Ekaterina Dmitrieva have one child. Malenchenko graduated from the Kharkiv Military Aviation School in 1983, and attended the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy, after graduation from the Military Aviation School, he served as a pilot, senior pilot and multi-ship flight lead from 1983 till 1987 in the Odessa Region. In 1987 he was selected as a cosmonaut, and arrived at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, from December 1987 to June 1989 Malenchenko underwent a course of general space training. After completion of the course, he was qualified as a test-cosmonaut, between September 1989 to December 1993 he was taking advanced training courses in preparation for spaceflight. In January–July,1993 Malenchenko trained as commander of the Mir-14 reserve crew and he completed training as a backup commander of the Mir-15 crew from July 1993 to January 1994. From February to June 1994 Malenchenko trained for the Mir-16 mission, on July 1,1994, Malenchenko and Talgat Musabayev lifted off to space on board the Soyuz TM-19 spacecraft with Malenchenko in command of the Soyuz. Following a two-day solo flight the Soyuz docked with Mir on July 3,1994, main goal of the mission was the partly exchange of the resident crew. Malenchenko, Musabayev and cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov became the 16th resident Mir crew, the crew conducted medical experiments and experiments in materials science. There were many problems during the mission, which ended with the first successful manual docking of a Progress supply ship at Mir by Malenchenko. On November 4,1994, Malenchenko, Musabayev and Ulf Merbold returned to Earth aboard their Soyuz capsule after landing 88 km northeast of Arkalyk, aboard Soyuz TM-19 and Mir complex Malenchenko spent 125 days,22 hours,53 minutes in space. Malenchenko served as a mission specialist for STS-106, Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center on September 8,2000. On flight day two, Atlantis completed a successful rendezvous and docking with the ISS, the objectives of the mission were to bring supplies to the International Space Station and to prepare the Zvezda Service Module for the arrival of the first resident crew. After circling the globe for 186 orbits, Atlantis landed on September 19,2000, at Runway 15, the mission lasted 11 days,19 hours and 12 minutes. Malenchenko with astronaut Edward Lu lifted on board the Soyuz TMA-2 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on April 26,2003, the spacecraft docked with the ISS on April 28,2003. Malenchenko served as the Soyuz commander, and after docking with the ISS they exchanged with the resident crew on board ISS and became the station crew. He was the commander of the Expedition 7, and during his stay on the station, Soyuz TMA-2 returned to Earth on October 28, with both the Expedition 7 crew as well as Pedro Duque on board
4.
Ed Lu
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Edward Tsang Ed Lu is an American physicist and former NASA astronaut. He flew on two Space Shuttle flights, and made a stay aboard the International Space Station. In 2007, Lu retired from NASA to become the manager of Googles Advanced Projects Team. In 2002, while still at NASA, Lu co-founded the B612 Foundation, dedicated to protecting the Earth from asteroid strikes, as of 2014, he is currently its chief executive officer. Raised in Webster, New York, to a Chinese-American family, Lu attended R. L. Thomas High School, where he was a member of the wrestling team and graduated in 1980. Later, Lu earned a degree in engineering from Cornell University where he lettered in wrestling. He then received a degree in applied physics from Stanford University in 1989. Lu is a member of the Psi chapter of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity at Cornell, Lu became a specialist in solar physics and did postdoctoral work at the Institute for Astronomy in Honolulu, Hawaii before being selected for the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1994. Lu flew on shuttle missions STS-84 in 1997 and STS-106 in 2000. Having been flight engineer on Soyuz TMA-2, Lu spent six months in space in 2003 as part of ISS Expedition 7 and he had demonstrated the difficulty of playing the piano instrument in space during a live in-orbit interview with CBS News and NASA TV video feed. Also on this ISS mission on 15 October 2003, Lu communicated with the crewman of Chinas first manned mission into space, Yang Liwei, Lu congratulated the Chinese for the achievement and said in Putonghua, Welcome to space. Malenchenko added, I love to have somebody else in space instead of me, while still employed at NASA, Lu co-founded the B612 Foundation along with former astronaut Rusty Schweickart and scientists Clark Chapman and Piet Hut. It has conducted two lines of related research to detect asteroids that could one day strike the Earth. The foundations current goal is to design and build a privately financed asteroid-finding space telescope, Sentinel, the Sentinels infrared telescope, once parked in an orbit similar to that of Venus, will help identify asteroids and other near-Earth objects that pose a risk of collision with Earth. While on the ISS, Lu teamed up with magician James Randi to perform a trick in outer space. Randi asked Lu to select a card from the middle of a brand new freshly shuffled deck of cards, turn it around, then place the deck of cards back into its box then take them out again and fan the cards to the camera. This same procedure was being done by Randi back on Earth at the JREF headquarters in front of witnesses from the Miami Herald, both Randi and Lu successfully selected the same card, the seven of diamonds. The remaining cards were jettisoned for weight reasons before returning to Earth, the two cards complete with autographs are framed for public view at the JREF offices in Fort Lauderdale, FL
5.
