Archive for October, 2011

ISS partners prepare to welcome SpaceX and Orbital in a busy 2012

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

Negotiations between the numerous International Space Station (ISS) partners are starting to result in an exciting 2012 manifest, as Agency vehicles play tag team with new commercial resupply craft. From a Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) standpoint, three – or four, if the C2/C3 demo slips to 2012 – SpaceX Dragon flights are set to head [...]

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Zenit 3SLB launches successfully with Intelsat-18 satellite

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

The Sea Launch company’s Land Launch division have followed up their return to flight of their oceanic adventures with the launch of their Zenit 3SLB, which is carrying the Intelsat-18 telecommunications satellite into orbit. Launch was on schedule at 17:00 Eastern (21:00 UTC) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, ahead of over six hours of flight [...]

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SLS trades lean towards opening with four RS-25s on the core stage

Tuesday, October 4th, 2011

The Space Launch System (SLS) is undergoing final refinements – known as trades – on a preferred baseline for the opening flights, with documentation showing a preference to debut the Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (HLV) with four RS-25s on the core stage, instead of three. Should this become an approved configuration, it would allow for [...]

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ISS Live to integrate public with orbital ops and science

Monday, October 3rd, 2011

After over 50 years of operation, NASA is about to permanently enter the world of instant (or near instant) information exchange with the general public in a new way that largely symbolizes one of the changing ways the premiere US space agency will interact with the public and disseminate information about science operations and real-time [...]

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Russian Soyuz successfully launches with Kosmos (Glonass-M)

Sunday, October 2nd, 2011

Russia has successfully launched the Kosmos (Glonass-M) satellite into orbit, following lift-off of their Soyuz 2-1B launch vehicle from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia, marking the first Soyuz launch since the August failure, which resulted in the loss of Progress M-12M. Launch occurred at 20:15 UTC on Sunday, with spacecraft separation over three hours [...]

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