Agat and the Business End

Posted on Jul 13, 2012 05:13:45 PM | Suni Williams | 0 Comments |

July 12, 2012

We got to go into the Soyuz spacecraft one last time to check it out, to see where our stuff is stowed, and to make sure everything is where we want it. “Agat” is beautiful! I refer to her as Agat since that is Yuri Malenchenko's call sign.

If you watch the launch on NASA TV you will most likely hear his call sign on the radio. Yuri is Agat 1, I am Agat 2 and Aki (Akihiko Hoshide) is Agat 3. Right now the capsule (and covering) is not mated to the booster and she is standing upright. They will turn her on her side to be moved and mated.

Soyuz TMA-05M - Photo credit: NASA/Victor Zelentsov

Soyuz TMA-05M - Photo credit: NASA/Victor Zelentsov

This is “our” booster – the business end! You can see it is on its side, and is ready for the capsule. The entire stack will stay on its side and be “rolled out” to the launch pad on Thursday!

Business end - Photo credit: NASA/Victor Zelentsov

Business end - Photo credit: NASA/Victor Zelentsov

Tags : Astronaut

Post a new comment (comments are moderated for this post)

Comment notes

Keep comments relevant. Inappropriate or offensive comments may be edited and/or deleted. Avoid adding Web site URLs.

Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br/>. Quotes, apostrophes, and double-dashes are automatically converted to smart punctuation. Be careful when copying and pasting portions of entries or other comments.