Rollout Soyuz TMA-13 Expedition 18, 10 October 2008
This morning at 07:12:36 EST, the Russian Soyuz TMA-07M Expedition 24 lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The astronauts on board the spacecraft represent three nations and their space programs. From the Russian Space Agency comes the Commander, Roman Romanenko. Flight Engineer Chris Hadfield represents the Canadian Space Agency and Flight Engineer Thomas Marshburn works for NASA. The Soyuz capsule is on schedule to dock with the ISS on 21 December 2012.
I couldn’t decide what photo to feature today, one that shows this morning’s action or one that represents the longevity of the Soyuz program. I chose the image at the head of this post because it was the most striking in terms of content and the quality of the photography. Soyuz rollouts are so different from the ones we’re used to watching at Kennedy Space Center/Cape Canaveral. With a Soyuz, whether it will be launched from Kazakhstan or French Guiana, the body of the rocket is moved along a horizontal by train and tilted into place on the pad.
Soyuz TMA-04M Expedition 31 Rollout, 15 May 2012. Photo credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
In contrast, Ariane 5, Atlas V, and Delta IV rockets rollout in the vertical position. Admittedly, the Atlas Vs and Delta IVs tend to be stacked close to the pads, so the rollout doesn’t require a long-distance move. But it seems NASA has always preferred to move a vertical stack—the Space Shuttles and Saturn V rockets were moved along the crawlerway from the VAB to the launch complexes in the upright position, for example.
The First Saturn V Rollout, From the VAB, 25 May 1966. Photo credit: NASA
As you know from my earlier posts, moving things around the planet is almost as interesting to me as putting things in space, so I enjoy photos of Soyuz rollouts almost as much as I do photos of launches. I’ll close this post with the runner up photo, which shows the Soyuz TMA-06M rollout from earlier this year. The side of the train says, “Space Center South.”
Soyuz TMA-06M Expedition 33 Rollout, 21 October 2012. Photo credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
