I’m only a month behind on covering this one, but I thought it might be nice with the recent sharing of the rollout of Progress MS-09 to share the launch and docking of Soyuz MS-09, since I missed covering it on time last month. Soyuz MS-09 launched on June 6th, 2018, carrying Sergey Prokopyev, Alexander […]
Earlier today on March 21st, 2018 Soyuz MS-08 launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying a new crew of 3, Oleg Artemyev, Andrew J. Feustel, and Richard R. Arnold, to the International Space Station. The Soyuz spacecraft is taking the 2 day route, as opposed to the 6 hour rendezvous and docking method used during optimal […]
In what seems so far to be a flawless mission, Soyuz MS-05 made a successful docking with the Rassvet module of the International Space Station slightly ahead of schedule, a little before 6 hours after its launch on the 28th. The images of the docking are quite beautiful – the below video shows views from […]
The next crew to the International Space Station launched today on Soyuz MS-05. It was early morning here in the US but late evening at Baikonour; this created lighting conditions that allowed for some of the most beautiful Soyuz launch footage I have ever seen! It’s well worth checking the footage out since it so […]
As I mentioned yesterday, here we have the launch replays of the Soyuz MS-04 Mission. The mission successfully docked to the ISS 6 hours after launch on April 20th, delivering its 2 person crew to the space station. Not much commentary for this one – It’s just some good views of a very nice Soyuz […]
Yesterday morning an Atlas V rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on a mission to resupply the International Space Station. The Cygnus Resupply Vehicle, named the SS John Glenn, is carrying over 3,000 kilograms of cargo to the Space Station as part of Orbital Sciences contract with NASA to provide commercial cargo transportation […]
February 22nd, 2017 marked the end of an era: after 43 years, the final Soyuz-U vehicle launched from Pad 1/5, or “Gagarins Start” at Baikonour Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, sending the Progress 66 (Internally known as Progress MS-05) supply vehicle to the International Space Station. The Soyuz-U Booster variant is the most flown rocket configuration in history, […]
Todays launch of the Falcon 9 carrying the Dragon spacecraft for the CRS-10 mission was scrubbed until tomorrow, February 19th. The reason? An issue with Thrust Vector Control (VTC for short) on the 2nd stage. Reports are early, so I don’t have details, but this seems to have been the key issue for the scrub, […]
Today has really been a space heavy day for me, hasn’t it? Today marks the successful launch of Soyuz MS-03, sending another 3 person crew, Oleg Novitskiy, Peggy Whitson, and Thomas Pesquet, to the International Space Station. I don’t have much commentary: not that Soyuz launches are boring (far from it) but there really isn’t […]
Earlier today a Soyuz rocket launched the Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft on a mission to the International Space Station, carrying a fresh 3 person crew to the orbiting laboratory, bringing the ISS crew total back to 6, and the total number of people in space right now to 8: 6 on the ISS and 2 on […]
For the first time in nearly 2 years, an Antares rocket launched from the launch facilities on Wallops Island, Virginia, carrying a Cygnus cargo craft to the International Space Station. While a pretty straightforward launch of a somewhat plain seeming booster, this launch was a critical moment for Orbital ATK, creators of Cygnus and Antares, […]
The Russian Space Station Mir orbited the Earth from 1986 until 2001. Over that time, it served as ever-expanding space laboratory where research on a wide variety of subjects was conducted. The legacy of the Salyut space station series before it, Mir was designed with multiple berthing ports for expansion modules, allowing for more specialized […]