“You know what they say:
teamwork makes the dream work!”
ISS Expedition 61/62’s Jessica Meir (in red jacket in the photo at right), Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka, and Emirati astronaut Hazza Al Mansouri are due for launch to the International Space Station on September 25, lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on the Russian Soyuz MS-15.
Originally scheduled for April, the mission was pushed back after an unprecedented mid-flight failure of a manned Soyuz-MS 10 spacecraft in October 2018.
With over 250 total days aboard the ISS, in 2 expeditions, and 3 space-walks to his credit, pilot Skripochka —an engineer by profession— is Exp.61/62’s seasoned veteran, Several very cool videos alongside https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDBoMVoEqIs scheduled for return from ISS in spring 2020, when his tally will nip at the heels of a select dozen Russians and one American, Peggy Whitson who, on her third tour 2002-2017, became the first female astronaut to command the ISS twice, finishing with a total 9 spacewalks and record-holder so far for most total days in space by any NASA astronaut of any gender — 665 days 22 hours 22 minutes on the ISS (age 57 at the time). Whitson’s 3rd tour was 288 days, the longest of any female NASA ‘naut, and Christina Koch is on her way to finish with 328 this spring.
Hazza & Sultan in Parabolic flight training
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHxgY4739gw
Hazza Al Mansouri (first name also spelled Hazaa, full name Hazza ‘Ali’ Abdan Khalfan Al Mansouri) —a 15-year UAE fighter pilot and instructor with a degree in Aviation Science and Military Aviation— is especially focused on youth education. He will be
presenting a tour inside the ISS in Arabic, in which he will explain the components of the station and the equipment on board.
He will also be conducting earth observation and imaging experiences, interacting with ground stations, sharing information, as well as documenting the daily lives of astronauts at the station.
During his stay on the ISS, Al Mansouri [will study] the impact of microgravity in comparison with that of gravity on Earth. This mission includes 15 experiments that will be selected based on MBRSC’s ‘Science in Space’ competition, which targets schools in the UAE. Moreover, the reaction of vital indicators of the human body will be studied before and after the trip to compare with Earth results. This is the first time this kind of research will be done on an astronaut from the Arab region. The results of this study will later be compared with research conducted on astronauts from other regions. Furthermore, Al Mansoori will be assigned to complete existing scientific missions at ISS laboratories.
At the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City, Russia, Al Mansouri and his back-up, Sultan Al Neyadi, (PhD, Information Technology, Griffith University, East Queensland, AU) found like many before them the language barrier major at first, in having to learn to speak and read Russian for Soyuz spacecraft controls and operations. — everyone aboard the ISS has to be fluent in both English and Russian, for perfect coordination and interaction: their lives all depend on one another.
Al Mansouri returns from the ISS October 3. Among the handful of predecessors in space from his region and culture is Anousheh Raissyan Ansari, Irani-American engineer and businesswoman, a member of the X PRIZE Board of Trustees and Foundation's Vision Circle, who in 2006 became the fourth overall self-funded space flight participant, and the first self-funded woman on the ISS.
Ansari was the 44th woman to work in space, out of a current total of 64 from eleven nations. Four women have died on the job...
...out of thirty known fatalities, including in test flights and training.
Jessica Ulricka Meir is a NASA Group 21 American astronaut
and an Assistant Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital..., following postdoctoral research in comparative physiology at the University of British Columbia.[1][2] She has studied the diving physiology and behavior of emperor penguins in Antarctica,[3] and the [flight] physiology of bar-headed geese, which [migrate over the Himalayas despite low oxygen and extreme altitude. In 2000,]
Meir graduated with a Master of Space Studies from the International Space University in Strasbourg, France [and in 2002] served as an aquanaut on the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations 4 (NEEMO 4) crew.[5] In June 2013 she was named an astronaut candidate by NASA, becoming one of the eight members of NASA Astronaut Group 21.
Born July 1, 1977, to a Native American-Swedish mother (who was a nurse)…
Jessica MeirVerified account @Astro_Jessica
Treat your mom to something special! @NASA_Johnson the other week, my mom captured an #HTV cargo vehicle & drove a #Mars rover... standard mother/daughter activities.
