WATCH LIVE coverage of Soyuz ISS docking on NASA TV starts at 15:45 CET. Hatch opening coverage starts 18:45 CET

One orbit, 90 mins to ISS docking of Soyuz-TMA-03M

Soyuz TMA-03M is currently 209 km from the ISS

[link to twitter.com]

Here you have a newer live feed from iss with rly cool infos,displays and more:







[link to video.godlikeproductions.com]









SpaceStationLive:
[link to spacestationlive.jsc.nasa.gov]



Where is the ISS right now?
[link to spaceflight.nasa.gov]

Soyuz will start to point at ISS. Highly directional Kurs antennas will acquire signal from ISS

Thanks for the thread, good info.

hi astromut big thx, and merry christmas to you

After a perfect launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome at 14:16 CET last night, Dutch ESA astronaut Andre Kuipers, American Don Pettit and Russian Oleg Kononenko are on their way in a Soyuz TMA spacecraft to the International Space Station. Docking is scheduled at 16:23 CET on Friday 23 December. Hatch opening and crew ingress is scheduled at 19:00 CET. ESA TV will provide live coverage of the docking and ingress, with a break in transmission of approximately 2 hrs between the two events.


Another good livefeed from ESA:


ESA Web-TV: Watch our live transmissions
[link to multimedia.esa.int]

You too! Incidentally, I'm just hearing word that an (unmanned) Soyuz launch 2 hours ago that was supposed to put a new Russian communications satellite into orbit failed at the 3rd stage and has crashed back to earth, a rocket contrail was seen near novosibirsk but based on the failure time it may have made it as far as China:
[link to www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru]
[link to www.interfax.ru]

Russian guy from the first forum translating it for us into english:
[link to www.orbiter-forum.com]

The good news, if there is any, is that I'm also hearing that it was a different 3rd stage from what they use on the manned launches and progress modules, so it's not of a type that would necessarily impact ISS launches.

Last Edited by Astromut on 12/23/2011 09:29 AM

OMG, thx for this Info !

yep got it now too

Another Soyuz rocket launch fails


Russia's recent poor launch record has continued with yet another Soyuz rocket failure.

This time, a Soyuz-2 vehicle failed to put a communications satellite into orbit after lifting away from the country's Plesetsk spaceport.

Debris is said to have re-entered the Earth's atmosphere near the western Siberian town of Tobolsk....

More:
[link to www.bbc.co.uk]


Russia’s Meridian satellite falls in Siberia

Russia’s Defense Ministry has confirmed earlier reports that the third stage of the Soyuz-2 launch vehicle was responsible for the failure to place the Meridian military communications satellite in orbit...

[link to rt.com]

Satellite Sighting Information

The following sighting information is published by the Johnson Space Center, Flight Design Division, Orbit Flight Dynamics Group. Sites are chosen in order to provide a representation of the world's demographic distribution. To compute sighting data for sites not listed here, please use the NASA Skywatch applet which will allow you to enter your exact location.



(click on NasaSkywatch choose sat(iss,soyusetc) and country)
[link to spaceflight.nasa.gov]

only few min and live coverage starts



LIVE Soyuz capsule docking coverage at the International Space Station to deliver 3-man crew begins now

Great link, may I borrow it for my thread?

sure ! i have to record now^^

Go André! Go André!

That was cool. I like how they centered the module using cameras.

is this the first time they have shown docking live before?

Soyuz safely docked to space station at 10:19 am EST


will upload a vid soon

Dont forget:

Watch hatch open & welcome on NASA TV at 12:45 pm EST

Maybe someone will catch some ufo footage on nasa's feed like they have before. All in all nasa is just another lying agency.

they lost a bolt

lol , they just discoverd a large bold floting in the cabin

Used 2 different cams (Nasa TV and ISS direct)





[link to video.godlikeproductions.com]

lol thx it was 7min

Soyuz TMA-03M
[link to en.wikipedia.org]

why would i?

Is it true what they say about there being a lot of excitement over there about having a dutch astronaut on the station?

Last Edited by Astromut on 12/23/2011 04:47 PM

So it seems, the press is paying a lot of attention to it.

But then again it's only the third time a Dutchman has flown in space (not counting Lodewijk van den Berg).


André gets a phone call:


[link to www.youtube.com]

The little girl's name Sterre means star, btw.

Picture taken by the station crew of our docking at sunset. Great timing.

[link to www.flickr.com]