Monday, May 23, 2011

Soyuz Fly Around Will Happen Today

The long awaited fly around of a Soyuz capsule to photographically capture the completed ISS with a shuttle docked will happen today. With the undocking of the TMA-20 spacecraft. Returning the Expedition 27 crew to earth. The Soyuz spacecraft will undock and back away from the station. Then the whole station will initiate a 90 degree turning maneuver while a crew member in the Soyuz photographs the entire station stack from the optically correct window in the Soyuz crew module. Once completed the Soyuz will do a reentry burn and return to earth normally. While this does not seem like a big deal. Months and months of training and simulations has gone into getting these shots. Here is a computer generated simulation of how it will happen.



You can also watch the whole maneuver live in HD here on NASA TV.


Stream videos at Ustream

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