Expedition 27

Mission highlights

After an extended two-month stay, Kounotori 2 was detached from the nadir docking port of the Harmony module by the Canadarm 2 robotic arm at 15:29 UTC on 28 March 2011, and released at 15:46 UTC. Launched in January 2011 to resupply the ISS, Kounotori 2 was the second Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle. It reentered Earth's atmosphere at around 03:09 UTC on 30 March. The Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on 4 April 2011, carrying Expedition 27 crew members Aleksandr Samokutyayev, Andrei Borisenko and Ronald Garan.

Soyuz TMA-21 docking

It docked with the space station on 6 April at 23:09 UTC. The docking to the Poisk module occurred as the two spacecraft were orbiting over the Andes Mountains in Chile. The hatches between Soyuz TMA-21 and the ISS were opened at 2:13 UTC on 7 April. The three Soyuz crew members were welcomed aboard for a crew greeting ceremony and a mandatory safety orientation by Expedition 27 Commander Dmitri Kondratyev and Flight Engineers Catherine Coleman and Paolo Nespoli.

On 12 April 2011, the Expedition 27 crew recorded a special video message aboard the ISS in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first crewed spaceflight, conducted by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in 1961. The crew recorded their greeting in Russian, English, and Italian while wearing black Gagarin T-shirts. The Progress M-09M cargo spacecraft was undocked from the station's Pirs module at 11:41 UTC on 22 April 2011. After departing the space station, the spacecraft was used for the Radar-Progress scientific experiment to investigate a reflection feature of the plasma generated by operations of the Progress propulsion system.

Progress M-09M undocking

Upon completion of this experiment, the spacecraft was deorbited and reentered over the 'spacecraft cemetery' in the South Pacific Ocean. Progress M-09M had been launched on a resupply mission to the ISS on 28 January 2011. It carried 2666 kg of cargo to the space station, consisting of 1444 kg of dry cargo, 752 kg of propellant, 50 kg of oxygen and 420 kg of water.