Cosmonaut Shares New Perspective Of International Space Station

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A view of the International Space Station captured Sept. 28 by a cosmonaut on the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft. Credit: Roscosmos

Photos taken by a Russian cosmonaut Tuesday from a Soyuz spacecraft show new exterior views of the International Space Station, with two SpaceX Dragon spaceships, a Northrop Grumman Cygnus supply craft, and the lab’s new roll-out solar arrays visible.

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, commander of the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft, tweeted the photos this week. Novitskiy, cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov, and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei boarded the Russian spaceship, undocked from the station, and relocated the Soyuz to a new docking port Tuesday.

Novitskiy manually piloted the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft during the 43-minute relocation maneuver. He flew the spacecraft in an arc along the length of the space station, allowing Dubrov to float into the Soyuz orbital module to snap pictures of the complex.

“All according to plan!” Novitskiy tweeted after the relocation. “We managed to take unique images of the ISS in the new configuration.”

The space station turned to a special orientation, or attitude, for the Soyuz relocation Tuesday. In these photos, the forward end of the outpost is facing up, away from Earth.

A SpaceX Cargo Dragon capsule is seen docked to the forward port of the Harmony module. The Cargo Dragon undocked from the station Thursday and returned to Earth with 2.3 tons of equipment and experiment specimens.

A Crew Dragon spacecraft is also docked to the Harmony module, but is not clearly visible in these photos.

The circular, fan-shaped solar arrays of Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus supply ship are also visible, along with the newly-arrived Russian Nauka lab module, near the bottom of the station in these images.

Two new roll-out solar array wings are also pictured on the right side of the space station’s truss backbone. The roll-out arrays were installed in June during spacewalks after delivery to the space station by a previous SpaceX cargo mission.

The new solar wings, produced by Redwire, are designed to augment the space station’s electrical generation capability. Two more pairs of solar arrays will be installed on the space station in the next couple of years.

The roll-out arrays unspool like a floor mat, rather than unfolding like an accordion. The arrays are canted at an angle from the space station’s original solar panels.

The Soyuz relocation cleared a path for the docking of a new Soyuz spacecraft at the Russian Rassvet module Oct. 5, three hours after launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Comandantul Anton Shkaplerov, un cosmonaut veteran, va conduce echipajul Soyuz MS-19 pentru zborul către stația spațială. Klim Shipenko și Yulia Peresild, regizor și actriță rusă, se vor alătura lui Shkaplerov.

Shipenko și Peresild vor petrece 11 zile pe stația spațială pentru a filma un lungmetraj rusesc intitulat „Provocarea”. Echipa de filmare de două persoane va părăsi stația și va reveni pe Pământ pe 16 octombrie la bordul navei spațiale Soyuz MS-18 cu Novitskiy.

Shkaplerov va rămâne în stație mai mult de cinci luni. Dubrov și Vande Hei, care s-au lansat în aprilie, vor rămâne și ei în urmă la stația spațială. Şederea lor în spaţiu a fost prelungită pentru a face loc misiunii de scurtă durată a lui Shipenko şi Peresild.

Dubrov și Vande Hei vor rămâne acum în spațiu aproape un an înainte de a se întoarce pe Pământ cu Shkaplerov în martie pe Soyuz MS-19.

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