Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Soyuz Breaks Speed Record To ISS

Posted by Unknown on from the battling-space-dragons dept.

Zothecula writes "A manned Soyuz spacecraft set a record for traveling to the International Space Station (ISS), arriving six hours after launch instead of the usual two days. Soyuz 34 lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Friday, March 28 at 4:43 p.m. EDT (08:43 GMT) and docked with the ISS at 10: 28 PM EDT (03:28 GMT). It was able to catch up and match trajectories with the ISS in only four orbits using new techniques previously tested in ISS rendezvouses with Russian unmanned Progress cargo ships."

58 comments

  1. Old story is old by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 0

    By David Szondy
    March 29, 2013

    Well at least you guys are as timely as ever...

    1. Re:Old story is old by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought I had read this already. This is the first real news all day and its from last week? I wish it was yet another 401 troll but i doubt it .

  2. 12 Parsecs!!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    That run beats the previous record by quite a bit!

    U-S-A! U-S-A!

  3. Optimization by infogulch · · Score: 1

    Number of orbits: the assembly instruction count of spacecraft docking optimization.

  4. Post breaks speed limit to Slashdot by LiavK · · Score: 2

    Using new techniques the time for news event to slashdot front page has been decreased to four days.

    1. Re:Post breaks speed limit to Slashdot by sl3xd · · Score: 1

      Oh relax... the Slashdot admins are probably too busy finding the next bitcoin story to publish. They haven't met their bitcoin story quota for the day, and the clock is ticking...

      --
      -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
  5. Gåød gæørz møåkig s& by viking80 · · Score: 1

    Fapur dsm sdfh osdf ods. Sfeif sadf ase wlkwe. Jzik fiik saddfp ased asdff.
    Guzik asda wep cml seoø dsapo åsdfø åøæd ådæs åwæåød æåøæå seåfæ
    Øds,Ååsdfsa adfæø dfwf dflå æø sdi

    --
    don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
  6. Encryption? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe it's because I've been drinking heavily - but what's up with this "encryption"?

    1. Re:Encryption? by HarrySquatter · · Score: 1

      It's a "joke".

    2. Re:Encryption? by SupplyMission · · Score: 1

      It's a fucking stupid April Fool's thing

    3. Re:Encryption? by amicusNYCL · · Score: 2

      The editors thought it would be pretty hilarious to make Slashdot even more unusable for April Fools'. The OMG Ponies layout was a good one, because it didn't decrease the usability of the site. Putting Rot13 all over the home page is just stupid. I'm surprised they didn't encrypt the titles also, actually.

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    4. Re:Encryption? by Macman408 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but if they encrypted the titles, how would you tell if an article was posted to every other news site several days earlier, versus, um, ...whatever it is that Slashdot normally posts?

      Never mind.

  7. So is this a Soyuz thing? by sl3xd · · Score: 1

    So is this a case of a new rendezvous record strictly for Soyuz?

    I know launch trajectories are typically very closely tied to the capabilities of the launch vehicle; so is this just a new record for Soyuz, or were all launch vehicles (with the slightly different launch trajectories they are capable of) limited to the previous two days to rendezvous?

    --
    -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
    1. Re:So is this a Soyuz thing? by localroger · · Score: 2

      The launch window is like half a second long for this kind of approach, so if anything at all goes wrong during the countdown the launch is off until the next window, typically several orbits later.

      --
      Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
    2. Re:So is this a Soyuz thing? by sl3xd · · Score: 2

      Meeting a launch window that small is a real achievement; that's awesome.

      However, the Launch Window is highly dependent on the abilities of the launch vehicle; and the Soyuz is ancient and rather limited compared to its younger siblings.

      I'm wondering if it's a limitation of orbital mechanics, a limitation of a surviving crew, or a limitation of the Soyuz launch vehicle that makes the launch window so small.

      For example, many modern EELV's are capable of putting a similar mass into orbit in less time (widening the launch window), though at possibly non-survivable levels of acceleration...

