February 23, 2011
Photo Op for Soyuz
Delivery coming: The Johannes Kepler cargo vehicle as seen from the space station.
Busy days in Earth orbit.
Space Shuttle Discovery is set to make its last voyage tomorrow, with liftoff planned for 4:50 p.m. Florida time. If all goes according to plan, Europe’s Johannes Kepler unmanned cargo vehicle will have docked with the space station earlier in the day (at 10:45 U.S. Eastern time—watch the docking live here). Astronaut Paolo Nespoli took this terrific snapshot of the cargo craft from onboard the space station, shortly after its launch on February 16.
The two launches follow dockings to the space station by Japanese and Russian supply vehicles in recent weeks. In fact, there’s been so much traffic lately that Russian and U.S. space station managers are considering a plan to have astronauts fly around the station in a Soyuz vehicle next month to take first-time photos of all the international partners’ vehicles docked to the station at the same time.
An interesting proposition, not without risks or potential costs, however. Each time a Soyuz undocks from the ISS, a full three-crewmember complement has to suit up and board – lest the re-docking can’t be effected, in which case the spacecraft and crew has no other choice to return to earth.
Plus, don’t NASA already have maneuvrable, space-qualified remote cameras such as AERCam Sprint?
Read the lively discussion on this very topic at http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum30/HTML/000973.html
Comment by François Guay — February 23, 2011 @ 5:16 pm