(This sent in yesterday by ESA Mission Director Roland Luettgens at Columbus Control Centre – Col-CC – Munich – Ed.)

Today we had the official GO/NOGO poll with all International Partners for the launch and docking of Soyuz 35S on Tuesday, 28 May. With no issues were identified, everyone is ‘Go’ for the Soyuz 35S mission!

The final times are as follows:

  • Luca and his crewmates will enter the Soyuz at around 20:00 CEST on Tuesday evening followed by some check-out and preparation activities. The launch will occur at 22:31 CEST and after approx. eight minutes, separation of the third stage occurs at an altitude of about 200 km.
  • The Soyuz needs to chase the ISS and requires four burns to get closer to the ISS and they all occur in the following 2.5 hrs after launch. Imagine that Luca in his Soyuz is increasing speed up to more than 28,000 km/h, which is more than 7 km/s! This means Rome to Naples in about 20 seconds. There’s no speed limit in orbit.. 🙂
  • At about 02:00 CEST on Wednesday morning Luca will be about 600 km behind the ISS to begin the automated rendezvous, which is a critical activity that lasts about 2 hrs until the Soyuz docks at 04:16 CEST.

After docking, the crew will perform several activities before they can actually open the hatch and go inside the ISS. Those activities include, of course, the test and check if the Soyuz and ISS are connected properly and have equalized pressure. Once everything is OK, Luca will enter the ISS between 06:10-20 CEST on Wednesday morning.

All is timed to the second, and the life of Luca will be planned like this for the next several months. Of course, we’ll make sure that he has enough time to rest and find the time to send us some nice pictures from up there.

… Four days left to launch, and counting!