SOYUZ TMA-20

2010-067A December 15, 2010

Pad 1, Site 5, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Republic of

Kazakhstan

May 24, 2011

Near town of Dzhezkazgan, Republic of Kazakhstan Soyuz-FG (serial number Ы5000-034),

Soyuz TMA (serial number 230)

159 da 8h 17min 15 s Yaryag

ISS resident crew transport ISS-26/27 (25S)

Flight crew

KONDRATYEV, Dmitri Yuriyevich, 41, Russian Federation Air Force, RSA Soyuz TMA commander, ISS-26 flight engineer, ISS-27 commander COLEMAN, Catherine Grace, 50, USAF (Retd.), NASA-Soyuz TMA and ISS-26/27 flight engineer, third mission Previous missions’. STS-73 (1995), STS-93 (1999)

NESPOLI, Paolo, 53, civilian (Italian), ESA-Soyuz TMA and ISS-26/27 flight engineer, second mission Previous mission: STS-120 (2007)

Flight log

The next resident crew to fly to the ISS launched to the station on one of the last TMA versions of the venerable Soyuz spacecraft. The trio was another truly inter­national crew. Commander of the Soyuz was rookie cosmonaut Kondratyev, who would serve as commander of ISS-27 after he and his two Shuttle veteran col­leagues served as flight engineers on ISS-26. Docking occurred on December 17 at the Rassvet module with the hatches opened three hours after docking for the crew to join their ISS-26 colleagues.

The Descent Module in which they had flown to the station was not the one they had planned to fly. The original Descent Module of TMA-20 was damaged in October 2009 during transportation to the Baikonur Cosmodrome from the Ener – giya factory where it had been fabricated. Fortunately, Soyuz is comprised of three separate but integrated elements and, as several other components were in various stages of preparation, the Descent Module planned for TMA-21 was avail­able as a replacement. The planned launch date only slipped by two days. This demonstrated the flexibility and versatility of both the Soyuz design and the Russian spacecraft processing system.

The damage was apparently due to “sloppiness” on the part of the transport team, which resulted in serious damage to the transport container and a 1.5 mm displacement in the base of the Descent Module. This was sufficient to create a micro-fracture in the pressure compartment, which would need detailed examina­tion back at Energiya. It was not clear if this would result in taking the affected Descent Module out of the flight manifest permanently. Energiya reported that about 30 different elements of the TMA vehicle were in various stages of pro­duction at the time of the incident. Once the new element had been incorporated into the processing flow, preparations for the mission continued without further incident.

Once safely aboard the station, the new crew received their required safety and update briefings. They were given a light-duty weekend before joining their three colleagues in their six-person science program. There were now three cosmo­nauts working the Russian segment experiments, two Americans handling the U. S. segment, and Nespoli in Columbus (assisted by the Americans where necessary). The joint program for ISS-26/27 was stated to include 504 sessions of 41 experi­ments in the Russian segment, of which 7 were brand new investigations. There would be over 366 hours of work conducted during the ISS-26 phase. Over in the U. S. segment, the expedition would work on 111 experiments, of which 73 were from NASA. Of these, 22 came under the auspices of the National Laboratory status and a further 38 from other partner agencies. This entailed over 540 hours of planned crew time.

Following Christmas, New Year, and the Russian Orthodox Christmas on January 7, the crew prepared equipment for a Russian EVA on January 21. The 5 h 23 min EVA by Kondratyev and Skripochka saw them install and repair equip­ment. A second EVA was completed on February 16 lasting 4 hours 51 minutes during which the two cosmonauts installed Earth monitoring experiments to the exterior of Zvezda and removed two exposure panels from the same module and discarded a foot restraint. The two space walks logged 10 hours and 14 minutes of EVA time for the pair of cosmonauts.

The first weeks in the New Year were a busy time for the crew with the arrival of HTV-2, ATV-2, and STS-133, as well as departure and arrival of Progress craft. On March 14, Kondratyev assumed command of the ISS from Kelly. When the TMA-M crew departed on March 16, the Soyuz TMA-20 crew became the ISS-27 expedition, initially as a three-person residency. They would be joined by their three new colleagues on April 6, 2011 with the arrival of Soyuz TMA-21.

April saw much to celebrate on board the station. Nespoli celebrated his 54th birthday on April 6 and this was followed on April 12 by two important anniver­sary celebrations. The first was the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s historic first manned space flight and the second was the 30th anniversary of the first Shuttle mission. On April 17, new arrival Andrei Borisenko celebrated his 47th birthday on orbit. Yet another anniversary was celebrated on April 19 as the crew observed the 10th anniversary of the launch of the station’s robotic arm systems. This was also the 40th anniversary of the launch of Salyut 1, the world’s first space station, something that was overlooked somewhat by the world’s media. The TMA-20 mission was full of celebrations, and actually missed two as well. Coleman had turned 50 the day before launch (had the mission launched as planned she would have celebrated her birthday in orbit), and Kondratyev celebrated his 42nd birthday the day after landing.

On April 29, the STS-134 mission was scrubbed for about a month due to technical issues, which meant that it would arrive at the station towards the end of this residency. On May 3 came the sad news of the death, aged 78, of Nespoli’s mother Maria Motta, in Verano Brianza, northern Italy. The astronaut had been aware that his mother was ill and, as a mark of respect, the combined crew of six gathered the next day in the Cupola for a minute’s silence in her memory as they gazed out over the Earth below them. The STS-134 mission arrived at the station on May 18 and remained docked until May 30, delivering the ExPRESS Logistics Carrier-3 and Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-02. What was different on this mission was that the TMA-20 departed the station before the Shuttle, thus offering the opportunity for the Soyuz crew to photograph from a distance the almost complete complex with a Shuttle orbiter docked with it for the first time.

On May 22, Kondratyev passed the command of station to fellow cosmonaut Andrei Borisenko, formally ending the ISS-27 program which officially ceased with the undocking of TMA-20 two days later. During the fly-around, Nespoli took a series of stunning and unique photos of the ISS complex with the Soyuz TMA, Progress, ATV, and Endeavour docked to it. Never again would such a photo be possible. Only one mission remained on the Shuttle manifest and no Soyuz departures were planned during that flight.

It had been a busy expedition, reflecting the changes in the program as the final Shuttle missions arrived and new resupply craft were being introduced. The TMA-20 crew had spent over 157 days of their mission duration on board the station, with 87 days as part of the ISS-26 crew and about 71 days as lead ISS-27 crew.

Milestones

279th manned space flight 114th Russian manned space flight 107th manned Soyuz flight 20th manned Soyuz TMA mission 25th ISS Soyuz mission (25S)

26/27th ISS resident crew

Nespoli celebrates his 54th birthday (April 6)

Borisenko celebrates his 47th birthday (April 17)

Distant photography conducted of ISS with Shuttle and other current transport vehicles docked to it for the first and only time