Expedition 12
ISS Expedition 12 mission is the designation for the 12 long-term crew of the International Space Station ( ISS). The crew lived and worked between October 2005 and April 8, 2006 3 aboard the ISS.
Team
- William McArthur (4th space flight), Commander (NASA / USA)
- Valeri Ivanovich Tokarev ( second space flight), flight engineer ( Roscosmos / Russia)
Backup crew
- Jeffrey Nels Williams, commander
- Mikhail Tyurin Vladislavovich, Flight Engineer
Mission Description
The expedition started on 1 October 2005 at 03:54:53 UTC clock along with the U.S. space tourist Gregory Olsen on board the spaceship Soyuz TMA -7 with Tokarev as Soyuz Commander and McArthur as Soyuz board engineer. Docking with the ISS was performed fully automatically on 3 October at 05:26:58 UTC clock over Central Asia. 08:36 UTC clock, the hatches were opened and the crew of Soyuz TMA -7 entered the space station. On 9 October, the expedition took 12 command of the ISS and solved thus officially the Expedition 11.
The Expedition 12 should perform two to three spacewalks ( EVAs ). The first outdoor activity took place on 7 November 2005. McArthur and Tokarev wore this American space suits and left the station through the airlock Quest (1). The EVA began at 15:32 UTC with 62- minute delay because Tokarev had forgotten to open a pressure relief valve in the airlock. First, the two astronauts installed a video camera at the P1 lattice structure segment (2), which is necessary for the later expansion of the solar modules. Then the remote controller by a faulty S1 lattice structure segment (4), which is responsible for the control of a radiator. It should be returned with the next shuttle visit to Earth to search for the cause of the error. Next, the astronauts removed the meter floating potential probe ( FPP) from the P6 solar module (3). The 30 -kg device was measured in the last five years, the electric potential of the station and has now been removed because it no longer worked. Since you had concerns, it may peel parts of FPP and thus constitute a potential danger to the station, a decision was made, " throw away " the device. William McArthur carried the FPP behind the station where it occurred after about 100 to 150 days in the Earth's atmosphere and burned up here. Finally, the astronauts replaced a faulty switch on the rail vehicle of the station, the Mobile Transporter. At 20:54 UTC clock ended 5 hours and 22 minutes lasting outdoor use. All planned work has been completed.
On 18 November 2005 at 08:45 UTC the Expedition coupled from the Soyuz TMA -7 spacecraft from the Pirs docking port to make it clear for the second spacewalk and docked 20 minutes later, about 50 meters away, manually at the bottom docking port of the Zarya module.
The second spacewalk began on February 3, 2006 McArthur and Tokarev left at 22:44 UTC with Russian spacesuits -. Both with red stripes - the station via the Pirs module. In this exit was the first satellite " Suitsat -1" exposed. It was a disused Russian Orlan - M space suit, in which some boards have been installed. It was expected that the space suit has sufficient energy to operate for two to four days. It was a station on board, who was working on a frequency of 145.990 MHz and greetings sent in five languages. Suitsat could be received on Earth about two orbits long, then the signal was obviously too weak due to reduced battery performance.
After the launch of " Suitsat -1" at 23:02 UTC, the two astronauts brought an adapter from the Russian Strela crane at the Zarya module to the Pressurized Mating Adapter 3 So they made way for a protective cover for the Zvezda module, with the STS -116 is to come, intermediately. This was followed by two hours working on the Mobile Transporter, which is mounted on the main support. A cable that leads to the Mobile Transporter, was damaged on 16 December. The redundant intact cable should be secured, but failed, this repair. The damaged cable was replaced during STS-121 mission. Next, the two Biorisk the experiment have salvaged from the outside and photographed the Russian Zvezda micrometeorites measuring system. Tokarev and McArthur inspected and also photographed different parts of the outer shell of Zvezda, particularly the regions around the steering jets, an antenna and a Treibstoffauslassventil. The exit took a total of five hours and 43 minutes (until 04:27 UTC) and was the last spacewalk for this occupation.
On 20 March 2006, at 06:49 UTC, the expedition docked the Soyuz TMA -7 spacecraft from the bottom docking port of the Zarya module off and docked 22 minutes later manually at the rear docking port of Zvezda to which previously the Progress M -54 freighter was occupied.
On April 1, the successor crew arrived Expedition 13. Jeffrey Williams and William McArthur spent a night in the airlock, where the pressure was lowered during the station handover. With this method, one wants to reduce the preparation time for future spacewalks. It also prevents that the crew must breathe pure oxygen, which is very valuable for the station to prevent decompression sickness ( the bends ).
The Soyuz TMA -7 spacecraft with Tokarev, McArthur and started with the Soyuz TMA -8 Brazilian Marco Pontes aboard docked off at 20:28 UTC from the ISS on April 8, 2006. About three hours later, at 23:48 UTC, the landing capsule went down on parachutes in the Kazakh steppe.
Originally, NASA had planned, William McArthur return the Space Shuttle, but this had to retire the space shuttle fleet due to problems. Moreover, it was provided that the originally also part of the Expedition 12 ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter with the shuttle mission STS -121 in fall 2005 to bring to the station. But even that had to be postponed because of the teething problems of the shuttle so that riders finally came in July 2006 as a member of the ISS Expedition 13 to the station.