Soyuz Spacecraft Carrying Olympic Torch, Crew of 3 Returns to Earth

[Buster's Uncle]

Soyuz Spacecraft Carrying Olympic Torch, Crew of 3 Returns to Earth
SPACE.com
By Tariq Malik, Managing Editor  13 hours ago



Spacewalker Oleg Kotov is seen with the Olympic torch outside the International Space Station, Nov. 9, 2013.



A Russian Soyuz space capsule landed safely on the steppes of Kazakhstan Sunday (Nov. 10), returning cosmonauts and two astronauts to Earth along with a one other precious item: the Olympic torch.

The Soyuz spacecraft landed at 9:49 p.m. EST (0249 Nov. 11 GMT) in central Kazakhstan, where the local time was Monday morning. Frigid temperatures greeted the returning space travelers — cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg and Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano — after five and a half months in space.

"The initial reports indicate a bull's eye landing for the Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft and its crew," NASA spokesman Rob Navias said during the agency's televised landing commentary.

Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano launched to the International Space Station in late May and formed part of the outpost's six-person Expedition 37 crew, which Yurchikhin commanded. Before departing the station Sunday, Yurchikhin handed command of the station over to fellow cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, who now leads the station's Expedition 38 crew.

"Bye, station," Yurchikhin said as the Soyuz undocked earlier Sunday.

"Bye, bye," Nyberg added.



Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin holds the Olympic torch for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia


"See you, soon," Parmitano chimed in.

The Olympic torch returning to Earth on the Soyuz first arrived at the space station on Thursday (Nov. 7) along with replacement crewmembers for the returning Expedition 37 crew. In an first, the Olympic torch was taken on a spacewalk by two cosmonauts on Saturday (Nov. 9) during a cosmic relay and photo op.

Yurchikhin said he and his crew plan to present the torch to the Olympic Committee after landing.

The new arrivals — cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata — temporarily boosted the station's crew up to nine people. It was the first time since October 2009 that many people have been aboard without a visiting NASA space shuttle.

"These guys are like a group of brothers for me," Nyberg said in a Friday news conference when asked how she felt as the only woman on the crew. "These guys are all great, so it's been fantastic."

With the return of Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano, the space station's Expedition 38 mission is now in full swing, In addition to Kotov (the commander), Tyurin, Mastracchio and Wakata, the crew includes NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins and cosmonaut Sergey Ryazanskiy.

During their busy mission, the Expedition 37 crew welcomed a visiting cargo ship from Japan, as well as the first-ever robotic Cygnus spacecraft, a commercial cargo ship built by the U.S. company Orbital Sciences.

Nyberg embraced social media to share her space voyage with the public. In addition to posting her amazing photos of Earth from space on Twitter, she was the first astronaut to use Pintrest to share her photos and crafts in space.

Parmitano became Italy's first spacewalker during his two spacewalks, one of which was cut short by a scary water leak in his spacesuit helmet that NASA engineers are still investigating.

Still, Parmitano said he would not hesitate to venture outside the station on another spacewalk, if the opportunity arose, and will miss living in orbit.

"What I am going to miss above everything is the idea of being here, living weightless in this extraordinarily environment," Parmitano said Friday.


http://news.yahoo.com/soyuz-spacecraft-carrying-olympic-torch-crew-3-returns-032716206.html

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Is it too much to hope that this is it for this boring non-story, and we can get some REAL space news now?

[Buster's Uncle]

Olympic torch returns home from space station
By JIM HEINTZ (Associated Press) 7 hours ago AP - Sports


MOSCOW (AP) -- A Russian space capsule carrying the Sochi Olympic torch and three astronauts returned to Earth on Monday from the International Space Station in a flawless landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan.

The Soyuz capsule landed at 8:49 local time (0249 GMT), about three and a half hours after undocking from the station with Russian Fyodor Yurchikhin, American Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano of Italy aboard.

