Russia's astronaut manually docked the Soyuz TMA-5
Salizhan Sharipov, Russia's astronaut, manually docked the Soyuz TMA-5, during 30 minutes, to the docking port of the Zarya module at 12.53 Moscow time.
The docking was performed impeccably and won the applause of the mission control experts and journalists.
The Soyuz TMA-5 aircraft was "re-parked" on Monday to free Russia's Pirs module for the current crew to be able to get into space.
"Russia's docking module Pirs had to be freed, as astronauts use it for working in outer space and returning to the station. When Soyuz was there, it could have caused discomfort for the crew in case of emergency, for example, decompression, and therefore, it is always better to return onboard the station straightaway, and not through Soyuz," Viktor Blagov, deputy head of the ISS flight, said earlier.
At 12.29 Moscow time, Soyuz TMA-5 with Russian Salizhan Sharipov and American Leroy Chiao onboard was undocked from the Pirs module and in about half an hour, it was docked to the docking port of the Russian Zarya module by Sharipov. For this period, ISS was temporarily conserved and uninhabited.
|
|