News

Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft launched to the ISS

September 2, 2015

Today, September 2, transportation spacecraft Soyuz TMA-18M with its crew was successfully put into a low Earth orbit and headed for the International Space Station (ISS).

Launch vehicle Soyuz-FG with the manned spacecraft Soyuz TMA-18M was launched from Area 1 ("Gagarin's launch pad") of the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 7:37 Moscow Time. The spacecraft separated from the third stage of the launch vehicle normally at the expected time.

General director of state corporation Roscosmos Igor Komarov and President of RSC Energia Vladimir Solntsev thanked for the job well done the operational crew of the launch pad and all those who participated in the pre-launch processing and launch.

The launch of Soyuz-FG rocket with Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft was successful. We are waiting for the docking in two days' time, at 10:42 Moscow Time on Friday. And we are going to have a really unique situation where there'll be nine people working onboard the ISS representing five countries. Therefore, it gives me much pleasure to present such a truly international project, which illustrates the international and open nature of our cooperation", - said I. Komarov at the briefing after the report of a duty officer about the successful orbital insertion of Soyuz TMA-18M.

Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft will deliver to the International Space Station (ISS) one crew member of ISS-45/46 and two members of the crew of Visiting Mission 18. The member of the ISS-45/46 Expedition crew is a Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov, and the members of the visiting crew are a Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen and a Kazakh cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov.

The Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft will also deliver to the ISS about 170 kg of various cargoes, including life support and crew support supplies, onboard documentation packages, utilization payloads, accessories for video and photographic equipment, hardware and data storage media for science experiments, personal kits for the crew

The spacecraft will rendezvous with the station using the two-day rendezvous profile, the docking with the docking port on the Mini Research Module Poisk (MRM2) is scheduled for September 4 (Friday) at 10:42 Moscow Time, during the 35th orbit of the flight.

The plans for Expeditions ISS-45 and ISS-46 include operations with Russian manned transportation spacecraft Soyuz TMA-18M, Soyuz TMA-16M, Soyuz TMA-17M, cargo transportation spacecraft Progress M-M and Progress MS, US cargo spacecraft Dragon, Cygnus and a Japanese cargo spacecraft HTV-5. One spacewalk is scheduled within the framework of the ISS Russian Segment program. The plans include activities to maintain the station in good working order, to upgrade it, and to run a program of scientific, engineering and applied studies and experiments. During the period of ISS-45/46/Visisting Mission 18, there are plans to conduct 47 scientific experiments. The crew members, as is customary, will be taking photos and shooting video onboard.

The scheduled duration of the cosmonaut S.Volkov's mission is 188 days. Members of the visiting mission crew, astronaut A.Mogensen and cosmonaut A.Aimbetov will each stay in orbit for 10 days.

The manned transportation spacecraft of the new series Soyuz TMA-M developed and built by RSC Energia is an upgraded version of the Soyuz TMA spacecraft. It is equipped with new devices for the motion control and navigation system and an improved onboard measurement system. All the devices are built around state-of-the-art electronic components and run the latest software. The upgrade made it possible to reduce the mass of the onboard equipment and thus enhance the capability to deliver payload to orbit.

The spacecraft is designed to deliver the crews of up to three and their accompanying cargoes to the International Space Station (ISS), as well as to return them to Earth. When attached to the ISS, Soyuz TMA-M serves as a crew rescue vehicle and is kept permanently ready for emergency crew return to Earth. This might be required in case of an emergency onboard the station, illness or injury of a crewmember.

JSC RSC Energia: the leader in the rocket and space industry, and the prime contractor for manned space systems. The Corporation conducts work on the development of unmanned space and rocket systems (launch vehicles and orbital transfer vehicles), and high-technology systems for various non-space applications. Since August 2014, the Corporation is headed by Vladimir Lvovich Solntsev.