NASA PREPARING TO REASSEMBLE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - On Friday, astronauts aboard the International Space Station will initiate the station's first reassembly in several years. The station will be reconfigured to create two new docking ports for the space taxis NASA hopes to have launched by the end of 2017 as part of its Commercial Crew program. The first of three assembly spacewalks will be conducted on Friday by NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Terry Virts. While outside the station, they will begin work installing cables and communications equipment for the two new berthing slips. Wilmore and Virts won't be able to ready the two new ports without new equipment, however. Two International Docking Adapters are needed to turn what were once parking spots for NASA's Space Shuttles into docks capable of accepting future U.S. commercial crew vehicles. The two adapters will be launched by SpaceX resupply missions later this year.    More
(Source: UPI - Feb 20)

RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN SATAN ROCKET TO LAUNCH SOUTH KOREAN SATELLITE AS PLANNED - The joint Russian-Ukrainian company Kosmotras will go ahead with the launches of commercial and scientific satellites and spacecraft it had planned for 2015 using the Dnepr-1 rocket, including a South Korean Kompsat remote sensing satellite in mid-March. The March 12 launch of the Dnepr-1 carrying a South Korean satellite will go ahead as planned, a source close to the space industry told Russia's RIA Novosti on Monday. It had earlier been reported that the launch of the Dnepr-1 by Kosmotras, a Moscow-based joint Russian-Ukrainian company, had been suspended indefinitely.    More
(Source: Space Daily - Feb 19)

ATLAS 5 ROCKET ASSEMBLED FOR NASA SATELLITE LAUNCH - The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket that will hurl the four MMS satellites into a highly elliptical Earth orbit on March 12 has completed its basic build up at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 Vertical Integration Facility. The spacecraft will fly in formation for the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission to gain new insights into the connections and disconnections of the lines in Earth’s magnetic field. The rocket will fly in the 421 configuration, which features the Common Core Booster powered by an RD-180 main engine, two strap-on solid motors and a single-engine Centaur upper stage.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Feb 18)

PROGRESS 58 DOCKS TO STATION’S ZVEZDA SERVICE MODULE - Traveling about 257 miles above the Atlantic Ocean northeast of Puerto Rico, the unpiloted Progress 58 Russian cargo ship docked at 11:57 a.m. EST to the rear port of the Zvezda service module of the International Space Station. The craft is delivering three tons of food, fuel, supplies and experiment hardware to the six crew members aboard the orbital laboratory. Progress 58 is scheduled to remain docked to the space station until August. Meanwhile, astronauts in the U.S. segment of the station are reviewing procedures for a trio of spacewalks. The first is set to begin Friday at 7:10 a.m. Spacewalkers Barry Wilmore and Terry Virts will exit the orbital lab to set the stage for a pair of new commercial crew vehicle docking ports to be installed later this year.   More
(Source: NASA - Feb 18)

SOYUZ ROCKET BOOSTS RUSSIAN CARGO CRAFT TO SPACE STATION - Russia launched a Progress resupply mission Tuesday on a six-hour pursuit of the International Space Station with more than 6,000 pounds of fuel, supplies and experiments to support the lab’s six-person crew. A Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1100:17 GMT (6:00:17 a.m. EST), or 5 p.m. local time at the Central Asia space base. The three-stage launcher burned a mixture of kerosene and liquid oxygen as it powered into orbit with the Progress M-26M supply ship. After disappearing into low clouds about 20 seconds after liftoff, the Soyuz rocket shed four liquid-fueled strap-on boosters, jettisoned a protective shroud covering the Progress payload, then released its main core stage.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Feb 17)

LAST ATV REENTRY LEAVES LEGACY FOR FUTURE SPACE EXPLORATION - ESA’s fifth automated cargo ferry completed its mission to the International Space Station today when it reentered the atmosphere and burned up safely over an uninhabited area of the southern Pacific Ocean. The end of the mission as the craft broke up as planned at about 18:04 GMT (19:04 CET) marks the end of the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) programme. The programme has served the Station with the most complex space vehicle ever developed in Europe, achieving five launches in six years following its 2008 debut.    More
(Source: ESA - Feb 15)

EUROPE’S FINAL ATV CARGO VEHICLE UNDOCKS FROM ISS - Europe’s Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-5, the Georges Lemaitre) has departed from the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday morning, ahead of a destructive re-entry on Sunday. The End Of Mission (EOM) events will complete the final ISS mission for the European cargo ship, although its spirit will live on with NASA’s Orion spacecraft program.The ATV-5 was launched on July 29, 2014 – atop an Ariane ES booster from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana. ATV-5 proved to be the heaviest passenger ever to ride on the Ariane rocket.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight - Feb 14)

ISRO TO LAUNCH ITS FIRST US SATELLITE, FOR STARTUP SKYBOX - The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) will launch its first American satellite later this year or early next year. This is from the company Skybox Imaging, which was bought by Google after it signed the contract with Isro. Skybox is planning to launch a series of satellites from other places for highresolution imaging. Google reportedly has big plans to enter the space industry, and is planning a constellation of 180 satellites in low earth orbit, which will provide Internet access throughout the world. According to earlier reports, the cost of this constellation will be somewhere between $1 billion and $3 billion. Isro signed the deal with Skybox in April 2014.    More
(Source: Economic Times - Feb 14)

EUROPE'S FINAL ATV CARGO SHIP LEAVES SPACE STATION SATURDAY: WATCH LIVE - An unmanned European space ship as big as a double-decker bus will leave the International Space Station tomorrow, signaling the end of a line of cargo ships that had delivered supplies to astronauts since 2008. Packed with astronaut trash, the European Space Agency's (ESA) fifth and last Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-5) will undock from the orbiting outpost Saturday morning (Feb. 14) at 8:41 a.m. EST. You can watch the undocking live on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV. The space agency's coverage will begin at 8:15 a.m. EST. [Europe's ATV-5 Space Cargo Ship Mission in Pictures]    More
(Source: Space.com - Feb 14)

Previous Next