      --
      -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
    3. Re:So is this a Soyuz thing? by cyclone96 · · Score: 5, Informative

      The launch window is small because ISS has to be essentially lined up in orbit in a tight tolerance (called the phase angle) to rendezvous this quickly. Usually the Soyuz plays "catch up" over 2 days by flying lower (and faster) than ISS. You can control the closing rate between the vehicles by altering the altitude difference between them, which allows you to make up differences in the orbits between the vehicles. Those differences are usually just fallouts of other things, like having uncertainty in launch dates, getting the altitude just right for other vehicles (there is about a rendezvous a month at ISS), etc. It's not because Soyuz is slow, it's because spreading the rendezvous over 2 days gives you some targeting flexibility.

      You have less margin to work with when you are trying to get there in 4 orbits instead of 34 orbits. Hitting that target with both ISS and Soyuz is hard but it's more about ground targeting than performance of the launch vehicle. The launch vehicle didn't give any extra oomph to get there faster, the ground essentially had the vehicle phasing in a tight tolerance at launch. They also sped up some of the tracking that was being done and turning that around into updated burns for the next orbit instead of coasting to a set of burns the next day, which was a bunch of work for the ground in a short period of time.

      The Russians that devised this actually published it - it's an interesting read if you have access to the journal or want to spend $32:

      http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576510001633

      --
      Worst...sig...ever!
    4. Re:So is this a Soyuz thing? by sl3xd · · Score: 1

      THANK YOU

      This is exactly what I wanted to know.

      --
      -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
  8. My last post on Slashdot, after visit ArsTechnica by blind+biker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I went to see what's ArsTechnica been up to lately, and holy cow has that site grown in the last couple of years! They have all the topics I'm interested in, and apparently, not days late. Also, they don't have contempt for their members.

    So, I'm going to type in a random password for my Slashdot account and log out.

    G'bye Slashdot editors, go fuck yirselves!

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  9. Irel shaal by X10 · · Score: 1

    Irel shaal. V gubhtug Fynfuqbg pbhyq gb orggre guna guvf ba Ncevy svefg.

    --
    no, I don't have a sig
  10. Re:Gåød gæørz møåkig by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 2

    HOE. LEE. SHIT. Slash accepts unicode now?

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  11. Reddit by rchh · · Score: 1

    Don't want Slashdot to change into Reddit. Large audience do not equate to quality. Go to Reddit if you want to see all the cute cat pictures- please don't change Slashdot into Reddit. Slashdot has its downsides- but it still (even after Dice bought it) remains the one website that I need to browse once a day. Also happy April's Fool day.

    --
    Computers can reverse entropy.
    1. Re:Reddit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Though I understand, would a kitteh every now and then really be such a bad thing?

    2. Re:Reddit by unitron · · Score: 1

      Though I understand, would a kitteh every now and then really be such a bad thing?

      I'd think a little pussy every now and then would be preferable.

      --

      I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

    3. Re:Reddit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This post was removed due to Dice content standards violations.

    4. Re:Reddit by Kiaser+Zohsay · · Score: 1

      You can get that on Reddit too.

      --
      I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
  12. Vzcbffvoyr by Janek+Kozicki · · Score: 1

    Jryy, bx - 6 ubhefu nsgre gnxr-bss? Guvf vf abg rira ncevy sbbyf qnl. Gung'f evqvphybhf.

    --
    #
    #\ @ ? Colonize Mars
    #
  13. Re:My last post on Slashdot, after visit ArsTechni by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I freaked out too, until I realized that it's April 1st.

  14. NPR does April Fools much better. by conspirator23 · · Score: 2

    Subtle. In the rythym of the overall broadcast. A few years ago they did a piece on Weekend Edition about how Bloomberg was pushing for a limited set of "authorized" ringtones in NYC to combat noise polution. I was having a not-sure-if-serious moment until the article ended and the promotional bumper indicated that the show received support from "Soylent" corporation. Hearing that ubiquitous NPR voice cheerily exclaim that "Soylent Green is People" had me out of my chair.