The unlit Olympic torch was brought to the ISS on Thursday when three new crew members arrived. Two Russian crew members took it on a spacewalk Saturday.

The capsule descended through brilliantly clear skies under a parachute.

Yurchikhin, the mission commander, was extracted from the capsule within about 10 minutes of touchdown and carried to a reclining chair, where he was put under a blanket against the minus-4 (25 F) chill and began adjusting to the pull of gravity after 166 days of weightlessness.

The torch, in a protective bag, was brought out and given to Yurchikhin to hold after it was unwrapped. He waved it a little and smiled.

Nyberg was quickly given dark glasses to protect her eyes against the intense sunlight. Parmitano, the last out, appeared thrilled, grinning broadly and pumping his fists.

All three were to be taken for tests at a medical tent at the landing site, then flown to the city of Karaganda for a welcome ceremony.

Six people remain aboard the space station: Russians Oleg Kotov, Sergei Ryazansky and Mikhail Tyurin; NASA's Michael Hopkins and Rick Mastracchio; and Koichi Wakata of Japan.


http://sports.yahoo.com/news/olympic-torch-returns-home-space-103015357--oly.html

[Buster's Uncle]

International space crew return Olympic torch to Earth
Reuters
By Shamil Zhumatov 5 hours ago






NEAR ZHEZKAZGAN, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - A Russian spacecraft brought three astronauts and the Olympic torch back to Earth on Monday after the torch was taken on its first spacewalk in the run-up to the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.

Russia's Fyodor Yurchikhin beamed as he held up the silver-and-grey torch alongside American Karen Nyberg and Italian Luca Parmitano on the Kazakh steppe after returning from the International Space Station after a 166-day mission.

Slowed by parachutes and braking rockets fired to soften the impact, their Soyuz TMA-09M capsule landed on schedule at 8:49 a.m. (0249 GMT) after a three-and-half-hour descent.

"The Olympic torch is home after a four-day journey," a NASA TV announcer said after the flawless descent through a cloudless sky and a "bulls-eye touchdown" in the tall tawny brush of central Kazakhstan, near the remote town of Zhezkazgan.

President Vladimir Putin, who has been in power since 2000, has staked his reputation on a successful Olympics. His image abroad has been damaged by what critics say is a clampdown on dissent, and a law banning homosexual "propaganda" among minors.



Russian astronaut Oleg Kotov holds an Olympic torch as he begins a spacewalk outside the International Space Station


The torch was unlit throughout the space voyage, for safety reasons. That also precluded the possibility that the flame could fail - a problem that has occurred dozens of times, including an incident captured live on national television in which the torch went out in the Kremlin minutes after Putin presided over the start of the relay.

Cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky took it with them on a spacewalk on Saturday, posing outside the orbiting station with the first Olympic torch taken into the vacuum of space.

After their return to Earth, Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano were pulled through the hatch of the cramped capsule, carried to chairs and covered with thick blankets against the minus 4 Centigrade (25 Fahrenheit) cold outside.

The torch was then handed to a Sochi 2014 official and flown by helicopter - separately from the three space travelers - to the provincial capital Karaganda.


RECORD-BREAKING RELAY



International Space Station (ISS) crew member Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin holds the torch


The torch taken on the spacewalk will be used to light the flame at the Olympics in February in Sochi, a Russian resort city on the Black Sea. The torch was taken into space in 1996 and 2000 but had not previously been outside the space station.

In Karaganda, Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano were given traditional Kazakh robes and chocolates with their pictures on the boxes. Nyberg felt unwell and skipped a news conference.

"Space is a serious thing," Yurchikhin said. "It affects different bodies and different people in different ways."

Russia cast the spacewalk as part of its pre-Sochi torch relay, a record-breaking trek meant to show off the country's size, diversity and post-Soviet achievements, but the 65,000 km (40,000 mile) relay continued separately on the ground.

Since Putin held a torch aloft in Red Square on October 6, bearers have taken the Olympic flame to the North Pole and will bring it to Europe's highest peak, Mount Elbrus, in the longest torch relay before any Winter Games.



