The emergency landing created an unsettling question: What if the trio comes home before another crew goes up? Hague and Ovchinin were supposed to be on board to see them off. They’re scheduled to leave in mid-December, when the Soyuz capsule responsible for transporting them reaches its time limit for remaining in space. Three remained, however, on the ISS: Serena Auñón-Chancellor of the United States, Sergey Prokopyev of Russia, and Alexander Gerst of Germany. None of the world’s space travelers-from the United States, Russia, or elsewhere-would fly until the Soyuz system was deemed safe, officials said. Rescue teams scooped up the crew members, and Russia, which operates the launch system, opened an investigation into the incident, the first launch failure of a crewed Soyuz mission in 35 years. Read: A harrowing failed launch in Kazakhstan The crew capsule was shoved away from the rocket and parachuted safely to the ground. Minutes into their flight, the launch vehicle’s computers detected a malfunction in the rocket and automatically triggered abort procedures. On October 11, the American astronaut Nick Hague and the Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin wriggled into a small capsule atop a rocket and blasted off into the sky. The trouble began back on Earth, at a launch facility in Kazakhstan for ferrying people to and from the ISS. This fall, that guarantee seemed to be in jeopardy.
#Who are currently operating the international space station windows
When one crew departed, another remained inside, waving through the thick glass windows as it watched the capsule descend to Earth. One thing hasn’t changed in the past 18 years: There have always been people on board. So did science experiments spanning a myriad of fields, prepared by researchers eager to learn how stuff works in zero gravity. New pressurized modules and other hardware arrived, growing the station in size and scope. Over the years, crews came and went, sourced first from the United States and Russia, and then from Japan, Germany, Italy, France, Canada, and other countries. For the next four months, the ISS was their home. They installed life-support systems to maintain breathable air. They hooked up cables and computers for easy communication with the ground. A hatch leading to their new living quarters swung open, and the crew members floated in and got to work. In November 2000, some 250 miles above Earth, a capsule carrying one American and two Russians docked to the International Space Station (ISS).
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