International Space Station Communications ISSCOM.064

S-TMA15: 2nd flightday, 28-5-2009.

Communications S-TMA15 with TsUP Moscow.

(Explanation: About QSB, this means reception interrupted. About “R”, this means I received this.)

Orbit 17: 1216-1217UTC. Just one call of Parus-1 (Romanenko) Very short: Elevation 0 degrees.

Orbit Orbit 18: 1337-1343UTC. Rom. about the CO2 situation. They will not chan change this for the time being. Go ahead with your information. About some some what pumping away (unclear). Yes, OK 2243? Entering into the shadow? That This is what I am waiting for. So that is 2258. About 24st form. TsUP (unclear). Rom: next OK 133 OK 024320 OK Yes (several times OK) 0624 OK 5444 and 1 and 127 degrees 0640 QSB 135 29th 08 QSB 29st repeat (OK several times, TsUP unclear). 115.2. 115 110833 433.

Orbit 19: 1511-1517UTC. Elevation 51 degrees.

Rom: Everything is perfect. All systems work normally.

Rom: 5 and 9. What do you say? This was arbitrary. The change was on 2 and on 3. Or after that? Via the norm (?) QSB KR.. minimum. When we switched on BR-1 on impulse 1 and 2. What do we have to check? Repeat please.

Frank de Winne: Here Parus-2. No reception. Rom: We do not hear you, so we wait.

Rom: Now reception is OK. Speak up please. We will execute that.

Rom: How do you read us? Rom: 30st 1st connection. 28/29th is stand-by and until the 28th nothing special. 907 R R 1944 next… QSB. Yes, we thought about that. We pulled on this and the best thing to do was to change this. Yes, not needed. We will report during the next comm session. OK we now start working. We already took this into account. Everything is in good order. For me it remains the same, on Earth as well as in space. Frank de Winne: Always joy.

Rom: We have not much space (room). This will be different on board of the ISS.

Approach and docking on 29-05-2009.

The docking (soft mate) of S-TMA15 took place after the first passes of the S-TMA15 and the ISS within my range. During the first pass I directly monitored the traffic from the S-TMA15. The last part of the approach I fully followed via NASA-TV.

Orbit 33 S-TMA15 and orbit ISS 60300: 1207-1214UTC. Simultanuous traffic via NASA-TV (with images and translation in English) and from S-TMA15 via VHF-2. (121.750 m) (in Russian without translation). Rom: Reports the details about the approach. At 1212UTC Frank de Winne reports that they see the ISS.

The approach took place in the automatic mode with the system Kurs. The ship docked at the Zarya module at 12.34.29UTC.

During the whole Soyuz flight Romanenko made the impression to be a stable cosmonaut and in that respect he proved to be a good son of the famous Yuriy Romanenko. Frank de Winne showed himself a skilled cosmonaut, his Russian is good and he actively participated in the flight.

Report ISSCOM.065 deals with in Kijkduin received radio communications during the EVA of Padalka and Barratt with TsUP Msk on 5 June 2009.

Chris v.d. Berg, NL-9165.