Expedition 6
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Expedition 6 was the sixth expedition to the International Space Station. It was the last three-man crew to reside on the station until the arrival of STS-121, the crew performed two spacewalks in support of maintenance and assembly of the International Space Station. Perigee,384 km Apogee,396 km Inclination,51. 6° Period,92 min The Stations sixth crew was launched to the Station aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-113 in November 2002. The mission was expected to be a mission that was to end in March 2003 when Atlantis STS-114 was to fly to the Station with the Expedition 7 crew. The Columbia disaster, which occurred during the mission on 1 Feb.2003, and resulted in the suspension of shuttle flights, changed plans. They returned to earth on Soyuz TMA-1 and a reduced Expedition 7 crew with just two members was delivered to the ISS on Soyuz TMA-2, the Space Shuttle was expected to be grounded for up to two years. Ongoing logistical support for the ISS would have to be carried out by Soyuz, russian Mission Control reported at approximately 2,45 a. m.4 May that the support helicopters reached the crew and all three astronauts were in good health. The capsule appeared to touch down about 276 miles from its landing zone. Originally scheduled to fly on the Expedition 6 Crew in place of Don Pettit was Donald A. Thomas, the Expedition Six crew conducted two spacewalks during its stay at the International Space Station. Both were based out of the Quest Airlock, and the spacewalkers used U. S. spacesuits, the crew was originally scheduled to conduct only one spacewalk, but a second was added to the manifest for 8 April in order to prepare for future assembly missions. The two Expedition Six extravehicular activities bring the number of spacewalks conducted in support of ISS assembly. Of those 51 EVAs, Twenty-six have been based out of the station, bowersox and Pettit accumulated 13 hours and 17 minutes of spacewalking time at the station. Expedition 6 is the subject of the book Too Far From Home, A Story of Life and Death in Space, a dramatised account of Expedition 6 is told in Expedition 6, a play by actor/playwright Bill Pullman. The play was scheduled to run at San Franciscos Magic Theater through 7 October 2007 and this article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
6.
Expedition 8
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Expedition 8 was the eighth expedition to the International Space Station. Perigee,384 km Apogee,396 km Inclination,51, at the time of docking, both spacecraft orbited the Earth above Russia. Once the Expedition 7 crew undocked, Foale and Kaleri settled down to work, beginning a more than six-month stint focused on Station operations and maintenance. The new station crew, along with Duque, launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 05,38,03 UTC, the Expedition 8 crew conducted the first two-person spacewalk at the International Space Station. Unlike previous spacewalks conducted by ISS crews, there was not a crewmember inside the Station as the spacewalkers worked outside, the spacewalk was based out of the Pirs docking compartment, the spacewalkers wore Russian Orlan space suits. This was the 52nd spacewalk devoted to Space Station assembly, operations and maintenance and it was the 27th based out of the Station, bringing the total to 155 hours and 17 minutes. This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
7.
Roscosmos
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The Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities, commonly known as Roscosmos, is the governmental body responsible for the space science program of Russia and general aerospace research. The Corporation was established on the basis of the now-defunct Federal Space Agency on December 28,2015, Roscosmos was previously known as the Russian Aviation and Space Agency. The headquarters of Roscosmos are located in Moscow, while the main Mission Control space center is located in the city of Korolev. The Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center is in Star City, the Launch facilities used are Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and Vostochny Cosmodrome being built in the Russian Far East in Amur Oblast. The current Director since January 2015 is Igor Komarov, in 2015 the Russian government merged Roscosmos with the United Rocket and Space Corporation, the re-nationalized Russian space industry, to create the Roscosmos State Corporation. The Soviet space program did not have central executive agencies, instead, its organizational architecture was multi-centered, it was the design bureaus and the council of designers that had the most say, not the political leadership. The creation of a central agency after the separation of Russia from the Soviet Union was therefore a new development, Russian Space Agency was formed on February 25,1992, by a decree of President Yeltsin. Yuri Koptev, who had worked with designing Mars landers at NPO Lavochkin. In the early years, the agency suffered from lack of authority as the design bureaus fought to protect their own spheres of operation. For example, the decision to keep Mir in operation beyond 1999 was not taken by the agency, instead, another example is that the decision to develop the new Angara rocket was rather a function of Khrunichevs ability to attract resources than a conscious long-term decision by the agency. The 1990s saw serious financial problems because of decreased cash flow and this resulted in Roscosmos leading role in commercial satellite launches and space tourism. In March 2004, director Yuri Koptev was replaced by Anatoly Perminov, the Russian economy boomed throughout 2005 from high prices for exports, such as oil and gas, the outlook for future funding in 2006 appeared more favorable. The budget for 2006 was as high as 25 billion rubles, under the current 10-year budget approved, the budget of the Space Agency shall increase 5–10% per year, providing the space agency with a constant influx of money. In addition to the budget, Roscosmos plans to have over 130 billion rubles flowing into its budget by other means, such as industry investments and it is around the time US-based The Planetary Society entered a partnership with Roscosmos. In 2011, the government spent 115 billion rubles in the space programs. The proposed project core budget for 2013 to be around 128.3 billion rubles, the budget for the whole space program is,169.8 billion rubles. By 2015, the amount of the budget can be increased to 199.2 billion rubles, priorities of the Russian space program include the new Angara rocket family and development of new communications, navigation and remote Earth sensing spacecraft. The GLONASS global navigation system has for many years been one of the top priorities and has been given its own budget line in the federal space budget
8.
