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On 7 October 2010, at 23:10 UTC a Soyuz-FG rocket will launch from Gagarin's Start (the same launch pad from which Yuri Gagarin flew) at the Baikonur Cosmodrome with the Soyuz TMA-1M spacecraft carrying two Russian cosmonauts and one American astronaut to the International Space Station for a six month stay on-orbit. This is the maiden flight of a modernized version of the veteran Soyuz spacecraft. More on the modifications below...

Crew:
Aleksandr Kaleri (Russia) - Soyuz Commander and ISS Flight Engineer making his fifth spaceflight.
Scott Kelly (USA) - Soyuz Flight Engineer and ISS Commander (Expedition 26) making his third spaceflight.
Oleg Skripochka (Russia) - Soyuz and ISS Flight Engineer making his first spaceflight.

Left to right: Kelly, Kaleri, Skripochka

Kaleri was selected as a cosmonaut in 1984 and is 54 years of age, he is currently the longest-serving and most experienced Russian cosmonaut. He previously flew as a Flight Engineer of the 11th Mir Expedition from March to August 1992, the 22nd Mir Expedition from August 1996 to March 1997, and 28th and final Mir Expedition from April to June 2000. He also flew as a Flight Engineer for Expedition 8 from October 2003 to April 2004. Kelly was selected as an astronaut in 1996 and is 46 years of age. He previously flew as the Pilot of STS-103 in December 1999, and Commanded STS-118 in August 2007. Skripochka was selected as a cosmonaut in 1997 and is 40 years of age.

Kelly has a twin brother, Mark, who is also an astronaut (both were Navy test pilots who were selected as astronauts in 1996)! Mark will be the Commander of STS-134 which launches in February 2011 and will visit the station while Scott is in Command. This will be the first time that two brothers (let alone twins) are in space at the same time as well as commanding separate space vehicles. The Kelly brothers are also the first set of siblings to have individually traveled to space. There are three father/son pairs (one American, two Russian), but they are the first brothers.

Skripochka will perform three spacewalks in Russian Orlan suits during his time on orbit. Two with Fyodor Yurchikhin and one with Dimitry Kondratyev, in November 2010 and February 2011 respectively.

Kaleri currently has spent 609 days in space, which puts him in 5th position all-time. At the end of this flight, he will be in the 2nd position, only to fellow Russian cosmonaut (selected in 1985 and retired this year) Sergei Krikalev's 803 days. The list is here.

Here is a NASA PAO YouTube video on their backgrounds:




As I mentioned at the beginning, this flight is the first of a modernized version of the Soyuz spacecraft. The current version (Soyuz-TMA) was introduced in 2002 and had minor changes in response to the craft's role as the rescue ship on the ISS. This new version upgrades the spacecraft's systems, and has been likened in the space media as "Digital Soyuz". The major modification is the replacement of the craft's main computer with a better version. This seems relatively simple, but the old computer is an analog model has been in Soyuz since the 1970s! The telemetry systems are also being replaced with a modern digital version. These changes have been test-flown on a new version of the Russian Progress un-manned resupply vehicle which has been flying to the ISS since last year. The internal displays are also digital and will for the first time have an English display option. The new equipment has decreased the mass of the craft enough to be able to double the craft's payload capacity. That is after the three cosmonauts are onboard. In the TMA version, the payload is 70kg, in TMA-M it is 140kg. The new computer and telemetry systems will allow only one qualified pilot to "pilot" the Soyuz as opposed to the two in the TMA version. This is a particularly good thing because currently the second "pilot" is sometimes an American/Japanese/Canadian who has to spend quite a lot of extra time in Russia training (about an extra year!). Due to this being the maiden "test" flight of the version, the most experienced cosmonaut and Soyuz commander (Kaleri) was assigned the flight in 2006 (two years before the rest of the crew selections), and the Russian back-up crew was not the next crew in line for the station (which would replace them in six months), but an all-veteran crew composed of Soyuz pilots of the highest caliber (Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko), but they will not be needed because the prime crew has successfully passed their pre-spaceflight examinations. Volkov and Kononenko respectively will command the next two of these new TMA-M Soyuz flights in 2011 and 2012 before the orbital flight tests are finished and the old TMA version is completely phased out.

Launch is scheduled for 23:10 UTC on 7 October with coverage available on NASA TV. Docking to the ISS will be on 10 October with coverage also available on NASA TV.
NASA TV: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

As always, thanks for the updates. That is one cool patch.

Will definitely be tuning in this evening. Thanks for the info again Da man.

As expected, the launch occurred on-time with the usual Russian efficiency.

NASA PAO YouTube video:


Docking to the ISS will be in the early morning hours of 10 October UTC, with live coverage of the docking on NASA TV.

NASA TV: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

Docking and Hatch opening:

Video again courtesy of the NASA PAO folks that maintain their YouTube account.

I'm on 1.5x dial-up right now, but that crosshair sequence is very 50s-ish.

Lucas wrote:I'm on 1.5x dial-up right now, but that crosshair sequence is very 50s-ish.

That is the exact screen that the cosmonauts see inside their spacecraft and inside the ISS when they are docking the unmanned Progress spacecraft. It does not need to be the high-tech newfangled things to get the job done. The Russians exemplify this, i.e. remember this from the beginning:

da man wrote:The major modification is the replacement of the craft's main computer with a better version. This seems relatively simple, but the old computer is an analog model has been in Soyuz since the 1970s!