News

January 21, 2010. S.P.Korolev RSC Energia - MCC-M,
Korolev, Moscow region

In accordance with the mission plan of the International Space Station (ISS), the manned spacecraft Soyuz TMA-16 was re-docked from the instrumentation and propulsion compartment of the Zvezda Service Module of the ISS Russian Segment to the docking port on the Mini Research Module Poisk.

The main objective of the operation was to test the systems and assemblies installed on the Poisk module in the course of the spacecraft berthing and docking, as well as to vacate the rear port on the SM instrumentation and propulsion compartment in order to support the upcoming scheduled activities under the ISS mission plan (orbital reboost using Zvezda module thrusters and reception of Progress M-04M cargo spacecraft).

Operations to take the spacecraft away from the station, to carry out approach maneuvers and the subsequent docking were performed manually by the spacecraft commander M. Suraev. Also working onboard Soyuz TMA-16 was the flight engineer of the spacecraft, US astronaut J. Williams.

Russian cosmonaut O. Kotov, astronauts T. Creamer (USA), S. Noguchi (Japan), working onboard the space station monitored the spacecraft redocking process and the functioning of the ISS systems.

Preparations for and performance of the operations were monitored from the Mission Control Center near Moscow (MCC-M) by specialists from S.P.Korolev RSC Energia and organizations involved in the implementation of the ISS program.

For information:

The Soyuz TMA-16 was undocked from the SM instrumentation and propulsion compartment at 13:03 Moscow Time, the spacecraft docked with the Poisk module at 13:24 Moscow Time. The spacecraft was in free flight for about 21 minutes.