    If we're going to dredge up old, irritating Usenet crap because it's 4/1, you could at least pretend that B1FF had been made into a Slashdot moderator. Then we could have two pages of ASCII art at the end of each slashpost, and make all the mobile RSS users cry.

    1. Re:NPR does April Fools much better. by sandytaru · · Score: 1

      My favorite one from them was the suburb in California that tried to pretend its homes weren't completely empty and the neighborhood devoid of life by renting stuff like a Little League team to play on the nearby softball field, renting cars to park in driveways, etc. Then home buyers would close on the mortgage and move in only to find that the entire place is actually abandoned.

      --
      Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
  15. Re:My last post on Slashdot, after visit ArsTechni by six025 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You'll be back, just like the rest of us: slaves to some long distant memory of a once great site ;-)

  16. Re:My last post on Slashdot, after visit ArsTechni by snoig · · Score: 1

    And the best part of Ars Technica is that I don't see all this April 1st bull$#!+.

  17. Re:Gåød gæørz møåkig by Janek+Kozicki · · Score: 1

    HOE. LEE. SHIT. Slash accepts unicode now?

    Not really, only some unicode characters with numbers smaller than 255. See this list. A small test: :34 :38 :39 :60 :62 :160 :161 :162 :163 :164 :165 ¦:166 :167 :168 ©:169 :170 :171 :172 :173 ®:174 :175 :176 ±:177 :178 :179 :180 :181 :182 :183 :184 :185 :186 :187 ¼:188 ½:189 ¾:190 :191 À:192 Á:193 Â:194 Ã:195 Ä:196 Å:197 Æ:198 Ç:199 È:200 É:201 Ê:202 Ë:203 Ì:204 Í:205 Î:206 Ï:207 Ð:208 Ñ:209 Ò:210 Ó:211 Ô:212 Õ:213 Ö:214 ×:215 Ø:216 Ù:217 Ú:218 Û:219 Ü:220 Ý:221 :222 ß:223 à:224 á:225 â:226 ã:227 ä:228 å:229 æ:230 ç:231 è:232 é:233 ê:234 ë:235 ì:236 í:237 î:238 ï:239 ð:240 ñ:241 ò:242 ó:243 ô:244 õ:245 ö:246 ÷:247 ø:248 ù:249 ú:250 û:251 ü:252 ý:253 :254 ÿ:255 :338

    --
    #
    #\ @ ? Colonize Mars
    #
  18. Re:My last post on Slashdot, after visit ArsTechni by sl3xd · · Score: 2

    Also, they don't have contempt for their members.

    This is the funniest thing I've read for the whole of April Fool's. The contempt level is the same: You aren't a "member" - you're a product that is sold to the site's advertisers. In both cases, you've got the same status as a sheet of toilet paper: Your fate is to be covered in some ad executive's excrement and disposed of.

    --
    -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
  19. Meaning of the word Soyuz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In case someone's curious: Soyuz in Russian means Union, but usually by saying Soyuz people mean the Soviet Union (like Americans do by saying 'In the States' where 'In the USA' is implied).

    Now my personal opinion on this. I find it inappropriate to promote Soviet Union this way. My grandfather has spent years in prison during Stalin times without any reason, hundreds of thousands of people were killed, tortured, repressed... You may meet and talk to people today who were in prison for decades; exactly these people who should have build culture and economy for the Eastern Europe, but instead they were duying in prisons one after another. And today, because of this, I personally have to deal with corruption, absence of law, criminal presidents... So this is why when I see people promoting Soviet Union this way it offends me just as if someone was promoting Nazi Germany. But Russians for some reason think it's good to advertise their Soviet heritage. Ask yourself: would you find it acceptable to launch a space mission called Totalitarism?

