Category: Space
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ISS Contingency Spacewalk Completed Successfully
Astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer completed a 2 hour 41-minute contingency spacewalk today following the failure of an Multiplexer-Demultiplexer (MDM) over the weekend. During the walk, they successfully replaced the MDM and also installed two wireless network antenna’s This was Peggy’s 10th walk for a total time of 60 hours 21-minutes, surpassing John Grunsfeld to…
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SpaceX launches Inmarsat-5 F4 satellite
SpaceX continued its busy launch campaign today with the successful delivery to orbit of the Inmarsat-5 F4 communications satellite. The payload was originally planned to be launched using the companies Falcon Heavy Rocket due to the weight of the satellite. However, with the upgrades to the Falcon 9 over the years it is was powerful…
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SLS delayed again and no crew on EM-1
This week NASA announced that they had completed the study requested by the Trump administration who had requested that they look into add crew to the first launch of the Space Launch System (SLS). NASA concluded that it would cost an additional $600-900 million to do this and would delay the first flight until sometime…
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200th ISS Spacewalk Complete
Astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer completed a 4 hours, 13 minute spacewalk successfully today, this was the 200th at the International Space Station. The spacewalk which was shortened due to an issue with a Service and Cooling Umbilical hose used to provide power and consumables to the spacesuits while inside of the station, this…
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SpaceX launches NROL-76 satellite
This morning SpaceX completed another important milestone in their history as they launched the first National Reconnaissance Office Payload the NROL-76 satellite. As with all NROL launches the exact details of the payload and its final orbit were not released however Elon Musk tweeted that Launch and Landing of the payload were good if we get…
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Soyuz MS-04 arrives at ISS
Following a smooth flight, Cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and NASA Astronaut Jack Fischer completed their four orbit chase of the International Space Station (ISS) and docked at 9:18 AM EDT. Once the leak checks had been completed the hatches were opened, at 11:05 AM EDT, between the two vehicles allowing them to float into the station to begin their time…
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Chinese Long March 7 launches Tianzhou-1
Another space station launch occurred today with the Chinese launch of Tianzhou-1. Carried to orbit by the countries Long March 7 rocket the cargo vehicle is due to perform an automated docking with the Chinese space station Tiangong-2. The station which has been orbiting since 15th September 2016 is currently unmanned, however, a crew did say…
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Soyuz MS-04 launches to ISS
At 3:13 AM EDT today the Soyuz MS-04 was launched from Baikonur to begin a four orbit, six hour journey to dock with the International Space Station (ISS). For the first time since October 2005, the vehicle was only carrying two crew members instead of the typical three. This is due to a change made…
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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…