News

March 28, 2014
Soyuz ТМА-12М manned vehicle docked to the International Space Station!

The docking of Soyuz TMA-12M manned transport vehicle with the International Space Station (ISS) was provided.

The vehicle rendezvous with the Station, its fly-around, stationkeeping and berthing were performed normally in the automatic mode.

A contact with the docking port of Module Poisk of the ISS Russian Segment occurred at 03:53 Moscow Time two days after the launch from the Baikonur cosmodrome.

The flight control and the state monitoring of the vehicle and station systems in the rendezvous and docking phase were provided by the Lead Operations Control Team working at Mission Control Center near Moscow (MCC-M). The flight director was First Deputy General Designer of RSC Energia V.A. Soloviev.

The final flight operations during the vehicle rendezvous and docking to the Station were conducted under control of the State Commission for conducting flight tests of manned space complexes (Chairman - Roscosmos Head O.N. Ostapenko) and Technical Management (Manager - President of RSC Energia, General Designer V.A. Lopota).

Upon completion of the vehicle compartments leak tests, docking assembly leak check and pressure equalization between the Station and vehicle the transfer hatches were open. The vehicle crew passed to the Russian Segment of the ISS.

The joint International crew consisting of six persons began working onboard the Station, namely Russian cosmonauts M. Tyurin, O. Artemiev, A. Skvortsov, U.S. astronauts R. Mastracchio, S. Swanson and Japanese astronaut K. Wakata.

The ISS, Progress M-21M, Progress M-22M, Soyuz TMA-11M and Soyuz TMA-12M onboard systems operate as designed.

Representatives of Roscosmos and foreign space agencies were present at MCC-M when implementing of final operations for the vehicle rendezvous and docking to the ISS.

For reference:

RSC Energia is the prime contractor for development and operation of the ISS Russian Segment, its modules and Soyuz TMA, Progress M vehicles.
Currently five Russian Modules (Zarya, Zvezda, Pirs, Poisk, Rassvet) and four Russian transport vehicles: two manned and two cargo vehicles operate within the ISS.