Russian-American crew taking short cut to space station

By Steve Gutterman and Irene Klotz

MOSCOW/CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Thu Mar 28, 2013 5:57pm EDT

MOSCOW/CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A spacecraft carrying two Russians and a U.S. astronaut lifted off early on Friday for what was scheduled to be the quickest trip ever from Earth to the International Space Station (ISS).

With NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin aboard, the Soyuz TMA-08M blasted off at 2:43 a.m. local time from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

"We feel great," Vinogradov reported to mission control outside Moscow after the launch, in footage broadcast on Russian television and NASA TV. A good luck charm - a toy bear he took on a 2006 voyage - hung from a string above the crew.

The capsule was due to dock at the ISS, a $100 billion research outpost that orbits about 250 miles above Earth, less than six hours after launch - a truncated trip that, if successful, should please the crew of the cramped capsule.

All previous ISS crews took at least two days to reach the station, orbiting Earth more than 30 times instead of the four orbits the TMA-08M was to make before the docking scheduled 2132 ET on Thursday.

The more direct flight requires burning large amounts of fuel in two bursts within 90 minutes after lift-off and some precision flying. Recent upgrades to command and control systems aboard Russia's workhorse Soyuz capsules have made quicker trips easier.

"From a technical point of view, we feel pretty comfortable with this. All of the procedures are very similar to what we do in a two-day process and we've trained it a number of times," Cassidy said at a pre-launch press conference shown on NASA TV.

The shorter trip was tested in three Russian cargo flights to the station before being approved for use on a crewed flight.

Igor Lisov, an expert at the Russian publican Novosti Kosmonavtiki, said the faster trip requires precision.

"Ballistics is a difficult thing. If for some reason you are not able to correct the orbit of the station or they have to avoid space debris ... that can disrupt this method," he said.

But he added that "arguments in favor are obvious: It is very uncomfortable to fly for two days in the Soyuz."

On the quicker trip, the disabling effects of adapting to microgravity, which include dizziness, nausea and vomiting, do not have time to take hold before the crew reaches the station, Vinogradov said at the press conference.

He said planning for faster flights to the station began about three years ago.

"At first everybody was really apprehensive about it, but later on our ballistic specialists calculated the possibility, looked at the rocket and verified the capabilities of the Soyuz vehicle, which now has a digital command and control system and an onboard computer that can do pretty much anything," he said.

Vinogradov, Misurkin and Cassidy are to join Canadian Chris Hadfield, American Tom Marshburn and Russian Roman Romanenko, which docked at the station in December.

(Additional reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Jason Webb)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/scienceNews/~3/TCRcjenu7Es/story01.htm

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