Mission Reports
Live coverage: Space station crew back on Earth
Outgoing space station commander Randy Bresnik, joined by Russian cosmonaut Sergey Ryazanskiy and European Space Agency flight engineer Paolo Nespoli, returned to Earth early Thursday after nearly five months in orbit. Their Soyuz MS-05 capsule undocked from the International Space Station at 12:14 a.m. EST (0514 GMT), and landed on the steppe of Kazakhstan at 3:37 a.m. EST (0837 GMT).
Rocket Lab begins new countdown with fix for propulsion system glitch
With a fix in place for a propulsion system alarm that cut short a countdown in the final seconds Monday, U.S. time, Rocket Lab readied an Electron rocket for another try Wednesday night, but unfavorable upper level winds kept the booster grounded. The Electron rocket is awaiting launch on a test flight aiming to deliver three small commercial CubeSats to orbit from a remote New Zealand launch pad.
Four more Galileo navigation satellites ride Ariane 5 rocket into orbit
Unimpeded by rain showers and a dark gray blanket of low clouds, an Ariane 5 rocket thundered away from a European-run space base in the jungle of French Guiana Tuesday to place four Galileo navigation satellites in orbit, an on-target deployment that should improve the location accuracy of new smartphones around the world.
Live coverage: Ariane 5 blasts off with Galileo satellite quartet
Four European navigation satellites fastened on top of an Ariane 5 rocket lifted off from Kourou, French Guiana, at 1836:07 GMT (1:36:07 p.m. EST) Tuesday to propel the Galileo navigation network closer to global service. The Ariane 5’s upper stage delivered the spacecraft to a circular orbit more than 14,000 miles above Earth around four hours after launch.