News – Page 445 – Spaceflight Now

Soyuz makes pinpoint landing in Kazakhstan with crew of three

April 10, 2017 William Harwood

Astronaut Shane Kimbrough and his two Russian crewmates — Soyuz MS-02 commander Sergey Ryzhikov and flight engineer Andrey Borisenko — undocked from the International Space Station and plunged back to Earth Monday, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan to close out an extended 173-day mission.

Live coverage: Three-man crew closes out 173-day space mission

April 9, 2017 Stephen Clark

Outgoing space station commander Shane Kimbrough and two Russian crewmates returned to Earth on Monday, riding a Soyuz capsule in a bubble of hot plasma to a parachute-assisted landing in Kazakhstan. The trio undocked from the space station at 0757 GMT (3:57 a.m. EDT) and landed on the Kazakh steppe at 1120 GMT (7:20 a.m. EDT) Monday.

NASA, Roscosmos open to extending station operations to 2028

April 8, 2017 Stephen Clark

Top officials from NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, could decide soon to commit to keeping the International Space Station staffed and flying through at least 2028, four years after the research lab’s current retirement date.

Videos: Cygnus prepped for mission to space laboratory

April 8, 2017 Justin Ray

This is video footage documenting preparations for the commercial Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo freighter to perform the OA-7 mission to the International Space Station. Activities occurred at the Kennedy Space Center’s Space Station Processing Facility and the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility. The craft will be boosted into orbit by a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket on April 18 at 11:11 a.m. EDT (1511 GMT).

Italian radar satellite, European exoplanet telescope to launch on Soyuz next year

April 7, 2017 Stephen Clark

The Italian government has decided to launch two next-generation radar reconnaissance satellites on Soyuz and Vega rockets from French Guiana, and a European Space Agency telescope to study the structures of planets around other stars will likely ride to orbit as a co-passenger on one of the missions.

Videos: Strap in aboard Blue Origin’s suborbital spaceship

April 6, 2017 Stephen Clark

Step inside a prototype of Blue Origin’s crew capsule to get a glimpse of what space tourists will experience when the spaceship begins suborbital flights with passengers in 2018.

Photos: Blue Origin’s New Shepard booster on display

April 6, 2017 Stephen Clark

Scarred from five trips to the edge of space and back, Blue Origin’s privately-developed New Shepard rocket was on vertical display this week at the 33rd Space Symposium in Colorado Springs.

Blue Origin’s staying power bankrolled by Jeff Bezos’s multibillion-dollar investment

April 6, 2017 Stephen Clark

Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos, now the second-richest person in the world, is funding his space company’s lofty ambitions $1 billion per year, driving Blue Origin closer to taking paying passengers to the edge of space and fielding a reusable satellite launcher that will usher in a golden age of space exploration, the billionaire tycoon said Wednesday.

Whitson’s station expedition extended three months

April 5, 2017 William Harwood

NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, have agreed to extend astronaut Peggy Whitson’s stay aboard the International Space Station by three months to enable uninterrupted research aboard the orbital laboratory during a period when Russia is temporarily reducing its crew complement, the U.S. space agency said Wednesday.

Video: Take a virtual ride on the Atlas 5 launch pad emergency ziplines

April 4, 2017 Justin Ray

Commercial ziplines have been installed and tested at United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket pad as the emergency escape system if astronauts and ground personnel need to evacuate the Crew Access Tower.