{"id":13929,"date":"2018-03-20T19:00:19","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T11:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/soyuz-crew-set-for-wednesday-launch-on-station-flight\/"},"modified":"2018-03-20T19:00:19","modified_gmt":"2018-03-20T11:00:19","slug":"soyuz-crew-set-for-wednesday-launch-on-station-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/soyuz-crew-set-for-wednesday-launch-on-station-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Soyuz crew set for Wednesday launch on station flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n

\"\"
Drew Feustel, Oleg Artemyev and Ricky Arnold (left to right), all spaceflight veterans, are set for launch Wednesday on a five-month expedition to the International Space Station. Credit: NASA\/Victor Zelentsov<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Engineers readied a Russian Soyuz rocket for launch Wednesday to ferry a veteran cosmonaut and two NASA shuttle fliers to the International Space Station for a five-month stay.<\/p>\n

Soyuz commander Oleg Artemyev, flight engineer Andrew \u201cDrew\u201d Feustel and Richard \u201cRicky\u201d Arnold are scheduled for launch aboard the Soyuz MS-08\/54S spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:44 p.m. EDT (GMT-4; 11:44 p.m. local time).<\/p>\n

As usual, the launching is timed to roughly coincide with the moment Earth\u2019s rotation carries the pad into the plane of the space station\u2019s orbit, a requirement for spacecraft attempting to rendezvous with targets moving at nearly five miles per second.<\/p>\n

Artemyev, veteran of a 2014 stay aboard the station, is making his first flight as Soyuz commander. Feustel, a self-described \u201cgearhead\u201d with a doctorate in geology and a passion for car restoration, will serve as co-pilot in the Soyuz\u2019s left seat.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just amazing,\u201d Feustel said of the Russian vehicle. \u201cThe spacecraft is well designed, it\u2019s got a lot of great redundant features to it \u2026 and it has some incredible capabilities. It\u2019s beauty is in it simplicity. It\u2019s been a thrill to learn how well engineered that vehicle is.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he added that learning to handle the Soyuz systems while training in a second language was no small challenge. He credited the Russian training team in Star City near Moscow with getting him up to speed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can take a geologist and put him in the left seat and teach him how to fly a spacecraft, I think that\u2019s a great feat!\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s been challenging, but I\u2019m happy to say I think we\u2019ve made it out on the other side of training in a very positive way, and we\u2019ll be well prepared to launch into space.\u201d<\/p>\n

If all goes well, Artemyev, strapped into the Soyuz command module\u2019s center seat, flanked on the left by Feustel and on the right by Arnold, will monitor an automated approach to the space station, moving in for docking at the lab\u2019s upper Poisk module at 3:41 p.m. Friday.<\/p>\n

Arnold, like Feustel a shuttle veteran, said he was excited by a chance to fly aboard a Soyuz, although the spacecraft is not known for its creature comforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a pretty tall guy, and the Soyuz was not designed for people over six feet tall,\u201d he said of the two-day rendezvous in the cramped ship. \u201cHowever, it does a great job of getting us to and from orbit, it provides a lifeboat for us in case we need to come home in an emergency. I\u2019m incredibly thankful to have to have the opportunity to fly both of those iconic spacecraft.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Arnold, Artemyev and Feustel (left to right) pose with their Sokol launch and entry spacesuits. Credit: NASA\/Victor Zelentsov<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Once docked at the station, Artemyev and his crewmates will be welcomed aboard by Expedition 55 commander Anton Shkaplerov, NASA astronaut Scott Tingle and Japanese crewmate Norishige Kanai. They\u2019ve had the station to themselves since three other crew members \u2014 Alexander Misurkin, Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba \u2014 returned to Earth on Feb. 27 to close out a 168-day stay in space.<\/p>\n

All three members of the Soyuz MS-08 crew are spaceflight veterans with a combined 10 spacewalks between them, experience that will come in handy during up to four planned EVAs, three U.S. and one Russian, during their station expedition.<\/p>\n

Artemyev completed a 169-day stay aboard the station in 2014, participating in two spacewalks totaling 12 hours and 34 minutes. Arnold, an educator with a degree in marine science who has taught at schools around the world, flew a single mission aboard the shuttle Discovery in 2009 and logged two spacewalks totaling 12 hours 34 minutes helping install one of the station\u2019s main solar array truss segments.<\/p>\n

