Posted on 09/03/2017 10:09:40 AM PDT by BenLurkin
NASA's record-breaking astronaut Peggy Whitson returned home on the Soyuz from an extended 288-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS). During her stay, she set a new record for the most cumulative time in space by an American with 665 days accrued. Her crewmates, NASA astronaut Jack Fischer and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin both spent 136 days aboard the orbiting laboratory. Landing occuured at 9:21 p.m. EDT (0121 Sept. 3 GMT), though it was Sunday morning local time at the touchdown site.
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They successfully touched down on target in a remote area near the town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. The Soyuz spacecraft tipped over onto its side, which is common for Soyuz crew landings, NASA TV commentator Rob Navias said during a webcast of the landing.
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After the astronauts return to Houston, they will spend the next 45 days doing physical rehabilitation and undergoing a series of medical tests both for health reasons and scientific research. "There are many investigations on the human body that we've been doing up here in orbit, so we'll have to continue those studies as well during that first 45 days," Whitson said during an in-flight interview with Space.com.
"In addition to that, we're doing a lot of debriefs talking to the ground teams about procedures that worked really well, procedures that we need to try to improve, tools or hardware that we had issues with — just ideas for how to operationally improve the efficiencies up here so that we can get even more done," she said. "So that first 45 days is actually going to be very busy."
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Thats hurts my back just watching that. Is there any retro rockets? It looks like a flash right before it hits the ground and stirs up more dust that just a plain impact with the ground?
Landing in the water probably isnt any softer.
Ditto!
Yes, there are rockets that fire about .2 seconds before landing, plus the seats automatically activate cushioning springs just before touchdoiwn. You still get a jolt, but it’s nowhere near as bad as it looks.
Peggy Whitson
I still get really torqued that we are STILL hitching (and paying full prices) rides with the Russians to go to our ISS. The follow on orbital vehicle is a continuing years away.
Her arms and legs... and whole body must feel like lead weights after being weightless that long.
Two things I noticed was that there was a tarp on the ground where their chairs were placed and they wore sunglasses. I wonder what the purpose of the two were. Peggy must feel a lot heavier than she really is. 288 days in zero g must feel weird after you land. Valery Polyakov was out walking track two days after he came back from 400 some odd days in weightlessness. Said he felt great.
Their seats also moves forward and assumes an angle that helps withstand the shock of landing. But, as you said, ain’t no biggie.
They use Takata airbags.
I can imagine a Wile E. Coyote ending with a spring loaded seat on rails with ACME rockets and me strapped in and cant escape.
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