In another historic milestone for Endeavour’s final flight, the fleet’s youngest orbiter chased down the International Space Station (ISS) to kick start the docked phase of the STS-134 mission. Endeavour arrived in superb shape, with the Mission Management Team (MMT) only having to review a handful of very minor issues, following an extremely clean ascent to [...]
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International Space Station (ISS) program managers have approved the use of Dual Docked Operations (DDO) during the upcoming STS-134 mission, the first time such an operation has ever been cleared for use. Managers are also planning to conduct a Soyuz flyabout during the STS-134 mission, per its official return to the mission plan following previous [...]
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NASA HQ appear to be closing in on a decision to combine the second and third of three planned Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) demonstration flights (C2 and C3) of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule. Internal schedules, presentations and memos are continuing to point towards a working plan for a preliminary November 30 launch date for the [...]
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Russia’s Progress M-10M spacecraft, also going by its American designation of 42P, launched on Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:05 PM GMT. Following a two day chase-down of the International Space Station (ISS), automated docking to the Nadir port of Docking Compartment-1 (DC-1) “Pirs” will occur on Friday (29th April) at 2:29 [...]
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NASA has awarded four Space Act Agreements in the second round of the agency’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev-2), a commercial effort aimed to foster domestic crew transportation by the middle of the decade. The winners – ranging from lifting body to capsule spacecrafts – were Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada Corporation, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and [...]
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Following a relatively relaxed week at Pad 39A, Endeavour is preparing to enter Ordnance installation tasks on Monday and Tuesday, as the youngest orbiter in the fleet heads into her final week prior to the launch countdown. With the Flight Readiness Review (FRR) also set to take place on Tuesday, managers are making their final [...]
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With a large amount of contingency in her pad flow, Endeavour’s processing pace has slowed down this week. The flow is expected to ramp up on Friday as preparations begin for S0007 (Launch Countdown) operations. While the feared government shutdown was averted, memos pre-empting the possibility revealed some insight into the latest launch window planning [...]
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Following a meeting between NASA and Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) managers on Friday, a decision was made to call off the planned Soyuz documentary flyabout of the International Space Station (ISS) and Endeavour during the STS-134/ULF-6 mission, due to concerns with crew impacts in the event that the Soyuz should fail to re-dock with the [...]
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Russia’s Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft, which also goes by its American designation of 26S, has blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday (4th April) at 10:18:20 PM GMT, carrying three crewmembers for the International Space Station’s (ISS’) Expedition 27 and Expedition 28 crews.
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NASA managers have been presented with a working plan and completed assessments on the potential for a Soyuz flyaround of the Shuttle/Station stack during Endeavour’s docked mission. With many of the hurdles from the cancelled STS-133 flyabout plan removed, the unique event has a high potential of being approved by the International Space Station (ISS) [...]
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The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA’s) H-II Transfer Vehicle-2 (HTV-2) “Kounotori” (White Stork) is departing from the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday, after a 60 day visit to the orbital outpost. Launched to the ISS on 22nd January, HTV-2 arrived at the space station on 27th January after a five day free flight, whereupon it was [...]
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With Discovery enjoying her final docked mission – with glowing praise from her crew during nearly every media event – the workhorse of the fleet is providing no headaches for her engineering teams on the ground during her swansong flight. No issues of note are being worked on the orbiter in one of the “cleanest” [...]
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With the first spacewalk (EVA) of the mission behind them, Discovery’s crew has further completed one of the mission’s primary objectives: the installation of the PMM (Permanent Multipurpose Module) Leonardo, the final U.S. permanent pressurized module, to the International Space Station. Meanwhile, a proposed flyabout by a Russian Soyuz has been formally cancelled.
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The Damage Assessment Team (DAT) confirmed Discovery’s clean ascent into space by clearing the orbiter from a Focused Inspection, as STS-133′s mission continues to proceed flawlessly. With a host of robotic operations picking up shortly after Discovery arrived at the orbital outpost for the final time, the crew are heading toward the opening spacewalk – [...]
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A healthy orbiter Discovery and her crew have completed a stunning R-bar Pitch Maneuver (RPM) and docking to the International Space Station. Additionally, Discovery’s extremely clean ride to orbit signals the outstanding work of numerous engineers to clear a potential contamination concern within the External Tank following the inadvertent opening of a backup Fill and [...]
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After an eight-day (8 day) orbital chase, Europe’s Automated Transfer Vehicle-2 (ATV-2) has conducted a picture perfect automated docking to the aft end of the International Space Station’s (ISS’s) “Zvezda” Service Module (SM). ATV-2 was launched atop an Ariane V booster from the Kourou Space Center in French Guiana last Wednesday (16th February) evening, and [...]
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With the countdown clocks now ticking down for the launch of STS-133 at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), the crew of the International Space Station (ISS) have been hard at work this past week, reconfiguring the station for the arrival of Discovery this Saturday. The reconfiguration period is set to continue this week, as the [...]
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NASA is gearing up for what will be a jammed packed STS-133, along with the possibility of a Soyuz fly-around during Discovery’s docked mission still under consideration. To this end, NASA has created a plan to protect Discovery OBSS (Orbiter Boom Sensor System) sensor packages during the proposed maneuver. The vehicle’s Wing Leading Edge Impact Detection [...]
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Two Russian Cosmonauts stepped outside the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday to perform a spacewalk on the Russian Segment (RS) of the orbital outpost. The spacewalk – which was expected to last around six hours, but was completed in under five hours - comes amid a busy time on the ISS, with the ATV-2 launch, [...]
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Arianespace’s launch of the European Space Agency ATV-2 (Automated Transfer Vehicle 2) spacecraft on a multi-month mission to deliver thousands of pounds of supplies to the leading orbital outpost has lifted off at the second attempt at 21:50 GMT on Wednesday, following a scrub late in Tuesday’s countdown. The mission is set to hold the distinction [...]
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