Author: ChrisDMarshall
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ULA launches Cygnus on OA-7 mission to ISS
This morning at 11:14 AM EDT United Launch Alliance (ULA) successfully launched another Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft towards the International Space Station (ISS). This was the third Cygnus that ULA has launched for Orbital and at the present time the last. Named after the late John Glenn, former Astronaut and US Senator who passed away…
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ISS – Advanced Plant Habitat
One of the experiments making its way to the International Space Station (ISS) today is the Advanced Plant Habitat (APH). As part of the journey to Mars and beyond being able to grow plants for eating will be very important. This experiment builds on the older Veggie experiment that has been active on the station…
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Peggy Whitson ISS mission extention
NASA announced this week that Astronaut Peggy Whitson, who has already set several space flight records and will soon break Scott Kelly’s record for most time in space by a US Astronaut, will be staying on the International Space Station for an additional three months. Originally scheduled to return home in June this year with her…
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SpaceX vs NASA progress since 2010
In 2010 Senator Richard Shelby made the following statement “This request represents nothing more than a commercially-led, faith-based space program. Today, the commercial providers that NASA has contracted with cannot even carry the trash back from the space station much less carry humans to or from space safely. “These providers have yet to live up…
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SpaceX makes history with SES-10 launch
Today SpaceX once again made history with the first launch of a previously flown first stage booster. The Falcon 9 lifted off at 6:27 pm EDT today with the SES-10 payload. The booster was previously used for the SpaceX CRS-8 mission on 8th April 2016, the booster was the first to successfully land on an…
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Expedition 50 completes fourth EVA
Today Astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Peggy Whitson completed a 7 hour 4 minute Extravehicular Activity (EVA) bring the total count of EVA’s performed at the International Space Station (ISS) to 199 for a total time of 1,243 hours 42 minutes. During the EVA they completed the following primary tasks:- EPIC MDM removal & replace Node 3 axial…
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ISS PMA-3 moved
Following the successful spacewalk on Friday the International Space Station operations team used the station’s Canadarm2 to move the Pressurized Mating Adapter (PMA) 3 from its home on Node 3 where it has been since arrival in October 2000 to the Zenith of Node 2. With this move complete the next International Docking Adapter (IDA) can…
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Expedition 50 complete third EVA
Astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet completed the third Extravehicular activity (EVA) of Expedition 50 with the successful re-pressurization of the Quest airlock. The spacewalk lasted 6 hours 34 minutes and the astronauts completed the following tasks. Prepare PMA for Prepare PMA for move Installed new Epic MDM Camera WorkLubricated Canadarm2 end effector and inspected…
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ULA launches WGS 9
Following a delay to resolve an issue with the Delta 4 launcher ULA resolved the issue and delivered the WGS 9 satellite to orbit this evening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOk4ZbWb9dk
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SpaceX launches EchoStar 23
After several delays originally for the static fire test and then the weather SpaceX successfully completed its third launch of 2017 this morning with the delivery of the EchoStar 23 payload to orbit. Liftoff occurred at 02:00 with the ignition of the nine Merlin 1D engines that propelled the towards orbit. 35 minutes later confirmation of…