Category: Space
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And it gets worse – Progress ISS Re-boost also failed
Just as we thought things couldn’t get worse for Russia we were wrong. The planned International Space Station re-boost by the Progress M-26M failed when the engines on the spacecraft failed to start. The spacecraft which has been docked at the station since 17th February 2015 was supposed to raise the orbit of the station…
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Russia suffers second launch failure in 2 weeks
An International Launch Services (ILS) Proton-M rocket lifted off from Pad 39 in Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan early this morning carrying a Mexican communications satellite (MexSat-1). The initial part of the flight appeared to be nominally however at approximately 500 seconds something went wrong on the rocket’s third stage resulting in the loss of the satellite. The…
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Why we need multiple providers for Space Access
It became clear again this week why it is critical that we have multiple providers to access Space. With the Progress 59 (M-27M) failure recently the International Partners involved in the ISS have now had to rescheduled several future flights to accommodate the loss of the vehicle and allow time for the investigation into the loss…
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SpaceX completes Dragon 2 pad abort test
SpaceX completed another CCiCap milestone today with the successful Launchpad Abort Test of there Dragon 2 capsule. The capsules 8 SuperDraco engines propelled the vehicle away from the launchpad to a splashdown in the Atlantic ocean. The purpose of the test was to verify the design of the launch escape system a critical element for…
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Blue Origin Launches New Shepard
Blue Origin completed the first test flight of there New Shepard rocket yesterday, the New Shepard rocket uses their BE-3 engine which recently completed testing. The rocket is design to be fully re-usable, unfortunately they were not able to recover the main stage this time due to a hydraulic issue after the crew capsule was…
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Progress 59 (M-27M) Failure
While the Progress 59 (M-27M) spacecraft is still in orbit, Russian Mission Control have declared that it cannot be recovered, they have tried repeatedly to send commands to the vehicle in an attempt to control the rapid spinning but as several reports have stated they have had no luck. In addition orbital tracking shows at least…
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Will Progress failure have Impact on ISS re-supply
With what potentially looks like a loss of mission for Progress M-27M questions will once again arise as to the impact on re-supply to the International Space Station. At present the mission hasn’t been declared lost however the longer the vehicle spins out of control the more likely it is that they will not be…
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Progress 59 Out of Control
Following the successful launch yesterday morning mission control has not been able to regain control of the progress M-27M vehicle which at one point was seen spinning out of control on the third pass of ground stations. Mission control have informed the station that there will be no docking attempt on Thursday which was the backup…
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Progress 59 Launches
Russia launched the next Progress re-supply vehicle to the International Space Station early this morning the launch and deploy to orbit was successful, however the Progress M-27M spacecraft suffered a glitch once in orbit resulting in mission control deciding to use the two day flight plan instead of the six hour which had become common practice.…
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SpaceX launches TurkmenAlem52E/MonacoSat satellite
SpaceX has completed their 5th launch of the year with the delivery of the TurkmenAlem52E/MonacoSat satellite to orbit. The launch was delayed several weeks to allow SpaceX time to investigate issues they found with Helium bottles back at the factory and to allow the CRS-6 mission to take off on time. With this launch SpaceX…