NASA astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore (left) floats with ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti (center) and NASA's Terry Virts (right) are decked out for Christmas 2014. Credit: Sam Cristoforetti Twitter/ESA
Astronauts in space have decked the halls of the International Space Station in honour of the holiday season.
The international crew members on the station have hung stockings, pulled out the orbiting outpost's Christmas tree, and they generally seem to be getting into the Christmas spirit.
"It's beginning to look like Christmas on the International Space Station," NASA officials wrote on a blog about the holiday.
"The stockings are out, the tree is up and the station residents continue advanced space research to benefit life on Earth and in space."
Space Station Christmas decorationsPin It ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti decorates the International Space Station for Christmas 2014. Credit: NASA
Although NASA astronauts usually get the day off for Christmas, they have still been taking part in a variety of experiments leading up to the holiday.
On Dec. 23, for example, the crewmembers participated in a neurology experiment to monitor how motor control, perception and other aspects of brain function change over time in space, according to NASA.
People on Earth can also send holiday messages of cheer to astronauts in space this season. NASA has set up a special portal for Earthlings that want to send their greetings to Virts and Wilmore on the station.
In the back are Elena Serova, Commander Barry Wilmore and Alexander Samokutyaev.
They are in the Zvezda service module for a traditional crew greeting ceremony with family and mission officials on the ground. Credit: NASA TV
NASA astronaut Terry Virts, Anton Shkaplerov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency joined their Expedition 42 crewmates when the hatches between the Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft and the International Space Station officially opened at midnight EST. Expedition 42 Commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore of NASA and Alexander Samoukutyaev and Elena Serova of Roscosmos welcomed the new crew members aboard their orbital home.
Expedition 42 will continue to take advantage of the orbital lab’s unique microgravity environment and expand the scope of research.
The crew will perform experiments that cover human research, biological and physical sciences, technology development and Earth observations as well as engage in educational activities.
They are scheduled to greet a host of cargo vehicles during their mission, including a number of U.S. commercial resupply flights, two Russian Progress resupply missions and the departure of the final European ATV cargo spacecraft. The crew will conduct up to three U.S. spacewalks.
Wilmore, Samoukutyaev and Serova will return home in March 2015. At that time Virts will become commander for Expedition 43. Virts, Shkaplerov and Cristoforetti will return to Earth in May 2015.
Expedition 41 crew portrait on the International Space Station. From left: ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst, Roscosmos cosmonauts Elena Serova, Maxim Suraev and Alexander Samokutyaev, and NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Barry Wilmore.
The rear astronauts are dressed in the Sokol suits they will wear in their Soyuz spacecraft that will take them back to Earth on 9 November. Alexander, Max and Reid were making sure their suits still fit and have no leaks after having been stored on arrival at the Station almost six months ago.
Yelena, Alexander Samokutyaev and Barry will continue working in the weightless research centre, but they will not feel lonely for long.
ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, NASA astronaut Terry Virts and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov will join their colleagues on 24 November.
Alexander Gerst commented on this image: “The International Space Station Expedition 41 crew. My favourite selfie in space!”
Spacewalker Maxim Suraev works outside the Poisk mini-research module in January 2010. Image Credit: NASA TV
Russian spacewalkers Max Suraev and Alexander Samokutyaev opened the Pirs docking compartment hatch to the vacuum of space at 9:28 a.m. EDT to begin the third spacewalk for Expedition 41 crew members in as many weeks.
Their spacewalk is expected to last six hours. Two U.S. spacewalks took place Oct. 7 and 15.
Russian spacewalkers Max Suraev and Alexander Samokutyaev. Image Credit: NASA TV
The duo’s first task is to remove the Radiometriya experiment that was installed on the Zvezda service module in 2011 and which is no longer required for data collection.
They will then jettison it for a later reentry into the atmosphere where it will burn up. The experiment gathered data to help scientists predict seismic events and earthquakes.
The veteran cosmonauts will then move on to another external experiment and remove its protective cover.
They will photograph the Expose-R experiment before taking a break during the orbital night period.
After orbital sunrise, they will take more photographs of the work area, translate back to Pirs and place the protective cover inside.
The European Space Agency study exposes organic and biological samples to the harsh environment of space and observes how they are affected by cosmic radiation, vacuum and night and day cycles.
NASA Flight Engineer Reid Wiseman photo showing Flight Engineers Barry Wilmore (left) and ESA's Alexander Gerst at work in the Kibo laboratory of the International Space Station. Image Credit: NASA
The International Space Station’s Expedition 41 crew, which doubled the number of humans in space when three new crew members arrived last week, began its first full work week schedule as a six-person crew Monday with biological research and preparations for a pair of U.S. spacewalks.
Flight Engineers Barry Wilmore, Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova joined their Expedition 41 crewmates on the station early Friday following a six-hour, four-orbit trek aboard their Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft from the launch site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Wilmore, Samokutyaev and Serova are slated to spend 5 ½ months aboard the station.
Shortly after the usual 2 a.m. EDT reveille, the entire crew conducted body mass measurements, inspected their orbital home and participated in a daily planning conference with the flight control teams around the world to review the day’s activities.
For Wiseman, Gerst and Wilmore, most of those activities were centered primarily on gearing up for their upcoming spacewalks.
During an Oct. 7 excursion outside the station, Wiseman and Gerst will transfer a previously uninstalled pump module from its temporary stowage location to the External Stowage Platform-2.
