Content-Length: 36624 | pFad | https://web.archive.org/web/20090621070536/http://www.russianspaceweb.com:80/iss_soyuztma16.html
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The Soyuz TMA-16 was scheduled for launch to the International Space Station, ISS, on September 30, 2009. The spacecraft would remain docked to the outpost until March 2010, in support of the Expedition 21 crew. In ISS nomenclature the mission was known as 20S and was often wrongly referred to in open NASA publications as Soyuz 20. Expedition 21 crewmembers: NASA officially named members of Expedition 21 on November 21, 2008:
Last tourist mission The Soyuz TMA-16 earned a dubious distinction of becoming the last flight with a seat available for a space tourist. After that flight, all seats onboard Soyuz would be need to rotate six-member crews of the ISS. At various times, Kazakh cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov and a prominent member of the Russian Duma (parliament) Vladimir Gruzdev were named as candidates for the available seat onboard Soyuz TMA-16. However, both ultimately bowed out due to lack of cash. Only on May 29, 2009, just four months before a scheduled launch of the Soyuz TMA-16, Roskosmos announced that another candidate would be named at the beginning of June. According to the agency representative, the candidate for the mission was already in Russia undergoing medical checks necessary to qualify him for the flight and his name would be announced on June 4, 2009. On June 1, 2009, Space Adventures, the company which markets Soyuz seats to wealthy individuals, disclosed that a Canadian entrepreneur would take the third seat onboard Soyuz TMA-16. On June 4, Space Adventures announced that Guy Laliberté, founder of Cirque du Soleil, has begun training at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City. Flight program On Oct. 2, 2009, the Soyuz TMA-16 was scheduled to dock to the aft port of the Zvezda service module and its crew would join Expedition 20 for a total of nine crew members on the station for nine days.
Page author: Anatoly Zak; Last update: June 4, 2009 All rights reserved |
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