Soyuz TMA-16M

Soyuz TMA-16M was a 2015 flight to the International Space Station. It transported three members of the Expedition 43 crew to the Station. TMA-16M was the 125th flight of a Soyuz spacecraft, the first having launched in 1967.

Scott Kelly and Mikhail Korniyenko will perform the first one-year stay at the Space Station, returning in Soyuz TMA-18M.

Crew

Backup crew

Mission highlights

Launch, rendezvous and docking

Soyuz TMA-16M was launched successfully aboard a Soyuz-FG rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 19:42 UTC on Friday, 27 March 2015. The spacecraft reached low Earth orbit approximately nine minutes after lift-off. After executing rendezvous maneuvers, the Soyuz docked with the zenith port of the International Space Station's Poisk module approximately six hours after launch, at 01:33 UTC on 28 March. The docking occurred over Colombia.

Soyuz TMA-16M remained docked to the ISS—serving as an emergency escape vehicle–until September 12 2015, when it departed and returned Padalka, Andreas Mogensen and Aydyn Aimbetov to Earth. This vehicle was previously scheduled to carry Sarah Brightman as a space tourist, but Brightman's flight was announced to be cancelled in May 2015.

Space station

A space station, also known as an orbital station or an orbital space station, is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew, which is designed to remain in space (most commonly as an artificial satellite in low Earth orbit) for an extended period of time and for other spacecraft to dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by lack of major propulsion or landing systems. Instead, other vehicles transport people and cargo to and from the station. As of September 2014 two space stations are in orbit: the International Space Station, which is permanently manned, and China's Tiangong-1 (which successfully launched on September 29, 2011), which is unmanned most of the time. Previous stations include the Almaz and Salyut series, Skylab and most recently Mir.

Today's space stations are research platforms, used to study the effects of long-term space flight on the human body as well as to provide platforms for greater number and length of scientific studies than available on other space vehicles. Each crew member staying aboard the station for weeks or months, but rarely more than a year. Most of the time crew remain at station but its not necessary that crew should have to be stay at station. Since the ill-fated flight of Soyuz 11 to Salyut 1, all manned spaceflight duration records have been set aboard space stations. The duration record for a single spaceflight is 437.7 days, set by Valeriy Polyakov aboard Mir from 1994 to 1995. As of 2013, three astronauts have completed single missions of over a year, all aboard Mir.

Gennady Padalka

Gennady Ivanovich Padalka (Russian: Гeннадий Иванович Падалка; born June 21, 1958, in Krasnodar, Russia) is a Russian Air Force officer and an RKA cosmonaut. Padalka has spent 879 days in space, more than any other person. He worked on both Mir and the International Space Station.

Personal

Padalka is married to Irina Anatoliyevna Padalka (Ponomareva). They have three daughters: Yuliya, Yekaterina, and Sonya. He enjoys the theater, parachute sport and diving.

Education and training

Padalka graduated from Yeysk Military Aviation College in 1979. After graduation, he served as a pilot and later a senior pilot in the Russian Air Force, eventually attaining the rank of colonel. He has logged 1500 flight hours in six types of aircraft as a First Class Pilot in the Russian Air Force. In addition, he has performed more than 300 parachute jumps as an Instructor of General Parachute Training. Padalka also worked as an engineer-ecologist at the UNESCO International Center of Instruction Systems until 1994. He is an investigator for the Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity Project, a US Government funded study investigating strategies for applying diagnostic telemedicine to space.

International Space Station

The International Space Station (ISS) is a space station, or a habitable artificial satellite, in low Earth orbit. Its first component launched into orbit in 1998, and the ISS is now the largest artificial body in orbit and can often be seen with the naked eye from Earth. The ISS consists of pressurised modules, external trusses, solar arrays, and other components. ISS components have been launched by Russian Proton and Soyuz rockets as well as American Space Shuttles.

The ISS serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which crew members conduct experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology, and other fields. The station is suited for the testing of spacecraft systems and equipment required for missions to the Moon and Mars. The ISS maintains an orbit with an altitude of between 330 and 435 km (205 and 270 mi) by means of reboost manoeuvres using the engines of the Zvezda module or visiting spacecraft. It completes 15.54 orbits per day.

Scott Kelly

Scott Kelly may refer to

See also