    1. Re:Meaning of the word Soyuz by Alex+Belits · · Score: 1

      My grandfather has spent years in prison during Stalin times without any reason

      No, he did not.
      Also fuck you.

      --
      Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
    2. Re:Meaning of the word Soyuz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In my opinion, you are missing the point. Regardless of the name, I see the Soyuz spacecraft as a tribute to the resourcefulness and ingenuity to the Russian scientists who built an enviable and lasting space program _despite_ Stalin's totalitarianism and the USSR's highly dysfunctional form of state capitalism. Who knows if the scientists even had anything to do with the name. The spacecraft may have been named by Party bureaucrats, or simply the result of a requirement that high profile scientific projects had to serve as a political tribute to the Party ideology. If the spacecraft had been named Lebensraum or some nonsense like that, I'd still appreciate it for the technical achievement that it was. Would you dismiss the achievements of NASA and the Apollo program simply because they were based on the work of a high-level Nazi official?

      Besides, the Soviet Union no longer exists, so what is there to promote?

      Also, I think the name Soyuz wasn't meant merely as a direct reference to the USSR, it was also meant in the more general sense of the word "union" and that's what I think of when I think of the Soyuz spacecraft. I think you would agree, the spacecraft has lived up to this meaning of its name rather well.

      Note: I'm not trying to come across as speaking positively of Stalin or the Soviet Union. I'm Polish, I lived there in the 80s, and my family has also suffered as a result of Soviet totalitarianism (members of my family were executed by the NKVD and their bodies later found at Katyn).

    3. Re:Meaning of the word Soyuz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am sorry that your family suffered from this regime so much. And thank you for your reply.

      I agree with all you said. The only thing on which I disagree is that by calling it Soyuz they mean some abstract "Union". I'm almost 100% sure that this means The Union (at least in Russian), this is just how they use that word. But nevertheless, I'm not in any way judging the people who do the hard work - who solve the technical problems, who built the spacecraft, I fully support their achievement and am glad of it. It just wanted to emphasize that I think it's not fully correct to use Soviet symbols in this way today, especially on the international level.

    4. Re:Meaning of the word Soyuz by Ash+Vince · · Score: 1

      My grandfather has spent years in prison during Stalin times without any reason, hundreds of thousands of people were killed, tortured, repressed...

      Shame he didn't imprison him sooner, like maybe before he had a chance to reproduce.

      --
      I dont read /. to RTFA, I read /. to offend people in ignorance.
    5. Re:Meaning of the word Soyuz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My grandfather has spent years in prison during Stalin times without any reason, hundreds of thousands of people were killed, tortured, repressed...

      Shame he didn't imprison him sooner, like maybe before he had a chance to reproduce.

      Slashdot mods this up? Very representative.

      By the way, he married my grandmother AFTER Stalin died and he was freed with many other political prisoners. This didn't give them equal rights with all other population however.

    6. Re:Meaning of the word Soyuz by Ash+Vince · · Score: 1

      My grandfather has spent years in prison during Stalin times without any reason, hundreds of thousands of people were killed, tortured, repressed...

      Shame he didn't imprison him sooner, like maybe before he had a chance to reproduce.

      Slashdot mods this up? Very representative.

      Nope, wasn't modded up at all. It might just be that it starts at 2 in your view of things because I am a logged in user with high Karma and all my posts start like that (Slashdot also notifies me if any of my posts are modded up or down).

      --
      I dont read /. to RTFA, I read /. to offend people in ignorance.
  20. Re:My last post on Slashdot, after visit ArsTechni by sl3xd · · Score: 1

    Wait... Slashdot was great once?

    Funny... it seems more or less the same as it has been since 1999. Was there a golden age of Slashdot in 1998?

    1998, you are our only hope!

    Eh, screw it. I like /. the way I've always known it: An RSS precursor that picks out a single, vaguely interesting story from news sources I otherwise find useless and never visit.

    --
    -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
  21. Re:My last post on Slashdot, after visit ArsTechni by six025 · · Score: 1

    Wait... Slashdot was great once?

