Tag: ISS
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From Shuttle Sadness to Dragon Delight – USA prepares to regain domestic crew launch capability
The gap in US domestic crew launch capability is coming to an end as soon as next month, concluding a convoluted and painful path that ultimately began when Columbia was lost during STS-107. The last time American astronauts launched from US soil was in 2011 with Shuttle Atlantis during STS-135. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is set…
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Dream Chaser receives her wings ahead of flying to the ISS
Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) has announced its Louisville, Colorado production facility has received the first delivery of the Dream Chaser’s wings. The integration of the wings will provide a major milestone on Dream Chaser’s path to launching her first cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station under the CRS2 contract. The arrival of the…
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Roscosmos Continues Pre-launch Preparations for the Progress MS-14 Spacecraft
Preparations for the flight of Progress MS-14 are continuing inside its Baikonur facility. Work included checkouts of the vehicle’s solar array panels and fueling of the spacecraft. Roscosmos is targetting the launch of the resupply mission to the ISS on April 25. The Progress (spelled “Прогресс” in Russian) spacecraft has been a workhorse resupply spacecraft…
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Soyuz MS-15 returns Expedition 62 trio to Earth
Three members of the International Space Station’s 62nd Expedition returned to Earth early Friday morning on board the Russian Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft. Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka, commander of Expedition 62 and Soyuz MS-15, joined by NASA Flight Engineers Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan, closed the hatches between their spacecraft and the ISS’s Zvezda module at…
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Russia conducts first Soyuz 2.1a human launch; MS-16 crew arrives at Station
For the first time since 2002, humans departed for the International Space Station from Kazakhstan on a rocket other than the veteran Soyuz-FG, which was retired last year. Now, the Soyuz 2.1a rocket took up crew launch duties for the Russian element of crew support for the Station. The Soyuz MS-16 three-person crew lifted off…
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Final Dragon 1 completes return to Earth to conclude CRS-20
For the final time, a Dragon 1 spacecraft has returned to Earth on Tuesday. The completion of the SpaceX CRS-20 mission marks the end of the CRS-1 contract, and the retirement of SpaceX’s workhorse cargo spacecraft, as the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program transitions to next-generation vehicles. The spacecraft was uninstalled from the Nadir port…
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Soyuz MS-16 on track for April launch amid COVID-19 response
At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Roscosmos and NASA are making preparations for the launch of Soyuz MS-16 and three new crewmembers for the International Space Station while working within new constraints due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The mission is set to launch on April 9, 2020 at 04:05 EDT (08:05 UTC) from Site 31/6…
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CRS-20 – Final Dragon 1 arrives at the ISS
Following its ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Friday, the company’s CRS-20 Dragon cargo spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station on Monday. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida occurred at 11:50 pm Eastern time (04:50 UTC), prior to berthing at the ISS early on…
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Preparations continue amid crew shuffle for Soyuz MS-16
Preparations are underway at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Star City, and at NASA’s Johnson Space Center for the Soyuz MS-16 mission to the International Space Station (ISS). This comes after the recent announcement that the Prime Crew of Soyuz MS-16 which included Russian Cosmonauts Nikolai Tikhonov (Commander), Andrei Babkin (Flight Engineer 1), and NASA Astronaut Christopher…
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NG-13 Cygnus arrives at Station, quickest back-to-back Cygnus missions
After a two-and-a-half day cruise to the International Space Station, the NG-13 Cygnus resupply craft from Northrop Grumman has arrived at the orbital outpost with a host of scientific experiments and equipment. The arrival comes just 18 days after the previous Cygnus departed the Station and marks the shortest time between two Cygnus missions to…