Tag: Soyuz
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Launch Roundup: SpaceX launches two Starlink missions; China launches Chang Zheng 5
A brand new week of spaceflight is approaching with SpaceX preparing to launch three Starlink missions, China getting ready to send two payloads to orbit, including one on the powerful Chang Zheng 5 (CZ-5) rocket, and Roscosmos preparing to launch Russian-built satellites to orbit atop Soyuz. Late on Feb. 22, Starlink Group 7-15 took 22…
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Launch Roundup: Falcon 9’s 300th Flight and SpaceX to launch lunar lander
On the week of the sixth anniversary of the first flight of Falcon Heavy, SpaceX launched four separate Falcon 9 missions. Meanwhile, Roscosmos resupplied the International Space Station (ISS) with Progress MS-26 launching on Soyuz. Early Thursday morning, Falcon 9 launched from SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) taking NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud,…
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ISS Roundup: 25 year anniversary, spacewalks, cargo arrivals and departures
The final quarter of 2023 saw the International Space Station (ISS) celebrate 25 years in orbit, though there was no letup in the ongoing work as the Expedition 70 crew settled into the tasks and experiments that are carried out onboard the orbital laboratory. Cargo spacecraft arrived at the Station carrying supplies and fresh experiments…
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Launch Roundup: Rocket Lab returns to flight; SpaceX launches more Starlink
SpaceX had a lighter week of launches, with Rocket Lab, Russia, and China also launching rockets. Following several delays, SpaceX launched the Starlink Group 6-34 mission. Rocket Lab returned to flight on Friday with “The Moon God Awakens” mission. This comes after a previous mission, dubbed “We Will Never Desert You,” failed to reach orbit…
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NASA astronaut Frank Rubio is home after a year in space
NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and two Russian crewmates parachuted to a landing on the remote steppe of Kazakhstan on Wednesday, capping a 371-day mission at the International Space Station, the longest single spaceflight ever undertaken by an American. It was also the third-longest mission off the planet in the history of human spaceflight, eclipsed only…
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Soyuz MS-24 docks after first Russian crewed launch in a year
The Soyuz MS-24 mission launched from Site 31/6 in Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, flying a crew of three to the International Space Station (ISS). Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub as well as NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara launched on Friday, Sept. 15, at 15:44 UTC, with a docking to ISS just over three hours later…
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The failure of Luna 25 cements Putin’s role as a disastrous space leader
On Saturday, the Russian space program lost the Luna 25 spacecraft, a relatively small vehicle that was due to land on the Moon this week. After a problem with the spacecraft’s propulsion system, instead of entering a low orbit around the Moon, it crashed into the lunar surface. The Russian mission to the Moon was…
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Launch Roundup: North Korea has failed launch attempt, SpaceX launch back-to-back missions
Following several launch delays last week, the week of Aug. 21 through Aug. 27 is set to see seven launches marking the 129th through 135th orbital launch attempts of 2023. Starting the week off, SpaceX launched the Starlink Group 7-1 mission from Space Launch Complex (SLC) 4 East at the Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB).…
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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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Trend or aberration? Russia is launching foreign satellites again
For the first time since the invasion of Ukraine essentially cut off Russia’s space industry from foreign customers, a Russian rocket lifted off Tuesday and carried satellites into orbit with commercial technology from Western companies. The payloads from companies based in the United Kingdom and Luxembourg flew on a satellite owned by the United Arab…