Outer-Space: Reaching Beyond

  • Weekly Space Blog 5/30

    Sea Launch successfully launches Eutelsat Satellite Following a 15 month gap between mission’s Sea Launch returned on Monday to successfully launch a 6.6 ton Eutelsat 3B satellite.  The Zenit 3SL rocket lifted off successfully and following a nominal flight successfully deployed the satellite to orbit. The communication’s satellite will now use it’s engine’s to transfer…

  • SpaceX unveils Dragon v2 – Crew Vehicle

    This evening Elon Musk unveiled the next version of the Dragon spacecraft designed to take crews to the International Space Station and beyond.  The crewed version of Dragon has undergone quite a transformation from the first version which was hanging above the crowd during the unveiling.  The spacecraft is much bigger then before, has SuperDraco…

  • Soyuz TMA-13M completes six hour flight to ISS

    At 3:57 pm EDT this afternoon the Soyuz TMA-13M lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome carrying Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev, NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman and European Space Agency flight engineer Alexander Gerst.  Following a successful climb to orbit the spacecraft began a four orbit, six hour journey towards the International Space Station (ISS). The spacecraft completed docking at…

  • Morpheus Lander Night Flight Test

    This evening the Morpheus Lander performed it first night flight test to demonstrate the Autonomous Landing Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT)’s ability to function even in the dark. The initial test was aborted, however following a review of the data the team re-cycled and was able to perform a successful test concluding with a successful landing…

  • Weekly Space Blog 5/23

    SpaceX Dragon completes successful mission Last Sunday at 3:05pm the SpaceX Dragon capsule successfully completed it’s CRS-3 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) with a splashdown in the Pacific ocean. Launched on April 18th aboard a Falcon 9 rocket the Dragon spacecraft, carrying nearly 5,000 lbs of supplies and payloads including two in the…

  • Another successful Morpheus Test Flight

    Today was a busy day in Florida following on from the successful launch of Atlas 5 this morning another flight occurred a KSC when the Morpheus Lander test vehicle took to the skies for another flight. This was the first closed-loop ALHAT free flight onboard Morpheus, which basically means the ALHAT operated completely autonomously during…

  • Successful Liftoff of NROL-33 aboard Atlas 5

    This morning a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida carrying the NROL-33 classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. Liftoff occurred at 9:09am EDT and all was progressing well up to payload separation.  Due to the nature of the launch there was a news blackout after that so we…

  • Weekly Space Blog 5/16

    Soyuz TMA-11M crew lands safely The three crew members of TMA-11M landed safely after spending 188 days in space, See full article here Russia fires back over US Sanctions This week Russia fire back against US sanctions in two key areas, the first was to spurn NASA’s proposal to extend the life of the ISS through 2024.…

  • Expedition 39 Mission concludes

    Yesterday Station Commander Koichi Wakata handed control of the International Space Station to US Astronaut Steve Swanson to begin the final stage of the TMA-11M crews return to earth.  Mikhail Tyurin, Rick Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata have spent the last 188 days on the space station, during which time they saw the departure of Progress M-22M, the…

  • Weekly Blog 5/9

    This week in Space News SpaceX launch of Orbcomm OG2 satellites delayed The planned launch of six commercial communications satellites for Orbcomm has been delayed.  The planned static fire test on Thursday was called off after SpaceX ran into technical trouble during the countdown.  The static fire test was rescheduled for Friday but was stopped while the rocket…

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