ISS Back Tonight

shedweller

Good launch. I hear "nominally" mentioned a lot. Doing 4700mph.

shedweller

Fierce waving at the camera. Get back to work ya slackers!!

Mountainsandh

It's Olaf !!! I was wondering what the little yoke hanging was !!! :D:D

shedweller

3rd. stage ignition. Smooth as ice!

Karl Stein

How is Soyuz broadcasting the footage?

Mountainsandh

They look great, like they're in the dart or something.

Mountainsandh

Whoooo Olaf's in zero gravity !

shedweller

Dont know that. Good question.
They just went into orbit. Zero g. Solar panels deployed

Hoof_Hearted

Thanks for this, just caught the launch at 1 min 30 seconds to go!
I logged on to see if anyone saw a fireball (or very big meteorite) over Wicklow just before 9.
Distracted by this now...

shedweller

KURS powered up.

shedweller

Mountainsandh wrote: »

They look great, like they're in the dart or something.

Chilled out alright! They got "The right stuff"

Mountainsandh

Did I hear him say 4 orbits before docking ? Does that make sense ?

shedweller

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Did I hear him say 4 orbits before docking ? Does that make sense ?

Sounds right. The launch schedule had docking at 02:00 which is 5 hrs. A normal orbit is 1.5hrs approx.

Karl Stein

Karl Stein wrote: »

How is Soyuz broadcasting the footage?

For anyone interested, I was just reading up on how the ISS has a permanent internet link and I'm guessing that Soyuz is hooked into it and perhaps that's how we get a live stream.

There are 3 big TRSS satellites much, much higher than the ISS spread out in geosynchronous orbit so that at any point in time the ISS can see at least one. Then there is a dedicated ground station that connects to each TDRSS satellite. There is fiber from the ground station to mission control and special computers to unpack the data as in comes in. So the internet on station looks like this:

ISS -> TDRSS -> Ground station -> Fiber -> NASA Servers -> Regular internet

reddit.com/r/askscience

TDRS Satellites

knarkypants

Mountainsandh wrote: »

I badly want Samantha to have a Facebook page. Girl power !

Here ya go...;)

https://www.facebook.com/ESASamanthaCristoforetti?fref=ts

Mountainsandh

Knarkypants you're a starbar ! Thank you !
I tried searching on Facebook with any of the current Exp 42 names, but I just couldn't find anything, I kept getting these Wikipedia type of pages.

knarkypants

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Knarkypants you're a starbar ! Thank you !
I tried searching on Facebook with any of the current Exp 42 names, but I just couldn't find anything, I kept getting these Wikipedia type of pages.

Your welcome.

I think that page has only been set up recently. I had been following her on twitter, it was Chris Hadfield (who I also follow on twitter and facebook!) that posted the link to her page. I hope she's as snap happy as Alexander Gerst. He regularly posted some fantastic pictures from ISS.

Mountainsandh

Yeah, and I loved how happy he was to be up there, always smiling, always upbeat, a pleasure to follow. He had loads of shots of auroras too. Can't wait for more pics !

shedweller

Soyuz lining up for the front door. Beautiful!

shedweller

Contact!

shedweller

Getting ready for hatch opening in about 20 mins i think. Yer man at nasa said at 10:30. I'm sure he means Houston time which would be 04:30 here.
Some Russian words were being exchanged then the audio went....:pac:

shedweller

Have any of you lot seen this pic:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/astrosamantha/15333161962/

shedweller

Iss passing at 4:53 if anyones up. Hatch should be open by then.
Just heard pressure equalising!! yay!!

shedweller

Just got the go for opening hatch!

Still calling out pressure readings though.

shedweller

Opening hatch!! He could smell space!:D

shedweller

I missed it! Called out on a job and i missed it! Feck.

shedweller

Terry Virts is having a nice chat with his family in Baikonur. His lasagne went flying when his wife came to the phone!! Very funny.

shedweller

Samantha is talking about spumante. Haha! Dead right girl!!

Mountainsandh

Just watched replays, glad everything went well.

shedweller

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Just watched replays, glad everything went well.

It did indeed although that final approach was all over the place. Did the KURS fail, i wonder?