International Space Station (ISS) crew member U.S. astronaut Karen Nyberg rests after landing


The torch was taken on Thursday to the space station, a $100 billion project of 15 nations, by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, American Rick Mastracchio and Russian Mikhail Tyurin.

Torches have been brought on space missions before the 1996 and 2000 Games, but had never been taken out into space.

The returning crew also brought back a piece of a spacesuit worn by Parmitano that may have been responsible for a leak that caused his helmet to fill with water, forcing an emergency end to NASA's last spacewalk on July 16.

The torch display was a success, but other tasks on the nearly six-hour spacewalk on Saturday did not go as well.

The cosmonauts were unable to fold up an antenna from an experiment involving predicting seismic events such as earthquakes, or to reposition a platform designed to anchor astronauts' legs when they work outside the station.



Luca Parmitano


http://sports.yahoo.com/news/international-space-crew-returns-olympic-torch-earth-031736454--sector.html

[ariete]

[ariete]

next italian on space in december 2014, she will be samantha 

[Buster's Uncle]

ISS crew returns to Earth with Olympic torch
8 hours ago Relaxnews



ISS crew returns to Earth with Olympic torch



Three astronauts returned to Earth on Monday after a 166-day mission, bringing the Olympic torch back from the International Space Station after a historic space walk.

The trip completed the most ambitious leg of Russia's unparallelled torch relay in the run-up to the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in February.

The Soyuz capsule carrying Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, US NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg and Italian colleague Luca Parmitano touched down on the frosty steppes of Kazakhstan at 0249 GMT.

The torch, kept unlit throughout its space journey due to safety precautions on the space station and lack of oxygen in open space, was securely wrapped during the descent, and an employee of Russia's space agency Roscosmos took it out of the packaging.

"Here's the torch!" he said, presenting it to the cameras before handing it to veteran space traveller and Soyuz captain Yurchikhin, who sat smiling wrapped up in a blue blanket near the Soyuz.

Yurchikhin took off his gloves and posed for pictures with the 1.8-kilogramme (four-pound) and nearly metre-long (three-foot-long) torch.

After a few minutes, Nyberg and Parmitano, who had completed his first space voyage, were also extricated from the craft, which had landed on its side -- something that frequently happens due to the drag of the parachute.

The trio sat briefly in the sunshine surrounded by support staff as well as the flags of Russia and the Sochi Olympic Games before being carried to a heated medical tent to change out of their launch suits and undergo initial medical tests.

The capsule completed a "flawless descent" and touched down exactly on time in a "bulls-eye landing," a NASA TV commentator said.

"The crew is feeling well," Roscosmos said in a statement.

Dominated by the Olympic theme, the returning 37th expedition nevertheless carried out the usual scientific research and was not without drama -- at one point Parmitano's helmet started accumulating water on a space walk, cutting off all visibility and forcing him to return inside quickly.

A team of three Russians, two Americans, and a Japanese astronaut remain aboard the ISS which, before Monday's return had been crammed with nine people, who hosted a rare conference from space last week.


Spectacular backdrop

Russia sent the torch on its four-day space mission on Thursday and even covered the rocket in Olympic insignia. The torch was "hung" in the Russian module after taking a tour of the space station.

Cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazansky on Saturday took it for a space walk and photo op, posing spectacularly against the backdrop of the ISS and the Earth and completing a torch handover that was viewed live worldwide and shown on screens in New York's Times Square.

The space-travelling torch will light the Olympic cauldron in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, marking the start of the Winter Games on February 7, authorities said.

The futuristic-looking torch has another connection to space -- it was produced at the KrasMash factory in Siberia that makes the heavy Proton rockets Russia uses to haul satellites to orbit.

Russia has put together an impressive Olympic relay, sending the torch through all of its regions and as far as the North Pole on a nuclear-powered icebreaker.

