ISS: Expedition 33

Crew & expedition duration:

Exp 33 crew path

Complet crew

Backup Crew

Mission details

• On Sep 16, 2012 at 2309 UTC Soyuz TMA-04M undocked from Poisk carrying Expedition 32 crew Gennadiy Padalka, Sergey Revin and Joe Acaba, marking the beginning of ISS Expedition 33 under the command of NASA's Capt. Sunita Lyn Williams, USN, with crewmembers Flight Engineer-4 Yuriy Malenchenko (Roskosmos) and Flight Engineer-6 Akihiko Hoshide (JAXA).
• The European cargo ship ATV-3 'Edoardo Amaldi' undocked at 2144 UTC on Sep 28, 2012 and was deorbited over the Pacific at 2342 UTC on Oct 2.
• On Oct 4, 2012 the two J-SSOD cubesat deployers were moved outside the Kibo equipment airlock by the JEM-RMS robot arm. The first J-SSOD ejected its payloads at 1437 UTC - the RAIKO and We Wish cubesats. The second J-SSOD deployed F-1, Niwaka, and TechEdSat at 1544 UTC.
• SpaceX's Dragon CRS-1 cargo ship reached the ISS on Oct 10, 2012 and FE Akihiko Hashide captured the craft by the SSRMS arm at 1056 UTC. He was assisted by Sunita Williams. Berthing at the Harmony module was completed at 1303 UTC.
  
  

  Dragone capture

  Williams at work

  
  
  
• The ISS orbit was raised slightly on Oct 17, 2012 using the Zvezda module engines.
• Soyuz TMA-06M docked with the Poisk module at 1229 UTC on Oct 25, 2012 with Oleg Novitskiy, Yevgeniy Tarelkin and Kevin Ford.
• Dragon CRS-1 returned to Earth on Oct 28. The SSRMS unberthed it from the Harmony module at 1119 UTC and released it at 1329 UTC. At 1422 UTC Dragon made a burn to lower its orbit and at 1828 UTC made a larger, 10 minute 40 second long deorbit burn. SpaceX have not reported the size (delta-V) or orbital parameters of either of these burns. The Dragon trunk was jettisoned at 1841 UTC and the capsule reached entry interface at 1902 UTC, with splashdown in the Pacific at around 123W 28N at 1922 UTC.
• The Progress M-17M cargo ship was launched on Oct 31, 2012 and docked with the Zvezda module after a 5 hour 52 min flight.
• On Nov 1 astronauts Williams and Hoshide began spacewalk US EVA-20 with depressurization at 1223 UTC and hatch open at 1228 UTC. They rerouted the ammonia cooling system on the P6 truss to allow controllers to investigate a leak in the system. One of the P6 radiators that was stowed before P6 relocation back in 2007 was redeployed to replace the isolated radiator. The airlock hatch was closed at 1903 UTC and the airlock was repressurized at 1907 UTC. (6h 38m)
  
  

  Traditional in-flight photo ISS-33

  EVA Williams

  
  
  

  On Oct. 26, 2012, NASA astronaut Kevin Ford, smiles for a photo while holding a still camera in the Destiny laboratory of the ISS.

  
  
  
• Expedition 33 crewmembers Suni Williams, Yuriy Malenchenko and Aki Hoshide undocked from the Rassvet module aboard Soyuz TMA-05M at 2226 UTC Nov 18, 2012 and fired the deorbit engines at 0059 UTC Nov 19. After a successful reentry they landed in Kazakhstan at 0153:30 UTC.

External links:

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

Astrophilately covers:

Undocking ISS and landing cancel Moscou, ISS board cancel, signed by the TMA-05M crew