Today Astro-Alex and his colleagues arrive at the ISS. After two days of travel, they need to be patient a little while longer: The docking maneuver will take around two hours. You can follow it live.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/G. Padalka
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This Friday at 15:07 CEST the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft with German astronaut Alexander Gerst, Russian cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev and American astronaut Serena Aunon-Chancellor will arrive at the International Space Station (ISS).
The docking maneuver requires utmost precision. The ISS must not be pushed out of its track by the spacecraft. That's why the ISS and the space capsule need to have almost identical orbital speeds.
New crew heads to ISS
07:10
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In the last phase, the Sojuz capsule will approach the ISS with a speed of less than half a meter per second. Normally the autopilot takes care of the docking maneuver. But if anything goes wrong, the astronauts and cosmonauts will have to intervene manually. They use plotting instruments to bring the spacecraft right to its target.
This requires a high degree of patience and sensitivity on the part of the pilots — they have trained the operation in simulators for days before they took off.
Once the Soyuz capsule is connected to the ISS, the crew will open the hatch. They will enter their new home between 17:05 and 17:35 CEST.
The Soyuz spacecraft will stay docked at the ISS for as long as the astronauts and cosmonauts are there. It not only serves as their return-vehicle at the planned time of departure, but is also the life raft in case of an accident or fire.
But the astronauts and cosmonauts can't just get into any of those life rafts. Each crew member has a specific seat reserved for him or her.
The reason: The seats in the ISS are custom-made for each traveler. This is to make sure they don'tt suffer any harm during launch or landing, with the strong physical forces at work — and to make sure everyone's as comfortable as possible on those two-day journeys.
An astronaut's view
In space, German astronaut Alexander Gerst was able to take stunning images of the Earth's surface. Experiments conducted by the international team may also benefit the Earth and its people.
Image: ESA/NASA
More than science
"Hello Berlin, I don't see any borders from up here!" Gerst tweeted on November 9th 2014, the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Apart from conducting a number of experiments in various scientific disciplines, Alexander Gerst had another important mission: to show people on Earth how beautiful and fascinating our "Blue Dot" is.
Image: Alexander Gerst/ESA/picture-alliance/dpa
Breathtaking phenomenon
"Words can't describe how it feels flying through an Aurora" - that's how Alexander Gerst described his experience with this natural phenomenon. Although he found it difficult to capture the experience in words, he was able to conduct research into auroras. One aim was to investigate the influence of our planet's electromagnetic forces on electronic devices at the International Space Station.
Even on Earth, one rarely gets to see the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights. Alexander Gerst was fortunate to get this great shot from space of the Northern Lights in the polar region.
Image: ESA/NASA
Geochallenge
It is neither a mountain, nor a vulcano. In fact, this picture taken by Alexander Gerst shows Barringer Meteorite Crater in Arizona. Gerst would often share his photos on social media with the hashtag #geochallenge, challenging the public to try and figure out where the geographical feature might be.
It looks like a tiny hole, but actually measures 80 kilometers (50 miles) wide. Despite its interesting appearance, typhoons like this one can cause tremendous damage on the Earth's surface. "From up here it is surprisingly obvious that our world is one connected system," Gerst observed from space.
On thing that makes Alexander Gerst's photos so beautiful and fascinating is how they are unstaged, authentic snapshots. In this image, which Gerst tweeted as the saddest photo he's taken yet, explosions and rockets are visible in Gaza and Israel.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/ESA/NASA
Scientific purposes
Gerst's images, including this one of windswept valleys in North Africa, can be compared to previous, similar images. This helps scientists observe changes on the Earth's surface and determine whether they are natural or manmade.
The circles on this image are not the work of aliens, but rather irrigated agricultural fields in arid regions of Mexico. Some of Gerst's experiments dealt with food - for example, the astronauts grew edible plants on the space station to see if they could develop methods to use water more efficiently.
Image: ESA/NASA
Works of art
Some images Gerst took look like the works of a talented painter. This image shows a river in Kazakhstan snaking its way through the landscape. Defunct bends of the river are also visible, and one can imagine how it's likely to change course again in the future.
Image: ESA/NASA
Different view of infinity
"When light from the Cupola tints ISS orange inside, I can tell we're over Africa without even looking out the window," Gerst had tweeted. The Sahara Desert is perceived to be endless - when one is in it. But as this image of Libya shows, even the sand dunes there have a beginning and an end.
