We are back after a two week break to enjoy the New England summer, this week we have lots of great news.
Russian Cosmonauts set new Space Walk Record
The week two Russian Cosmonauts broke the space walk endurance record by complete a 7h 29m excursion outside the International Space Station. Cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin were originally scheduled for a 6h 30m walk but Russian officials elected to extend the walk to allow them time to complete a task originally planned for a later walk. The previous record was set in 1990 by two Cosmonauts working outside the Mir Space Station.
NASA looks at new mission for Kepler
After several attempts to restore the failed Gyroscopes on the Kepler spacecraft Mission planners have determined that the primary mission of the spacecraft cannot be restored and are instead looking at way to utilize the craft in it’s current configuration. They are looking at several options but haven’t selected one yet. In the mean time there are still plenty of planet candidates left to analyze from the data collected by Kepler.
Proton Rocket launches to resume
Following a review of the launch failure in July Proton Rocket launches are scheduled to resume in September. The review concluded that key yaw angular sensors were forcible installed upside down causing the rocket to fail so quickly after launch, several recommendations have been made to the component manufacture that will not allow this to happen again.
SpaceX completed Orbit and Entry review for Dragon
SpaceX recently completed a preliminary design review of the systems that would be used to keep crews safe while in space and during re-entry to earth’s atmosphere. During the review company engineers present NASA and industry experts with details of all the systems which were dissected to ensure nothing was missed. This was the seventh milestone in the CCiCap initiative and SpaceX are marching towards a summer 2014 completion of all the milestones.
SpaceX Grasshopper News
This week SpaceX’s reusable test platform Grasshopper completed the first lateral divert test demonstrating that it has the ability to correct the dissent even if the vehicle is not directly above the landing pad and land in the correct spot. These tests are all steps towards Elon Musk’s dream of having fully re-usable rockets in the future.
Commercial Launch Schedule Changes
Mission planners have switched the Orbital and SpaceX Commercial Crew launches scheduled for December 2013 and January 2014. The original plan called for SpaceX launch three SpX-3 to go in December but due to scheduling conflicts they have elected to switch the missions. This assumes of course that the Orbital Demo mission scheduled for late September is successful. For SpaceX this will be the first Dragon launch using the new Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket which allows a greater cargo capacity on the vehicle.
NASA Astronaut Michael Foale retires
British born Astronaut Michael Foale has retired from NASA following a 25 year career which included a US record 374 days in space and saw him fly on Space Shuttle, Soyuz and two Space Stations. For more info on Michael check out his profile here.
And finally
Well that is all for this week, there are plenty of stories out there and I will have plenty more for next week. In meantime here are some of the sites I visit daily to get space news.
www.spaceref.com
www.spaceflightnow.com
www.nasaspaceflight.com
www.space.com
www.spacedaily.com
www.nasa.gov
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