NASA
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower established NASA in 1958 with a distinctly civilian orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29,1958, disestablishing NASAs predecessor, the new agency became operational on October 1,1958. Since that time, most US space exploration efforts have led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches. NASA shares data with various national and international such as from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite. Since 2011, NASA has been criticized for low cost efficiency, from 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1. In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch a satellite for the International Geophysical Year. An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard, after the Soviet launch of the worlds first artificial satellite on October 4,1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. This led to an agreement that a new federal agency based on NACA was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. The Advanced Research Projects Agency was created in February 1958 to develop technology for military application. On July 29,1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, a NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959. Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA, earlier research efforts within the US Air Force and many of ARPAs early space programs were also transferred to NASA. In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA has conducted many manned and unmanned spaceflight programs throughout its history. Some missions include both manned and unmanned aspects, such as the Galileo probe, which was deployed by astronauts in Earth orbit before being sent unmanned to Jupiter, the experimental rocket-powered aircraft programs started by NACA were extended by NASA as support for manned spaceflight. This was followed by a space capsule program, and in turn by a two-man capsule program. This goal was met in 1969 by the Apollo program, however, reduction of the perceived threat and changing political priorities almost immediately caused the termination of most of these plans. NASA turned its attention to an Apollo-derived temporary space laboratory, to date, NASA has launched a total of 166 manned space missions on rockets, and thirteen X-15 rocket flights above the USAF definition of spaceflight altitude,260,000 feet. The X-15 was an NACA experimental rocket-powered hypersonic research aircraft, developed in conjunction with the US Air Force, the design featured a slender fuselage with fairings along the side containing fuel and early computerized control systems
9.
Aleksandr Kaleri
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Aleksandr Yuriyevich Sasha Kaleri is a Russian cosmonaut and veteran of extended stays on the Mir Space Station and the International Space Station. Kaleri has recently been in space aboard the ISS serving as an engineer for the long duration Expedition 25/26 missions. He has spent the third-longest time in space of any person, Kaleri is married to the former Svetlana L. Nosova. They have a son, Oleg Aleksandrovich Kaleri, born in 1996, Kaleris mother, Antonina Petrovna Kaleri, resides in Sevastopol, Crimea, and his father, Yuri Borisovich Kaleri, is deceased. Kaleri enjoys running, reading and gardening, in 1979, Kaleri graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Dolgoprudny, Moscow region, as a specialist in Aircraft Flight Dynamics and Control. In 1983, he completed studies at the same institute as a specialist in the field of Mechanics of Fluids. In 1979, he was hired by the Energia Corporation and worked on the Mir space station and he participated in development of design and engineering documentation, full-scale tests of the Mir. Kaleri was selected as the Energia RSC cosmonaut candidate in April 1984, between 1985 and 1986, he completed basic training and evaluation at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. In 1987 he was qualified for assignment as a test cosmonaut. Kaleri took a course for a spaceflight aboard the Mir orbital station as a backup crew flight engineer of the Mir-3 mission from 1 April to 9 December 1987. He took a course for a spaceflight aboard the Mir as a backup crew flight engineer of the Mir-9 mission from January to April 1991. From 8 October 1991 to 25 February 1992, Kaleri was training as a primary crew flight engineer for the Mir-11 mission, Kaleri has participated in three extended missions aboard the Mir Space Station. In 1992, he participated in a 145-day flight aboard the Soyuz-TM-14 spacecraft, between 17 August 1996 to 2 March 1997, Kaleri spent 197-days in space aboard the Soyuz-TM-24 spacecraft and the Mir as the Mir-22 mission flight engineer. In 2000, Kaleri performed his third spaceflight aboard the Soyuz-TM-30 spacecraft, in 2003, he first flew to the International Space Station with NASA astronaut Michael Foale on his fourth spaceflight. Kaleri served as a Flight Engineer on Expedition 8 and spent 194 days in space from 18 October 2003 to 30 April 2004, the Soyuz TMA-3 spacecraft carrying Kaleri, Foale and ESA astronaut André Kuipers successfully landed in Kazakhstan at 00,11 GMT on 30 April 2004. The landing site was located some 60 kilometers northeast of the town of Arkalyk and he served as the Soyuz commander. The mission marked Kaleris fifth flight into space and he arrived at the ISS after the Soyuz spacecraft linked up with the space station at 00,01 UTC on 10 October 2010. He remained in the ISS till March 2011, Kaleri has participated in five spacewalks and has accumulated 23 EVA hours
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
