Tag: Roscosmos
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SpaceX Crew-6 returns to Earth after six-month ISS Stay
After more than six months in space, four people splashed down in the waters near Florida. The SpaceX Crew-6 mission, which launched on March 2 and docked with the International Space Station (ISS) the following day, undocked on Sept. 3 at 7:05 EDT (11:05 UTC). Recovery vessels retrieved the crew and their capsule, Crew Dragon…
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Looking past Luna 25’s lunar landing failure: what’s next?
On Aug. 19, at 11:10 UTC, the Russian spacecraft Luna 25 performed a planned orbit maneuver. After an eight-day flight and two orbit corrections, it was parked in a circumlunar 90 by 113-kilometer orbit. It was time to transfer to the pre-landing orbit with the parameters of 18 by 100 kilometers. But something went wrong,…
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Russia’s Luna 25 lander crashes on the Moon
An animation depicts the Luna 25 probe in orbit above the Moon’s surface. Image: Roscomos. Russia’s first mission to the Moon for nearly 50 years ended in failure when the Luna 25 spacecraft crashed onto the surface, the Russian space agency Roscomos said Sunday. In an official statement published to the Telegram social media account…
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Russia heads back to the Moon with Luna 25
Russia’s space agency successfully launched a robotic spacecraft Thursday on a journey to the Moon, the country’s first lunar explorer since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 sample return mission in 1976. The Luna 25 mission lifted off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, located in Russia’s Far East, at 7:10 pm ET (23:10 UTC). Heading east, a…
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Launch Roundup: Russia returns to the Moon with Luna 25 mission, Virgin Galactic completes first fully private space tourism flight
It’s a busy week in spaceflight, especially for Russia. The week of Aug. 7 following through to Aug. 13 has seen Russia launch two missions to space, including the nation’s fourth-generation radio navigation satellite, GLONASS-K2, and Roscosmos’s first mission to the Moon in over four decades, dubbed Luna 25. SpaceX launched a batch of its…
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It appears that Roscosmos really is recruiting soldiers for the Ukraine War
A new report in the Financial Times appears to confirm that the main Russian space corporation, Roscosmos, is recruiting and training a militia to join the country’s war effort against Ukraine. The “Uran” battalion, which translates to Uranus, is to be made up of employees of Roscosmos, as well as those from its dozens of…
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Soyuz 2.1a launches Kondor-FKA n°1 satellite from Vostochny
At 21:14 UTC on May 26, a Soyuz 2.1a rocket launched from Site 1S at Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia. Onboard the Soyuz was the Kondor-FKA n°1 satellite, which was lofted to a Sun-synchronous orbit. The Kondor satellites are a series of Earth observation satellites that provide reconnaissance services for the Russian military. Kondor Satellites The…
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Russia’s Progress MS-23 resupply mission arrives at space station
Roscosmos launched its Progress MS-23 spacecraft to the International Space Station on Wednesday. Liftoff, atop a Soyuz-2.1a rocket, occurred 12:56 UTC (6:56 p.m. local time), from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It docked without issue a few hours later. Progress MS-23 is the latest in a long series of uncrewed Progress cargo spacecraft which Russia…
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Russian supply ship launches to International Space Station
A Soyuz-2.1a rocket lifts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome Wednesday with the Progress MS-23 cargo ship. Credit: Roscosmos Russia’s Progress MS-23 cargo freighter launched Wednesday from Kazakhstan on a mission hauling more than 2.7 tons of fuel, food, experiments, and supplies to the International Space Station. The Progress MS-23 supply ship lifted off at 8:56:07…
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Seized property at Baikonur threatens Soyuz-5 program
In early March 2023, reports began to circulate that Kazakhstan had seized the property of Roscosmos at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. This has raised questions regarding launch operations from the spaceport, including important crew and cargo logistics flights for the International Space Station (ISS). However, it is likely that the development of the Soyuz-5 rocket, as…