Tag: Soyuz
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Expedition 73 underway on ISS, crew perform spacewalk
With Expedition 73 now underway, the International Space Station is hosting seven crewmembers again. Thursday saw the astronauts complete the Station’s third spacewalk of the year. The ISS crew is also getting ready for the upcoming arrival of the commercial Axiom-4 mission as well as conducting the usual science and maintenance tasks. Visiting Vehicles The…
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Rocket Report: “No man’s land” in rocket wars; Isaacman lukewarm on SLS
Welcome to Edition 7.39 of the Rocket Report! Not getting your launch fix? Buckle up. We’re on the cusp of a boom in rocket launches as three new megaconstellations have either just begun or will soon begin deploying thousands of satellites to enable broadband connectivity from space. If the megaconstellations come to fruition, this will…
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Soyuz MS-27 launches three new crew members to ISS
The fourth crewed space mission of 2025 is now underway. Soyuz MS-27 launched successfully at 05:47 UTC on Tuesday, April 8, from Site 31/6 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Roscosmos’ Sergey Ryzhikov, Alexey Zubritsky, and NASA’s Jonathan “Jonny” Kim were onboard, flying to the International Space Station (ISS). After its nominal launch, Soyuz MS-27…
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Launch Roundup: Falcon 9 to fly five missions during busy week
Five Falcon 9 missions launched this week, including the first-ever crewed mission to a polar orbit and several Starlink missions. Internationally, China also launched two missions, and Russia plans to send Soyuz to the International Space Station to conclude the week. The week kicked off with Falcon 9 launching Starlink Group 6-80 into low-Earth orbit…
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Launch Roundup: Falcon 9 to fly five missions during busy week
Five Falcon 9 missions launched this week, including the first-ever crewed mission to a polar orbit and several Starlink missions. Internationally, China also launched two missions, and Russia plans to send Soyuz to the International Space Station to conclude the week. The week kicked off with Falcon 9 launching Starlink Group 6-80 into low-Earth orbit…
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Launch Roundup: Soyuz flies; New Shepard simulates lunar gravity
This week’s launch manifest is quite diverse, featuring the launches of four different rockets worldwide. Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket has simulated the Moon’s gravity from just beyond the Kármán line, and Rocket Lab launched Electron for the first time this year from New Zealand. Russia launched Soyuz for the first time in 2025…
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Russia just launched the 2,000th Semyorka rocket—it’s both a triumph and tragedy
The Russian space program reached a significant milestone over the holidays with the 2,000th launch of a rocket from the “R-7” family of boosters. The launch took place on Christmas Day when an R-7 rocket lifted off, carrying a remote-sensing satellite from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. This family of rockets has an incredible heritage dating back…
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International Space Station finishes challenging year as plans are made for its retirement
The International Space Station continues to act as humanity’s outpost in low-Earth orbit, a role that began at the turn of this century. However, the ISS is showing its age and plans are being advanced for its retirement around 2030. Several events on the Station in 2024 underlined just how the ISS program was dealing…
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Launch Roundup: SpaceX, China, and Russia maintain busy launch manifests through the holidays
At the start of this week, Monday, Dec. 23, there had been 24 launch attempts worldwide. There was no let-up during the holiday period, with six further launch attempts taking place. The SpaceX launch manifest for this week included a single customer payload and three batches of Starlink satellites. SpaceX’s target of 136 launches for…
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ISS and Expedition 72 crew stay busy with experiments, cargo arrivals, and spacecraft movements
The International Space Station and the Expedition 72 crew have transitioned from an eventful summer into a more normal, operational routine in the last few months, although the Station has dealt with unexpected issues in recent weeks. Station commander Suni Williams and her Boeing Crewed Flight Test crewmate Butch Wilmore, both veteran NASA astronauts and…