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Soyuz TMA-5 landing with ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori marks completion
of European Eneide mission
The Eneide mission to the International Space Station (ISS) has come
to a successful end with the landing of ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori,
accompanied by the ISS Expedition 10 crew. The command module of the Soyuz
TMA-5 spacecraft touched down near the town of Arkalyk in Kazakhstan at
04:07 local time (00:07 Central European Summer Time) on Monday 25 April.
All the major objectives of the mission, which lasted ten days, including
eight days on the ISS, were achieved. The experiment programme was successfully
completed, and the ISS Expedition crew was exchanged along with the Soyuz
TMA-5 spacecraft, which has been stationed at the ISS for the past six
months, serving as the crew lifeboat.
The hatches between the returning Soyuz TMA-5 and the ISS were closed
at 17:34 CEST on Sunday 24 April, and the crew then carried out standard
procedures and checks prior to undocking. At 20:44 CEST Soyuz TMA-5 undocked
from the ISS, with Vittori, as Flight Engineer, taking an active role
in the re-entry, descent and landing operations, alongside Russian cosmonaut
Salizhan Sharipov, the Soyuz Commander. Sharipov and the Soyuz 2nd Flight
Engineer Leroy Chiao (NASA) were the returning Expedition 10 crew, having
been stationed on the ISS since 16 October 2004.
All stages of the re-entry went according to plan. Soyuz TMA-5 went through
module separation, prior to re-entry, with the spacecraft’s utility
and instrument-assembly modules being uncoupled from the command module
and burnt up in the Earth’s atmosphere. The command module containing
the crew took a different flight profile to the other modules, entering
the Earth’s atmosphere three hours after undocking at 23:44 CEST.
The main parachute of the command module opened at 23:53 CEST with the
landing taking place in the dark before dawn at 04:07 local time in Kazkhstan,
00:07 CEST, on Monday 25 April.
During the Eneide mission, Roberto Vittori carried out a programme comprising
22 on-orbit experiments in the fields of biology, human physiology, technology
and education. Many of these were developed by Italian researchers and
built by Italian industry and research institutions. Scientists from Denmark,
Germany, Russia, Switzerland, the USA and from ESA were also involved
in the programme.
Mission control for the Eneide mission was performed by an ESA Operations
Team from the new Columbus Control Centre on the premises of the German
Aerospace Center DLR at Oberpfaffenhofen, near Munich, Germany, who provided
all essential coordination and decision-making functions for the mission
in close cooperation with the ISS partner control centres in Moscow, Houston
and Huntsville (Alabama), the Lazio User Centre at the Tor Vergata University
in Rome, Italy, and ESA's Eneide Mission Management Team in Noordwijk,
the Netherlands.
The Eneide mission was co-sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Defence
and the Region of Lazio, in the framework of an agreement between ESA
and Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency. During the mission, Roberto
Vittori had numerous contacts with representatives of the Italian government,
the Ministry of Defence, the Region of Lazio, the media and schoolchildren
.
In addition to the experiment programme carried out by Roberto Vittori,
the Eneide mission served to exchange the ISS Expedition crew. The ISS
Expedition 10 crew has now been replaced by the ISS Expedition 11 crew,
Sergei Krikalev (Roscosmos) and John Phillips (NASA), who arrived with
Roberto Vittori at the ISS in Soyuz TMA-6 on 17 April and are scheduled
to return to Earth in October.
Each Soyuz TMA spacecraft serves not only as a crew exchange vehicle
but also as an emergency return vehicle or lifeboat at the ISS. Soyuz
TMA-6 will remain at the ISS with the Expedition 11 crew for the next
six months. Vittori's launch from Baikonur was the sixth flight for the
new Soyuz TMA series, the first having been in October 2002 . With Vittori’s
return and landing in Soyuz TMA-5, European astronauts have flown in all
six Soyuz TMA spacecraft.
Further information on the Eneide mission and its experiment programme
can be obtained at www.esa.int/eneide
and www.spaceflight.esa.int/eneide/status
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