The number of team members increased again to 6, but not for long. Already next week, the three veterans staying on the station will return to Earth, instead of an overlap of three months, and this is due to the delay in the launch due to the failure of the Soyuz rocket carrying a cargo spacecraft in August
A view of the space station after the docking of the Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft on November 16 with cosmonauts Anton Shkapelrov and Anatoly Ivanishin, and astronaut Dan Burbank on board
The Soyuz spacecraft, carrying the first space station crew to take off after the end of the shuttle era, successfully docked at the International Space Station on the morning of November 16, thus avoiding the potential for the space station to be abandoned, even temporarily.
After 11 years of continuous manning, the continuation of the human stay at the space station was suspended after a Soyuz rocket failed to lift a cargo spacecraft to the station, grounding all Soyuz launches - manned and unmanned - until the root of the problem was found.
The very survival of the station depended on the successful launch of the two Russians Anton Shkapelrov and Anatoly Ivanishin, and the American astronaut Dan Burbank aboard the Soyuz TMA-22 cabin, something that seemed dangerous in light of the snowstorm that caused almost zero visibility in the launch center.
The three docked at the space station's Foisk component at just the right time - before the station's last three crew members who were still on board were forced to leave within five days, leaving the station unmanned.
Fortunately, the launch and automatic rendezvous with the Halhal station at an altitude of 400 kilometers above the Pacific Ocean went without incident, as the Russian space agency announced. The operation was also broadcast live on NASA television.
The station now has a full crew of six astronauts after the Soyuz TMA-22 launch was delayed from September 22 to early December due to the mishap that caused the loss of the Progress cargo spacecraft in August.
The new trio joined the members of the 29th crew that, as mentioned, mans the station: Commander Mike Possum, and flight engineers Satoshi Furukawa from Japan and Sergey Volkov from Russia, but these three will leave as early as November 21, and the crew will once again be reduced to three people. "The crew members will be very busy during the overlap period," says William Gerstenmeier, NASA's assistant administrator for manned flights, who was present in Moscow. "I want to thank my Russian colleagues for the excellent work, it's good to have six people at the station again" Gerstenmeier said.
The newly arrived crew is expected to stay at the station for about five months.