Happy #MothersDay to all, I know I wouldn’t be anywhere without my amazing, supportive, nurturing #Mom!
...and an Iraqi-Israeli physician father in Caribou, Maine (population average 1 person per square mile), the youngest of five kids in the only Jewish family in town, Meir [pronounced like Golda Meir] knew no-one even remotely involved with aerospace. Her father was
born in 1925 in Baghdad to a family with nine kids. In 1931, the whole family left [because of increased] anti-Semitism there [ahead of the Farhud - 1941] and settled in Palestine. My dad was in medical school at the American University of Beirut when the War of Independence was happening. He came back to Israel and was one of the first to volunteer for the army, driving an ambulance in the war. After that, he went to Geneva to finish medical school.
He met my mom, who was a nurse, in Sweden, and they moved to the US for my dad’s medical residency at Johns Hopkins. My dad heard from a friend about a job opportunity in Caribou, Maine, so that is how we got there.
The televised Shuttle missions, her mother’s love of nature, and her father’s adventurous inclinations inspired an abiding dream to personally “go”. participate. Her earliest distinct memory of the ambition
was in first grade, when the teacher asked her class to draw a picture of what they wanted to be when they grew up. Meir drew a picture of an astronaut in a spacesuit standing on the surface of the moon.
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“And it might have had something to do with the fact that the stars shone so brightly in rural Maine,” Meir said.
As a youngster, she got to go to a Purdue University[6] spacecamp, and during undergraduate study at Brown she rode NASA’s famous ”Vomit Comet”.
As a NOAA NEEMO 4 aquanaut fascinated by marine biology, evolutionary biology and life in extreme environments, and leaning toward a PhD she hoped would combine these main interests,[11] Meir was on a crew doing saturation diving —a space analogue for working and training under extreme environmental conditions— at the Aquarius Reef Base undersea research laboratory four miles off Key Largo, when Hurricane Isadore forced the National Undersea Research Ctr managers to shorten underwater duration to five days, and then three, with Tropical Storm Lili headed in their way. Fortunately, Lili wound down to non-threat conditions, allowing Meir and her crewmates five full days.[5][12]
The die was cast. For her UCSD/Scripps Instit’n of Oceanography Ph.D. research, Meir studied the diving abilities and physiology (including oxygen depletion responses) of emperor penguins at Antarctica’s “Penguin Ranch” [◄ blogspot- & see also Women Working in Antarctica] —scuba diving alongside them under the ice[9]— and of northern elephant seals[8][9] in the Pacific off California.[9] Her work with bar-headed geese[4][9] followed.
In a total ten years in animal extreme-environment research, skiing, swimming, sky-diving, and almost flying with them — she has a private pilot’s license (plus NASA’s military flight training, one of five proficiencies required of all astronauts).
Across three years at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC), Meir worked in human research, coordinating, guiding and supporting space life experiments performed by astronauts on shuttle and ISS missions —elucidating physiology effects (bone loss, muscle control/atrophy, lung function, etc.) and whether bodily processes are altered in the spaceflight environment— and taking results through review, developing procedures for astronauts on-orbit, training crew members, and providing ground support from Mission Control Center.[11]
In 2009, she was shortlisted for NASA’s Astronaut Group 20[14]. Next time around, 17 June 2013, in a field of over 6,300 applicants, she was named among the eight candidates of Group 21[2] (top photo), completing training July 2015.[15]
Each astronaut can take up to 1kg (about 2.2 lbs) of personal items on the Soyuz. So far, among religious items have been personal bibles, crucifixes, prayer beads, yarmulke, mezuzah, matzah, and communion wafers. Many international participants include a flag of their heritage. Hazza’s personal gear will include the UAE flag and his favorite books. Meir’s include her favorite novelty socks (she collects them, plus they’re useful) with little menorahs on them, and, like Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon before her, an Israeli flag.
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And from WIRED Mar 26, 2018, NASA astronauts and One Strange Rock contributors Jeffrey Hoffman, Chris Hadfield, Jerry Linenger, Leland Melvin, Mae C. Jemison, Mike Massimino and Nicole Stott answer 50 of the most Googled questions about space … in chorus!