Expedition 45/46 crew Tim Kopra, Yuri Malenchenko and Tim Peake in front of Soyuz simulator. Credits: UKSA-M. Alexander
Dressing up in the Sokol suit for Soyuz exams at Star City. Credits: UKSA-M. Alexander
One of the last hurdles before being allowed to go into space is the Soyuz exams held in Star City, Russia. First is a general examination on the Russian part of the International Space Station. Next comes six hours of simulated spaceflight in a cramped Soyuz spacecraft while the examinators test the astronauts by programming as many malfunctions into the simulated mission as possible. ESA astronaut Tim Peake, NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and commander-cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko went through them all today and passed their exams.
Tim Peake recounts via email:
We’ve just finished the final exam today (we passed!). Six hours covering Soyuz launch, rendezvous, docking, undocking and descent with multiple emergencies. The main events were a rapidly depressurising capsule prior to undocking and an engine malfunction during the reentry burn, along with several other minor failures.
Busy day but as always a great experience and you never stop learning! It reminded me of Winston Churchill’s quote: Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
In ten days Tim will fly to Baikonur and three weeks to launch on 15 December…
Discussion: one comment
I’m sure from your description that this was a tough few hours but one of my daughters has the first stages of her secondary examinations in a week’s time. 7 exams in just over a week. I know which exam I’d prefer to be doing!
Good luck with your flight, something I didn’t expect to see on my lifetime, an astronaut from my own country. (I mean a fully fledged one, Helen Sherman’s mission was more of a PR exercise for the Russian government.)
Hope lots more get to go one day. If Skylon ever gets off the ground, maybe they will.