December 16, 2025
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Breaking News
  • [ December 15, 2025 ] Rocket Lab Electron rocket aborts liftoff at engine ignition Electron
  • [ December 15, 2025 ] ULA Atlas 5 launch puts Amazon’s 180th broadband satellite in low Earth orbit Atlas 5
  • [ December 14, 2025 ] Falcon 9 launch of 29 Starlink satellites from the Kennedy Space Center delayed to Wednesday Falcon 9
  • [ December 14, 2025 ] SpaceX launches 100th Falcon 9 rocket from Florida in 2025 Falcon 9
  • [ December 13, 2025 ] SpaceX completes 550th booster landing amid Saturday night Falcon 9 flight Falcon 9

Russian EVA-45A

Mission Reports

Photos: Russian spacewalkers perform ‘surgery’ on Soyuz spacecraft

December 19, 2018 Stephen Clark

Armed with a knife, scissors and other cutting tools, cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Sergey Prokopyev went outside the International Space Station on Dec. 11 to slice into the thermal insulation of a Soyuz spaceship and inspect the site of a repaired air leak that briefly caused a minor drop in air pressure in the research outpost earlier this year.

Mission Reports

Russian spacewalkers cut into Soyuz spaceship to inspect leak repair

December 11, 2018 Stephen Clark

Clad in pressurized spacesuits, Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Sergey Prokopyev used knives and scissors to slice through insulation and a debris shield on a Soyuz spaceship set to return to Earth next week, finally reaching the capsule’s metallic hull to examine the site of an air leak plugged in August.

News Headlines

  • Rocket Lab Electron rocket aborts liftoff at engine ignition
    December 15, 2025
  • ULA Atlas 5 launch puts Amazon’s 180th broadband satellite in low Earth orbit
    December 15, 2025
  • Falcon 9 launch of 29 Starlink satellites from the Kennedy Space Center delayed to Wednesday
    December 14, 2025
  • SpaceX launches 100th Falcon 9 rocket from Florida in 2025
    December 14, 2025
  • SpaceX completes 550th booster landing amid Saturday night Falcon 9 flight
    December 13, 2025
  • Blue Origin halfway through 4-flight certification to allow launch of national security missions
    December 13, 2025
  • Study: Current, future megaconstellations risk space-based astronomy
    December 12, 2025
  • SpaceX breaks launch pad turnaround record with flight of Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral
    December 11, 2025
  • SpaceX launches 160th Falcon 9 rocket of 2025
    December 10, 2025
  • SpaceX launches classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office
    December 9, 2025
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