A successful space ship launch has always been a big
event. When a 100-meters tall and slender rocket soars into the open sky, it is
a big win of all who was involved in this project: designers, engineers, training
staff, medics… Now the rocket launch is no more classified: it is open to public
and can officially be watched in Baikonur spaceport. Tourists with their tears
on a face, see off the rocket, flying away.
Two days ago we found out that everything is safe and
sound and the ship with astronauts and cosmonauts onboard docked to the ISS
station. Now this is a victory, you may say! Yet, it is not. An ISS expedition
considers successful only when the ship safely landed and crew comes back safe
and sound.
The landing of a space ship is a very crucial and
careful thing. Preparations begin 40 days before the landing date. The Space Mission
Control center along with ground services calculate trajectories of all
possible ways of landing – 13 in total, and all of them are located in prairies
of Kazakhstan Republic – a former part of the Soviet Union. One day before the
landing date trajectories are to be corrected according to the current ISS and
Earth location. The crew locks the hatches and get ready for a descend.
During our Space ship landing tour you will witness how
the ground services, NASA and ROSCOSMOS employees deploy search and rescue
mission, how ground services draw a weakened ISS crew, and will see cosmonauts
just like that – sitting in front of you! Our tour is a unique and
unforgettable adventure and one of the popular ways of a space tourism.
The tour will take place right among the borderless
steppes of Kazakhstan. When the space ship enters the lower layers of the
Stratosphere (6-7 kilometers) the crew contacts the rescue services. They, on a
basic of an updated information from the cosmonauts and make final adjustments
to the landing trajectory. On a height of several kilometers the tourists will
be able to see a canopy, colored in red and white stripes.
Right after the landing rescue teams head right to the
landing site while helicopters scout ahead. The rescue team on a “Blue Bird”
ATV’s surround the landed ship and help cosmonaut to come out of it. They all
look tired and exhausted, but very very happy. They all so missed simple joys: the sun, wind and skies, as well as gravity force and fresh fruits! Not so long
ago, on June 3rd Anton Shkaplerov, a Russian cosmonaut, upon landing
was so happy when someone bring him a full plate of sweet cherry!
When the rescue team is sure, that everything is okay,
they take the crew and fly to the Jezkazgan town. After some time they moved to
the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center – there they can rest and undergo a
recovery course.
To attend
the ISS crew landing – means to experience unforgettable emotions of delight
and rapture, because to watch the translation of the rescue operation is one
thing, while to be in a very center of events – is completely different thing!
