ID :
172812
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 08:26
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http://m.oananews.org//node/172812
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Soyuz spaceship named after Gagarin to bring next mission to ISS
BAIKONUR (Kazakhstan), April 4 (Itar-Tass) -- A Soyuz manned spaceship named after the first world spaceman Yuri Gagarin, which will carry the crew of an anniversary mission to the International Space Station, will be launched from the Baikonur spaceport overnight to Tuesday.
"The Soyuz TMA-21 spaceship will be launched a week before the
remarkable date of the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's first piloted spaceflight," a source in the Russian space agency Roskosmos recalled.
The Soyuz commander Lieut. Col. of the Russian Air Force Alexander
Samokutyayev will go on his first space mission, but he is considered as a highly qualified space pilot, as he passed all the preflight exams perfectly.
"The Soyuz-FG booster carrying the Soyuz TMA-21 spaceship is to blast off at 2.18 a.m. Moscow time on April 5 from the first Baikonur launching site named after Gagarin," a source in the southern spaceport told Itar-Tass.
Early in the morning on April 7, Samokutyayev and his space fellows Andrei Borisenko and Ronald Garan will join a Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli and a U.S. astronaut Catherine Colman, who have been on the ISS mission since the middle of December 2010.
About 20 military and civil airplanes and helicopters and a Russian naval search-and-rescue ship will safeguard the spaceship during all the flight to the orbit, an adviser to the Federal Air Transport Agency Andrei Pryanishnikov said. Even the Kaliningrad-harbored ship, which houses the museum dedicated to a famous cosmonaut Viktor Patsayev, may be used for the communication with the Soyuz spaceship, a source in the Mission Control Center in the Moscow Region said.
The Soyuz launch will be broadcast live on the Rossiya 24 news
television channel. These broadcasts are made on the Russian television since September 2006, when the ISS-14 crew and the first space tourist Anousheh Ansari flied into space.
The Soyuz TMA-21 spaceship is to dock with the ISS at 3.18 a.m. Moscow time on April 7.
"The Soyuz TMA-21 spaceship will be launched a week before the
remarkable date of the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's first piloted spaceflight," a source in the Russian space agency Roskosmos recalled.
The Soyuz commander Lieut. Col. of the Russian Air Force Alexander
Samokutyayev will go on his first space mission, but he is considered as a highly qualified space pilot, as he passed all the preflight exams perfectly.
"The Soyuz-FG booster carrying the Soyuz TMA-21 spaceship is to blast off at 2.18 a.m. Moscow time on April 5 from the first Baikonur launching site named after Gagarin," a source in the southern spaceport told Itar-Tass.
Early in the morning on April 7, Samokutyayev and his space fellows Andrei Borisenko and Ronald Garan will join a Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli and a U.S. astronaut Catherine Colman, who have been on the ISS mission since the middle of December 2010.
About 20 military and civil airplanes and helicopters and a Russian naval search-and-rescue ship will safeguard the spaceship during all the flight to the orbit, an adviser to the Federal Air Transport Agency Andrei Pryanishnikov said. Even the Kaliningrad-harbored ship, which houses the museum dedicated to a famous cosmonaut Viktor Patsayev, may be used for the communication with the Soyuz spaceship, a source in the Mission Control Center in the Moscow Region said.
The Soyuz launch will be broadcast live on the Rossiya 24 news
television channel. These broadcasts are made on the Russian television since September 2006, when the ISS-14 crew and the first space tourist Anousheh Ansari flied into space.
The Soyuz TMA-21 spaceship is to dock with the ISS at 3.18 a.m. Moscow time on April 7.
