NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara, alongside Russian counterparts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub docked with the International Space Station about 3 hours after launching aboard their MS-24 Soyuz spacecraft.
Credit: NASA
Credit: NASA
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TechTranscript
00:00 All of the rendezvous maneuvers and thruster firings from the Soyuz were executed in flawless
00:07 fashion and the Soyuz approached the neighborhood of the International Space Station about three
00:12 hours after launch.
00:13 In this view of the Soyuz from external cameras on the International Space Station, it was
00:19 a totally automated approach.
00:21 All of the Soyuz systems operated in excellent shape and the final phase of the rendezvous
00:27 following a fly around of the Soyuz was conducted with no issues whatsoever.
00:32 The final approach command was given and the Soyuz slowly but surely closed the gap between
00:38 itself and the station, finally docking to the Rassvet module at a speed of about one-tenth
00:45 of a meter per second, with the docking occurring over Ukraine, south of Kiev at 1:53 p.m. Central
00:53 Time, 2:53 p.m. Eastern Time.
00:58 This replay shows the final approach and the final few feet before docking with contact
01:06 and capture occurring as planned.
01:09 That was followed by the docking probe being retracted to pull the two docking surfaces
01:14 flush against one another, allowing hooks to close on both sides of the docking interface
01:19 to form a hard mate.
01:41 So again, the launch and docking went as smooth as can be expected, no issues whatsoever.
01:48 One of the smoothest crew launches for a Soyuz vehicle in recent memory, with no technical
01:55 issues having had to be worked by the Soyuz crew and no issues on final approach and docking
02:02 that culminated a three-hour, nine-minute trip for Kononenko, Chub and Laurel O'Hara.
02:11 The leak checks are continuing, the pressure checks at the docking interface as the crews
02:17 on both sides of the docking interface, Dmitry Patelin on the Rassvet side, the station side
02:23 of the docking interface, and Kononenko and Chub on the Soyuz side are in the process
02:29 of checking out their vehicle systems, making sure that we have the correct pressure equalization
02:36 to enable the hatch to open and allow the three new arrivals to board the International
02:42 Space Station.
02:43 There is a view of the newly arrived Soyuz vehicle docked to the Rassvet module with
02:49 the Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft on the right of your screen and on the left of
02:56 your screen is the NIOCA multipurpose laboratory module and just out of the field of view atop
03:03 the Prashal module, the node module docking port, is the Soyuz MS-23 vehicle that will
03:09 be the ride home in 12 days on September 27 for the station commander, Sergei Prokopyev,
03:17 Dmitry Patelin and NASA's Frank Rubio, who are wrapping up a 371-day mission aboard the
03:24 International Space Station, which for Rubio sets a record for the longest single space
03:30 flight by an American astronaut in history.