Soyuz TMA-11

Sheikh Muszaphar flew as a guest of the Russian government.^[6] Under this program, in exchange for the multi-billion purchase of fighter jets by Malaysia, the Russian Federation bore the cost of training two Malaysians for space travel and for sending one to the ISS.

Sheikh Muszaphar's role aboard the Soyuz is referred to as a Spaceflight Participant in English-language Russian Federal Space Agency and NASA documents and press briefings.^[5]^[7]^[8]^[9] This caused some confusion among the public, since the term Spaceflight Participant is also used for space tourists. Speaking to Malaysian media outlets, Alexander Karchava, the Russian ambassador to Malaysia, stated that Sheikh Muszaphar is a "fully-fledged cosmonaut".^[10] In an interview with the Malaysian Star newspaper, Robert Gibson, a retired NASA astronaut, shared his opinion that Sheikh Muszaphar is fully qualified as an astronaut, and as such, he should be called one. Gibson also said he regarded Sheikh Muszaphar as a peer.^[11]

Mission highlights

The launch, which took place at at 13:22 UTC (05:22 p.m. Moscow time) on October 10, 2007, "Went off successfully and without a hitch" according to a Russian official.^[12] In Malaysia, crowds in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur cheered as they watched the live launch broadcast on television sets in Dataran Merdeka (Independence Square). The giant screen originally set up for this purpose failed to function properly.^[13]

The Soyuz TMA-11 docking to the ISS occurred at 14:50 UTC on October 12, 2007.^[14]

Ballistic reentry

The return flight of Soyuz TMA-11 was the first time two women flew together on board a Soyuz and it was the first time women outnumbered men aboard a spacecraft since Valentina Tereshkova's solo flight in 1963.

The spacecraft landed in Kazakhstan on 19 April 2008. Similar to Soyuz TMA-1 / Expedition 6 and Soyuz TMA-10 / Expedition 15, the Soyuz performed a ballistic reentry, a reentry steeper than a normal aerodynamic reentry, due to a malfunction and landed 475 km from intended landing point. This is the second such event in a row for Soyuz TMA. Although the crew were recovered with no injuries, the spacecraft's hatch and antenna suffered burn damage during the unusual reentry. Several days after landing, international media widely reported that the Korean Spaceflight Participiant was hospitalized due to severe back pain belived to be the result of the severe stress encountered during reentry. ^[15]The Russian news agency Interfax reported the ship may have entered the atmosphere hatch first.^[16]

Anatoly Perminov, the head of the Russian Federal Space Agency, speculated that the ballistic reentry was connected to a Russian nautical superstition that having more women than men on a craft was unlucky. "This isn't discrimination," he stated when challenged on the point. "I'm just saying that when a majority [of the crew] is female, sometimes certain kinds of unsanctioned behaviour or something else occurs." Perminov said he would try to ensure that the number of women would not exceed the number of men in the future.^[17]

It has been reported that the unusual re-entry may have been caused by the failure of the service module to fully separate from the descent module.^[18] A similar anomaly occurred during the re-entry of Soyuz 5 in 1969. Later investigation confirmed that the reason for unusual re-entry was failure for the service module to separate normally which was a result of pyro-bolt malfunction.^[19]

Contents

Crew

Launched and landed ISS Expedition 16 crew members

Launched

Landed

Back-up crew

Crew notes

Mission highlights

Ballistic reentry

See also

References

External links