ISS: Expedition 24

Crew & expedition duration

Soyuz TMA-19 crew

Complet exp24 crew

Backup Crew

Backup crew 1

Backup crew 2

Mission details

• Aleksandr Skvortsov, Mikhail Kornienko and Tracy Caldwell Dyson officially began Expedition 24 upon TMA-17's undocking.
• Soyuz TMA-19 was launched into orbit on Jun 15, 2010 with Fyodor Yurchikhin, Doug Wheelock and Shannon Walker; it docked with Zvezda at 2221 UTC on Jun 17.
• The Expedition 24 crew are commander Aleksandr Skvortsov and flight engineers FE-2 Tracy Caldwell-Dyson, FE-3 Mikhail Kornienko, FE-4 Doug Wheelock, FE-5 Fyodor Yurchikin, and FE-6 Shannon Walker.
  The Soyuz TMA-18, Soyuz TMA-19, Progress M-05M, and Progress M-06M ships are docked to the ISS. Thermal control system Loop A, one of the two independent cooling systems on the Station, is currently shut down following failure of its ammonia pumping system.
• On Jul 27, 2010 FE-3 Kornienko and FE-5 Yurchikin carried out ISS spacewalk VKD-25 (Russian spacewalk 25) from the Pirs module. The airlock was depressurized at around 0359 UTC, and the hatch opened at 0411. The astronauts went to the aft end of Zvezda and replaced the old Klest-154 video camera with a new one. The camera is used to image the European ATV cargo ships during their approach to docking with Zvezda. They then connected up cables between the new Rassvet module and the rest of the station, and finally at 1040 UTC Yurchikin, standing near the Pirs airlock, jettisoned the old Klest-154 into space. He and Kornienko then went back inside, closing the hatch at 1054 UTC and repressurizing Pirs at 1058 UTC, for a duration of 6h43m hatch open/close, and 6h59m depress/repress.
• The Klest-154 is about 0.3m in size. Three objects were cataloged in orbit after the EVA; two of them were probably the camera, and a cable bundle handle that floated free at 0545 UTC.
• On Jul 31, 2010 a pump module on the S1 truss failed, forcing some of the Station's equipment to be shut down. The module is a key component in the Station's cooling system loop A and was launched integrated with S1 in Oct 2002 on mission STS-112. A similar module on the P1 truss, launched Nov 2002 on STS-113, is still operating as part of the backup cooling loop B. There are four spares on the Station: the third pump module was launched on mission STS-121 in Jul 2006 and installed on the ESP-2 spares platform during a spacewalk on 2006 Jul 10. On mission STS-127 a fourth module was carried up, and installed on the ESP-3 spares platform on 2009 Jul 20. Two further modules are on the ELC-1 and ELC-2 logistics carriers on P3 and S3, launched in 2009 on STS-129. The pressurized modules where the astronauts live are cooled by a water-based system which is still working, but the ammonia cooling loops keep the equipment on the station's truss cool, particularly the electrical power generation equipment used to run all the experiments; so, even if the second loop also failed, the habitable modules wouldn't directly overheat, but the station would lose power, so NASA considers it urgent to repair the system.
• On Aug 7 Wheelock and Caldwell-Dyson made a spacewalk from the Quest airlock in suits EMU 3005 and 3009 respectively. The airlock was depressurized (0.7 psi at 1114 UTC) and at 1117 UTC the hatch was opened. The intention was to replace the S1 pump module with the spare PM on ESP-2. In the event, problems removing the inaptly named 'quick disconnects' on the ammonia plumbing delayed the operation, which will be continued in subsequent spacewalks. Leaking ammonia flakes from the fluid lines sprayed near the astronauts, but their suits were not seriously contaminated. The astronauts returned to the airlock and closed the hatch at about 1911 UTC with repressurization at 1922 UTC, after checking for ammonia contamination. The official NASA spacewalk time was 8hr 3 min; actual time below 0.7psi was about 8hr 8min, of which only 7hr 11min was spent outside the airlock. A second repair spacewalk is expected on Aug 11.
• On Aug 11, 2010 Wheelock and Caldwell-Dyson made a second spacewalk from the Quest airlock to change out the S1 pump module. The old pump was removed from the truss and carried to a storage point, the POA (Payload and ORU Accommodation) unit on the Mobile Base System. The astronauts also prepared the new pump module on the ESP-2 platform. The airlock was depressurized at 1221 UTC with hatch open from 1226 to 1936 UTC, and repress at 1954 UTC.
• A third spacewalk on Aug 17 completed the work, with pump module S/N 004 moved from ESP-2 and installed in the S1 truss. The Quest hatch was opened at 1019 UTC and closed at 1737 UTC, with repressurization at 1740 UTC.
  The failed pump module, S/N 002, is still stashed on the MBS POA and will remain there for the time being.
• The Expedition 24 crew Skvortsov, Kornienko and Caldwell-Dyson transferred to Soyuz TMA-18 on Sep 24 and prepared to undock from the Poisk module, but the latches failed to work correctly and the landing was cancelled; the crew returned to the Station while troubleshooting continued. Undocking the next day was successful at 0203 UTC Sep 25; the deorbit burn at 0431 UTC put TMA-18 on a trajectory to intersect the Earth's atmosphere. The spaceship landed in Kazakhstan at 0523 UTC.

External links:

• Wikipedia: Exp. descriptions
• Spacefacts: Exp. description