Soyuz TMA-8 was a transport mission for portions of the International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 13 crew. The flight delivered ISS Commander Pavel Vinogradov and ISS Flight Engineer Jeffrey Williams to the station to replace Expedition 12 crew members. Flight Engineer Marcos Pontes joined the TMA-8 crew for the ascent and docking with ISS, spent approximately seven days aboard the ISS conducting experiments as part of the Missão Centenário, then returned to Earth with the outgoing members of Expedition 12 aboard Soyuz TMA-7. Vinogradov and Williams were joined on their return trip to Earth by Spaceflight Participant Anousheh Ansari who launched aboard Soyuz TMA-9 and spent approximately eight days aboard ISS conducting experiments for the European Space Agency.
Docked to ISS: April 1, 2006, 04:19 UTC (to nadir port of Zarya)[3]
Undocked from ISS: September 28, 2006, 21:53 UTC (from nadir port of Zarya)
Mission highlights
The Soyuz TMA-8 launch on 30 March 2006.Jeffrey Williams inside the Soyuz TMA-8 spacecraft
29th crewed flight to ISS (Flight 12S)
Soyuz TMA-8 is a Soyuz spacecraft which was launched on March 30, 2006 by a Soyuz-FG rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Near the end of second stage burn, a communications blackout occurred at Moscow Mission Control. A satellite link was lost, but was restored about 10 minutes later. The crew was safe throughout the loss of communications.
Uncrewed missions are designated as Kosmos instead of Soyuz; exceptions are noted "(uncrewed)". The † sign designates failed missions. Italics designates cancelled missions.
Launches are separated by dots ( • ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ). Crewed flights are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).
