Watch Soyuz TMA-07M land tonight! You can watch here. Here’s the schedule:

• Undocking from ISS: 7:08 pm ET (4:08 pm PT)
• Deorbit burn: 9:37 pm ET (6:37 pm PT)
• Landing near Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan: 10:31 pm ET (7:31 pm PT)

I’m sorry I haven’t been around lately, but I should be back to regular posting soon. And I’m working tonight, so I won’t be able to liveblog this landing.

colchrishadfield:

Tom, Roman and I in the mouth of the Dragon spaceship. These are two superb men to be off the Earth with.

Roman Romanenko and his cool purple shirt on the ISS. In the first photo he’s working with the Electronic Nose hardware in the Zvezda service module, which is used to measure contamination in the event of a chemical leak or spill. And in the second, he’s working with a big mess of cables, otherwise known as the communications systems in the Zvezda service module.

(Source: 1 & 2)

colchrishadfield:

Successful Docking! Oleg and Roman celebrate the arrival of Progress 50 spaceship.

The cosmonauts of ISS expedition 34, currently in space, working hard:

• Oleg Novitsky (top) maintaining the Treadmill Vibration Isolation System (TVIS). 
• Yevgeny Tarelkin (left) wearing a vest for the Typologia experiment, which studies the crews’ psychophysical state and ability to perform and communicate under stress. 
• Roman Romanenko (right) works with the Coulomb Crystal experiment, which gathers data about charged particles in a weightless environment.

(Source: 1, 2 & 3)

The cool crew of ISS expedition 34: Thomas Marshburn, Chris Hadfield, Oleg Novitsky, Yevgeny Tarelkin, Kevin Ford and Roman Romanenko.

(Source)

colchrishadfield:

A pre-launch photo of the crew. Morale is important - laughing together is essential to real success.

Wishing you a happy new year (in Russian) from the ISS are cosmonauts Roman Romanenko, Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin. Also appearing are the Soyuz zero gravity indicators. Oleg mentions that 2013 will be the 50th anniversary of Vostok 5, for which Valery Bykovsky still holds the record for the longest solo spaceflight, and Vostok 6, in which Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space.

(Source: youtube.com)

The launch of Soyuz TMA-07M. The crew wore thermal suits over the sokol suits to protect themselves from the cold. Yuri Romanenko was there to watch his son Roman launch.

(Source)

camillasdo:

aboard the Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft and dock to the station two days later to round out the six-person Expedition 34 crew. Col. Chris Hadfield will become the first Canadian to command the station when Ford, Novitskiy and Tarelkin complete their mission.

This is mall clown doll will hang in their Soyuz by a string. When it starts floating weightless, the crew will be safely in orbit. It was chosen by Roman’s 9-yr-old daughter Anastasia, for a character named Klyopa on a Russian TV show called ABCD-E. Old school Zero-G indicator. I love it! #NASA #Roscosmos #CSA #ISS #Soyuz #Mascot #Space

It was press day yesterday for the crew of Soyuz TMA-07M. The media is invited into quarantine and films them exercising, relaxing and getting ready for the flight.

(Source)

The crew of Soyuz TMA-07M arrived at Baikonur yesterday. Today they checked out their Soyuz and Sokol suits.

(Source: 1 & 2)

The Soyuz TMA-07M crew participated in some pre-launch traditions yesterday. They signed the guest book in Yuri Gagarin’s office, then visited Moscow’s Red Square. They laid flowers for Yuri Gagarin and Sergei Korolyov interred in the Kremlin wall and toured around the Kremlin.

(Source)

The next Soyuz crew (Roman Romanenko, Chris Hadfield and Thomas Marshburn) had their final exams at Star City. Yesterday they were in the Russian ISS segment simulator and today they were in the Soyuz simulator. They went through regular operations as well as anomalies, such as the ISS depressurizing or failure of Kurs, the Russian telemetry system that guides the Soyuz to dock. Soyuz TMA-07M is scheduled to launch on Dec. 19.

Some interesting facts: everyone on the crew can play the guitar. Romanenko is the third second-generation spacefarer. His father Yuri Romanenko is also musical, he wrote music while on Mir in 1987.

(Sources: 1 & 2)

Roman Romanenko celebrates his birthday today. He is the third second-generation space-farer, his father is cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko. Roman will visit the station this December again aboard Soyuz TMA-07M. 

(Source)