The relay, a no-expense-spared event that has seen many government officials, celebrities and Olympic champions participate, will also take the torch to the world's deepest freshwater lake Baikal and Europe's highest mountain peak Elbrus.

Following Sochi's winning bid, promoted by President Vladimir Putin, Russia will host its first Olympic event since the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow, which were boycotted by a number of Western nations over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

Although a space walk with a torch was unprecedented, other Olympic torches have travelled to space on US space shuttle voyages ahead of the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta and the 2000 Games in Sydney.


http://news.yahoo.com/iss-crew-returns-earth-olympic-torch-095253404.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Cosmonauts Wore Special Space Patch for Olympic Torch Spacewalk
SPACE.com
By Robert Z. Pearlman 2 hours ago



The Olympic torch is seen from the helmet camera of Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov in this view



The two cosmonauts who took an Olympic torch on a spacewalk outside of the International Space Station Saturday (Nov. 9) carried out the symbolic relay wearing a surprise space mission patch depicting the icon of the 2014 Winter Games.

Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy with Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos each donned Orlan spacesuits adorned with the previously unseen embroidered emblem, which, like the Olympic Games, came as the result of an international effort.

"The patch is done in bold colors and in a bit of a 'comic book' style," wrote Dutch artist Luc van den Abeelen, who designed the patch together with space patch enthusiast Jacques van Oene, in an e-mail to collectSPACE.com. "It shows a cosmonaut on a spacewalk in heavy perspective, with the Olympic torch prominently sticking out toward the viewer."

The orbital Olympic torch relay served as an extension of the traditional Olympic flame relay now a month underway in Russia. Kotov and Ryazanskiy took turns posing with the unlit torch, which was returned to Earth on Sunday night (Nov. 10) to be used during the opening ceremonies for the 22nd Winter Games on Feb. 7 in Sochi, Russia.

According to van den Abeelen, he designed the spacewalk patch to include a simplified depiction of the International Space Station and nine stars for the nine Expedition 37 crew members who were at the orbiting outpost at the time of the time of the extravehicular activity. Included in that count were the two spacewalkers, the three flight engineers who launched with the torch Wednesday (Nov. 6) and the three departing crewmates who landed with the torch on Sunday night.



Cosomonaut Oleg Kotov can be seen wearing artist Luc van den Abeelen's Olympic torch patch


"The stars are shaped like snow crystals — a reference to the Winter Olympics," van den Abeelen added.

As for the red and silver torch, the insignia represents the Olympic flame with a celestial object.

"The Sochi 2014 torch is topped by a flame shaped like a comet, for ISON (C/2012 S1)," van den Abeelen said. The sun-grazing comet was at one time predicted to be one of the brightest ever seen, "though it now seems this will not look as spectacular as depicted in the patch," he said.

As the torch is an official symbol of the Olympic Games, the patch needed the approval of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Organizing Committee before it could be cleared to fly.

"I also sketched a version [of the emblem] with a classic Greek torch, but in the end, Roscosmos got the okay from the Russian Olympic Committee for using the Sochi torch in the design," van den Abeelen wrote.

As it happened, another surprise patch featuring the torch was also launched to the station, though in a less official capacity.

Artist Blake Dumesnil collaborated with NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins and Rick Mastracchio to create a patch commemorating the brief period when the torch — and its nine supporting crew members — were at the orbiting lab. The "Expedition 37.5" emblem, which Dumesnil described as "official unofficial," was not worn during the outer space torch relay but was hung inside the space station, affixed above a hatchway.

"It's not an official [patch], but more an acknowledgement of a unique handover between crews," Dumesnil described on Facebook.

The Sochi 2014 torch was the third Olympic torch to fly in space. Space shuttle missions in 1996 and 2000 also took unlit torches to space, although they remained inside their spacecraft for the entire flight. The Sochi 2014 torch was the first to be taken outside on a spacewalk.


http://news.yahoo.com/cosmonauts-wore-special-space-patch-olympic-torch-spacewalk-153502781.html