\u201cOleg Artemyev is one of the best guys you can meet but honestly, I never met a cosmonaut in the last 18 years that I didn\u2019t like and get along with,\u201d Feustel said in an interview with CBS News. \u201cWe have a great relationship with these individuals, they\u2019re very professional, they\u2019re very technically skilled, and I can\u2019t speak more highly of him and having him as a crewmate. I really look forward to spending time with him on orbit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arnold agreed, saying \u201che is a great guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe comes from an EVA background, which is the job I had prior to being assigned to this mission,\u201d Arnold added. \u201cHe\u2019s been here a long time, he\u2019s very technically sharp. It\u2019s his second mission, his first time in command of the Soyuz. He\u2019s very kind, he has a great sense of humor, and I think he does a really good job of bringing people together and making them feel part of the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the three new station crew members, Feustel has the most spacewalk experience. He participated in two shuttle missions for a combined 28 days 15 hours in space, one in 2009 to service the Hubble Space Telescope and another in 2011 to help finish construction of the space station.<\/p>\n

He logged 21 hours and 20 minutes of EVA time during three excursions at the space station and another 20 hours and 58 minutes during three spacewalks to work on the Hubble telescope.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Soyuz rocket set for launch Wednesday rolled out to its launch pad Monday at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA\/Joel Kowsky<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Feustel and Arnold expect to venture outside the space station on March 29 to install wireless communications gear that will be used by an external payload and, eventually, by approaching commercial crew ferry ships being built by Boeing and SpaceX. They also plan to swap out a high-definition camera and remove aging hoses in the station\u2019s ammonia coolant system.<\/p>\n

Two more NASA spacewalks are expected in the May-June timeframe, followed by a Russian excursion in August. But the primary goal of the mission is science, with a full agenda of experiments and research on tap, along with the usual station maintenance work.<\/p>\n

Asked what he was looking forward to the most, Artemyev said through an interpreter \u201cI really hope our work will be a step forward towards further solar system exploration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything that we\u2019re doing on the station is a step forward to future flights to the moon, to Mars and farther,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd, of course, we need to stay friends throughout our joint endeavour. \u2026 We cannot allow politics to rule our life on the ISS.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arnold said he was looking forward to living on the station long term rather than visiting as a \u201cquick house guest\u201d like he did on his previous shuttle mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t really get the sense of living and working in space\u201d on a short visit, he said. \u201cYou\u2019re kind of there to do a specific job and then turn around and go home. The pace will be different, I believe, the continuity and the science, actually seeing day to day how the flight plan lays out and then when we do have some time off to be able to enjoy the view. I think it\u2019s just going to have a different feel to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Arnold taught middle school science in Maryland, earned a master\u2019s degree in environmental science and later taught in Casablanca, Morocco, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, West Papua, Indonesia, and Bucharest, Romania.<\/p>\n

Arnold said he also hopes to follow in the footsteps of the Acaba, a fellow teacher, \u201cto really shine a light on the people who are working in our nation\u2019s and the world\u2019s classrooms, just to kind of say this is what\u2019s possible, these are amazing people, we have really talented folks working in the classroom and just to kind of say thanks to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Feustel, it\u2019s the science and a chance to maintain the equipment that\u2019s most appealing about a long-term stay aboard the station. He worked as an auto mechanic while attending community college in Michigan, restoring 1950s-era Jaguars, before earning a doctorate in geology and eventually working as a geophysicist for Exxon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to the science,\u201d he said, \u201cbut what I\u2019m really looking forward to is the opportunity to keep the space station living for another six months and have it well prepared to receive the next crew that comes on after us.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you know, we\u2019re the hands, eyes and ears of the researchers, and our job is just to keep things operating and executing the science. Most of us don\u2019t make up science experiments to take to space, but we\u2019re really there to make sure everything gets done to ensure the success of the mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a bit of a gearhead, so putting my hands on the hardware to make sure we can keep it operating will be a fun challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shkaplerov, Tingle and Kanai are scheduled to return to Earth on June 3 to close out a 167-day voyage while Artemyev, Feustel and Arnold expect to remain in space for 159 days, returning to a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan on Aug. 28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Drew Feustel, Oleg Artemyev and Ricky Arnold (left to right), all spaceflight veterans, are set for launch Wednesday on a five-month expedition to the International Space Station. Credit: NASA\/Victor Zelentsov Engineers readied a Russian Soyuz rocket for launch Wednesday to ferry a veteran cosmonaut and two NASA shuttle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1601,2842,2938,2800,1545,717,2863,2864],"class_list":["post-13929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-baikonur-cosmodrome","tag-drew-feustel","tag-expedition-55","tag-expedition-56","tag-human-spaceflight","tag-international-space-station","tag-oleg-artemyev","tag-ricky-arnold"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13929"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13929\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}