Russian Alexander Samokutyaev emerges first from the Soyuz capsule that touched down in Kazakhstan. Photo Credit/NASA TV
Human operations aboard the International Space Station will continue uninterrupted under a new Russian Soyuz launch strategy announced Thursday, following a meeting of the NASA-led Space Station Control Board.
The station’s 15-nation partnership faced the prospects of a temporary de-staffing in late November, following the Aug. 24 failure of a Soyuz-U booster with a Progress cargo capsule bound for the space station.
Thursday’s announcement came hours before three of the station’s six member crew departed the orbiting science laboratory in their Soyuz capsule for a landing in southern Kazakhstan.
American Ron Garan and Russians Andrey Borisenko and Alexander Samokutyaev touched down Friday at 12 a.m., EDT, or 10 a.m., local time, ending a 164 day mission. All three men appeared to be in good shape as they were assisted from the charred capsule under sunny skies by helicopter borne search teams.
They were to be flown to Karaganda for a traditional welcoming ceremony before separating. Garan was to board a NASA jet for Houston, Tex., home of NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The two cosmonauts were to be flown to Star City, Russia.
Under the new launch plan, remaining station crew members American Mike Fossum, Russian Sergei Volkov and Satoshi Furukawa of Japan will be joined by three replacements in mid-November. A Soyuz capsule with American Dan Burbank and Russians Anatoly Ivanishin and Anton Shkaplerov is scheduled to dock with the station on Nov. 16, or six days before Fossum, Volkov and Furukawa return to earth in their Soyuz spacecraft.
The newcomers will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Nov. 14.
Once scheduled for Sept. 21, the launching of Burbank, Ivanishin and Shkaplerov was delayed to accommodate a Russian investigation into the late August launch failure.
The failed Soyuz-U rocket that launched the Progress employees a third stage similar to the Soyuz-FG used to launch station astronauts. The Russians blamed a manufacturing flaw of the third stage gas generator assembly for the Aug. 24 loss.
“Our top priority is the safety of our crew members. The plan approved today, coupled with the conditions on orbit, allow the partnership to support this priority while ensuring astronauts will continue to live and work on the station uninterrupted,” said NASA’s Mike Suffredini, the International Space Station program manager.
“Our Russian colleagues have completed an amazing amount of work in a very short time to determine root cause and develop a recovery plan that allows for a safe return to flight,” he added.
An Oct. 30 launch of another Progress cargo capsule will serve as a test flight for the Russian recovery.
A second Soyuz-FG is tentatively scheduled for launch to the space station on Dec. 26 with Russian Oleg Kononenko, American Don Pettit and Andre Kuipers of The Netherlands.