|
|
The crew
Designing process
When Lonchakov was replaced by Gennadi Padalka in August 2013, Jorge's artwork was moved up to TMA-18M (Luc van den Abeelen had designed the patches for Padalka's previous four flights, so he was a more logical choice for TMA-16M; proposals for TMA-17M also already existed). Since soprano Sarah Brightman was expected to be aboard Soyuz TMA-18M, Jorge was asked to add some (fantasy) musical symbols to the design. Sergei Volkov accepted the patch in October 2013; it was approved by Roscosmos on April 23, 2014. The patch artwork was revealed on Spacepatches.nl on March 5, 2015. When it became apparent that Brightman would not fly, Volkov insisted that the musical notes should remain on the patch, as a more generic "music of space" theme, so only her name was replaced by that of Aimbetov.
All designs copyright Roscosmos/Spacepatches.nl.
Produced in Russia by Tsenki.
The crew of Soyuz TMA-18M (launch).
Left: Jorge's original proposal for an Expedition-44 patch. Center: The design adapted for Soyuz TMA-16M; the number of colors was brought down to make the design suitable for embroidery. Right: An early version of the TMA-18M artwork.
The basic idea for this patch was submitted by Jorge Cartes to the Soyuz Crew Graphics Support team in March 2013 for ISS Expedition-44. At that time, however, work was already underway in the United States to design a patch for this mission. So, the next month, Jorge's idea was adapted as a Soyuz mission logo, at first not for any particular crew. With its pentagonial shape, it was aimed at a 2015 mission to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo Soyuz Test Project. In May 2013, Jorge was informed that the patch would be proposed to the Soyuz TMA-16M crew, at that time expected to be commanded by Yuri Lonchakov.
Back up patch
The crew and their patch
Other versions
Links
Soyuz TMA-18M at Wikipedia
Soyuz TMA-18M at Spacefacts
Soyuz TMA-18M on CollectSpace
Expedition-45 images at NASA
Expedition-45 images at Energia
Larger images at our Flickr pages.