A 3-man crew successfully introduced the Olympic torch to the world area Station. For security reasons, the torch may not be lit. In a scene the traditional Greeks might by no means have imagined, two Russian cosmonauts plan to hold an unlighted Olympic torch outdoor the world space Station Saturday, staging a symbolic spacewalk relay as a part of the buildup to the 2014 winter games in Sochi, Russia.
Soyuz TMA-10M commander Oleg Kato and flight engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy plan to open the hatch of the Russian Pars airlock compartment around 6:30 a.m. PT (5 GMT) Saturday. We will be able to take an image of it with the distance station in the background, with the Earth within the history,” Kato mentioned in a NASA interview. “I feel these might be fascinating movies and pictures so one can be used to promote the Olympic Games.
Said Ryazanskiy: “sadly, we cannot light it in area, so we will be able to merely take it to space and take pictures and a few videos with the station and the Earth in the heritage. It will be an actual Olympic torch…I believe it’s going to be the remaining torch so that it will be lit all over the Sochi Olympics relay.”
To make the orbital photo op possible, Russian mission managers had to juggle the gap station crew rotation timetable. Normally, the handiest two three-seat Soyuz ferry craft are connected to the station at any one time, helping a crew of six overlapping six-month tours of responsibility.
Are living television views throughout the cramped Soyuz command module confirmed Commander Mikhail Turin, left, and flight engineer Rick Mustachio monitoring cockpit shows rapidly after attaining orbit. Out of view to Turin’s left was once eastern astronaut Sochi Waikato. To get the torch up to the lab and then quick backpedal to Earth, a Soyuz launch used to be moved as much as getting 9 folks on the station — and three Soyuz spacecraft — on the related time.
Soyuz TMA-11M commander Mikhail Turin, Rick Mustachio, and Sochi Waikato arrived early Thursday, bringing the Olympic torch. Welcoming them aboard had been Soyuz TMA-10M commander Kato, Michael Hopkins, and Ryazanskiy, launched September 25, and Soyuz TMA-09M commander Yurchikhin, flight engineer Luca Partition, and Karen Nyberg, who has been launched, may just 28 and are closing out a protracted-length keep in area.
After the spacewalk Saturday using Kato and Ryazanskiy, the torch will probably be exceeded off to Yurchikhin’s crew for return to Earth Sunday night time aboard the Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft. After a touchdown close to Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, anticipated around 9:49 p.m. EST, the torch might be handed again to Olympic organizers.
The distance relay started when Turin floated into the station Thursday. He directly offered the torch to Yurchikhin, who instructed newshounds late; your entire crew took phase in a symbolic torch relay throughout the lab advance.
Waikato carried the torch thru Japan’s Kobo laboratory module, handing it off to Partition, an ecru area agency astronaut, who carried it through ESA’s Columbus module. Hopkins, Nyberg, and Mustachio then carried the torch during the U.S. Section of the station, handing it off to Turin, then Ryazanskiy, then Kato, and ultimately Yurchikhin, who “secured it within the Russian segment in a unique situation.”
Saturday’s spacewalk would be the 174th because the station meeting began in 1998, the eighth thus far this year, the fourth for Kato, and the primary for Ryazanskiy.
With the use of the decision signal EV-2, Ryazanskiy will go with the flow out of the airlock first, carrying a tethered holder for the torch and commercial Go-professional cameras to document proprietary video of the torch for Olympic organizers in Russia.
Turin will shoot video and take proprietary pictures from inside the multi-window cupola compartment. Whereas that picture is probably not seen in actual time, NASA will broadcast reside views from its personal cameras all through the spacewalk.
Kato, EV-1, will dangle the torch in the open hatch of the Pars module while Ryazanskiy takes footage and mounts cameras on a spacewalk ladder to report the scene. Turin then will waft out of doors; make his strategy to the ladder where he’ll meet up with his crewmate.
Each cosmonaut then will pose for the cameras, and Kato will hand the torch off to Ryazanskiy. Both males then will turn to face a NASA digital camera, perform another handoff, and pose for extra pictures and video.
‘Why the station? Why no longer.’
The torch then shall be carried to yet another region for one more handoff and further pictures ahead of being returned to the airlock and safely saved away.
“We are going to transfer along out of doors the Russian section, and we will be able to be symbolically handing over the torch from one crew member to the opposite,” Kato informed reporters Friday. “We will be able to repeat that a pair or 3 times to make sure we will have a pretty image to indicate the whole world.
“Our u. s. a. will adequately see the torch, with the history of the Earth and black area. So it is a type of inventive job. It’s technically difficult, and we hope for fulfillment.”
Kato and Ryazanskiy then will turn their consideration to the more hobbies aspects of the spacewalk, moving a foot restraint needed for an upcoming spacewalk and finishing up work on a digital camera mounting platform so that it will be utilized by a Canadian firm, Urthecast, to circulate excessive definition Earth views to subscribers around the globe. The digital is scheduled for setting up all through a Dec. 23 spacewalk.
A closing process includes disconnecting a plasma wave scan and securing it in the situation. If time is to be had, the cosmonauts will perform an inspection of insulation on the station’s hull.
Ryazanskiy mentioned the orbital torch relay used to be the result of joint talks between Roscommon, the Russian federal space company, and the Olympic Committee.
“The Olympic torch will be traveling in every single place Russia,” he stated. “They’ll additionally take it to the underside of the deepest lake on earth, Lake Baikal. Then it’ll be raised to the very best Elbrus Mountain. So why the station? Why now not?”