The two spacewalkers also will install the Mobile Transporter Relay Assembly (MTRA) that adds the capability to provide “keep-alive” power to the Mobile Servicing System (MSS) when the Mobile Transporter is moving between worksites.
Wiseman and Gerst spent some time reviewing the procedures for that spacewalk and later participated in a conference call with spacewalk specialists on the ground.
Wilmore meanwhile began “scrubbing” the cooling loops of the U.S. spacesuits, including the Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment that he will wear under his own spacesuit when he joins Wiseman for the second Expedition 41 spacewalk on Oct. 15.
Wiseman completed the spacesuit water recharge in the afternoon and Gerst checked in on the Zebrafish Muscle study.
He assessed the water condition inside the Aquatic Habitat, which is housing a school of spacefaring fish popularly known in the aquarium trade as Zebra Danios.
A Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft will launch a new U.S.-Russian crew on a swift six-hour flight to the International Space Station today (Sept. 25), and you can watch the action in space live online.
A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying the Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft towers over its launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome ahead of a Sept. 26, 2014 local time launch (Sept. 25 Eastern Time). The mission will launch the new Expedition 41 crew to the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky
NASA astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore and cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova are poised to blast off for the space station at 4:25 p.m. EDT (2025 GMT) from the Central Asian spaceport of Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, where it will be early Friday morning, Sept. 26, local time.
Serova will make a bit of space history with the launch, when she becomes Russia's fourth female cosmonaut to fly in space and the first Russian woman on the International Space Station.
You can watch the Soyuz launch webcast live on NASA TV, beginning at 3:30 p.m. EDT (1930 GMT).
NASA will also provide a live webcast of the Soyuz spacecraft's arrival at the space station at 9:45 p.m. EDT (0145 GMT), and another webcast at 11:30 p.m. EDT (0330 GMT) as the Soyuz crew joins the current station residents.
Wilmore, Samokutyaev and Serova will live and work aboard the International Space Station until March 2015, first as part of the outpost's Expedition 41 crew and later as the core of its Expedition 42 crew.
"[I'm] looking forward, actually, to all of it," Wilmore told reporters, adding that he was especially excited about the science and possible spacewalks during the flight. "It's all going to be great and fascinating."
The Soyuz launch today will mark the second spaceflight for Wilmore, 52, who is a captain in the U.S. Navy and hails from Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, but this flight will be his first long-duration trip to the space station.
He last visited the space station in 2011 as part of its Expedition 27/28 crew, and spent 164 days in space. Samokutyaev is from Penza, Russia, and is a lieutenant colonel in the Russian Air Force.
Cosmonaut Elena Serova, 38, is the only spaceflight rookie on the Soyuz crew launching today. Like Samokutyaev, she is a test cosmonaut, but Serova is not a member of the Russian military.
She was selected as a test engineer cosmonaut for Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) in 2006.
Serova counts Russia's female cosmonaut pioneers Valentina Tereshkova (the first woman in space), Svetlana Savitskaya (the first female spacewalker) and Elena Kodakova among her role models.
"When I was in school my first teacher told us about different achievements in cosmonautics, and I was very much impressed by those first flights, from Svetlana Savitskaya in particular, who was the first woman performing a spacewalk," Serova said in a NASA interview. "She was an amazing individual."
Today, Serova is the first female Russian cosmonaut to launch since Kodakova's final flight in 1997, aboard a NASA space shuttle.
Kodakova spent 169 days in space on Russia's space station Mir between October 1994 and March 1997, then revisited Mir for just over nine days in 1997 during the shuttle mission.
Serova said she is aware that her mission might serve as an inspiration to other Russian girls today, just as those earlier missions inspired her.
A Russian cosmonaut is poised to make a bit of history this when she launches to the International Space Station this month, even if she considers the mission a routine spaceflight.
When cosmonaut Elena Serova launches to the station on Sept. 25 with two other crew mates, she will become the International Space Station's first-ever female Russian crew member and only the fourth female cosmonaut to reach space.
She'll also be the first female Russian cosmonaut to fly in the 17 years since cosmonaut Yelena Kondakova's STS-84 space shuttle mission in May 1997 but Serova, 38, said she doesn't see her mission any differently than that of a male cosmonaut.
"I wouldn't say I am doing more ... than what my colleagues are doing," she said in translated remarks during a preflight briefing at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston in July.
Elena Serova will be the fourth female cosmonaut to fly in space during Expedition 41/42 in 2014. Credit: NASA
Serova pointed out that women have gone into space before, and that her focus is on fulfilling her assigned duties as a flight engineer.
"I want to perform my job really well," she said.
In 1963, Russia (then part of the Soviet Union) was the first nation to fly a woman in space, sending Valentina Tereshkova aloft in June of that year on a mission that lasted nearly three days in Earth orbit.
The Expedition 41/42 crew includes, from left, Barry Wilmore (NASA), Alexander Samokutyaev (Roscosmos) and Elena Serova (Roscosmos). Credit: NASA
Svetlana Savitskaya was the second Soviet female cosmonaut, making two flights into space in 1982 and 1984 and staying aboard the Salyut 7 space station.
She also was the first female to peform a spacewalk.
The United States didn't send its first woman to space until 1983, when Sally Ride blasted off.
Dozens of women from the United States and other nations have flown since, but only one other from Russia: Kondakova.
She made two trips to the Mir space station, in 1994 (on a Soyuz capsule) and 1997 (on a space shuttle).
Serova has said she's been fascinated by space since childhood, and that she always felt visiting the final frontier was possible.
"The door to space was opened to all women by Valentina Tereshkova," she said in a NASA interview.
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