    Yes, once. Shortly after lunch, on the 27th of June 1996.

  22. Re:Gåød gæørz møåkig by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 1

    No, they're too incompetent to add full Unicode support. They tried it before and they failed at it horribly.

  23. Re:My last post on Slashdot, after visit ArsTechni by thegarbz · · Score: 0

    G'bye Slashdot editors

    And nothing of value was lost.

    Actually this is a great day for slashdot. We've finally weeded out those lame bastards who are too stuckup to take a joke. Blind Biker, you will not be missed.

    *smooch* ciao.

  24. Re:My last post on Slashdot, after visit ArsTechni by Rob+Bos · · Score: 1

    That was a good lunch. I had toast.

  25. Not the first time... by DerekLyons · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The fastest to ISS, but not the fastest docking ever... I believe that record belongs to Gemini 11 which docked on it's first orbit - 96 minutes after launch. Gemini 8 managed the first ever docking between spacecraft in orbit a mere six hours and thirty three minutes after launch.

    In the past they've taken four days in order to allow the crew time to get used to weightlessness, and to check out the spacecraft - doubly important for Soyuz since it'll be there for months and doubles as the crew's escape pod. That being said, the 'express' profile has been chosen for no other reason than to save money on mission control personnel... (Though they're trying to spin it otherwise.) In reality, I suspect those controllers are employed year 'round, but the money is only debited from the ISS program when a Soyuz is in [active] flight - making any real savings illusory.

  26. Re:My last post on Slashdot, after visit ArsTechni by Kyusaku+Natsume · · Score: 2

    Well, here this place used to get at least daily posts from Carmack or Bruce Perens, or people from the Antartica missions, for example. Also, always good posts from the usual users from that time like jafac, Millenium, BoredAtWork and others. What ruined this place lately are the ridiculous and stupid flame wars between Android/Google fans and Apple/iOS fans that drop comment quality to Yahoo or Youtube levels, with some Microsoft or Samsung fans or shills for good measure.

    But then you stumble with posts like this:

    http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3604217&cid=43334125

    and patience gets rewarded.

    --
    Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
  27. Re:My last post on Slashdot, after visit ArsTechni by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is slashdot. We don't obfuscate "bullshit" here, or any other swear words.

  28. Stupid Idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fast Solution

    https://gist.github.com/headquarters/5285731

  29. Re:My last post on Slashdot, after visit ArsTechni by OolimPhon · · Score: 1

    You aren't a "member" - you're a product that is sold to the site's advertisers.

    Adverts? This site has adverts? I never realized.

  30. Re:My last post on Slashdot, after visit ArsTechni by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I had baby food, because I was 2 years old.

  31. I must be missing something by tehcyder · · Score: 1

    Why is this funny?

    --
    To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  32. Re:My last post on Slashdot, after visit ArsTechni by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh right, because there were not any flame wars between windows/linux users back in the day.

    Selective memory for you nostalgia I see. It was crap then, just as much as it is now, if not more.

  33. Re:My last post on Slashdot, after visit ArsTechni by Kiaser+Zohsay · · Score: 1

    Get off my lawn.

    --
    I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
  34. Re:My last post on Slashdot, after visit ArsTechni by Lab+Rat+Jason · · Score: 0

    Make sure you change your email address first... that way you can't recover your password after you discover you have "vocal dissenter's remorse."

    --
    Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
  35. Re:My last post on Slashdot, after visit ArsTechni by Kyusaku+Natsume · · Score: 1

    At the time, Windows was Windows 98 that security wise, was a POS, while Linux was making impressive inroads in the server area and, despite not being as polished, the distributions tailored at common users were really god, like Mandrake Linux. Outside the winmodems it had sometimes better hardware support than Windows at the time, so the discussions had more technical merits at the time than the ones we have now about the mayor OS's which are only about personal preferences really, and calling names with people that don't agree with you.

    --
    Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!