Long time Russian space observer James Oberg has penned a very interesting article at NBCnews.com which suggests that Russia is subtly attempting to get the U.S. government to acknowledge its absorption of the Crimea by shifting some mandatory cosmonaut training to that region. From the article: “Shifting the survival training to Russian-occupied Crimea will require […]
It was something of a Black Friday for the launch industry yesterday. In addition to the SpaceX F9-R “explosion” in Texas, a bizarre story has emerged regarding an Arianespace launch which happened the same day. The launch, which took place aboard a Russian built commercial Soyuz out of French Guiana and under the Arianespace banner, […]
Russia’s long awaited Angara booster lifted off today on a suborbital test flight which carried with it the hopes of a revival in the Russian launch industry after years decades of reliance on Soviet era boosters. The Angara 1.2PP or ML (Maiden Launch) Integrated Launch Vehicle (ILV) lifted off from the far northern Plesetsk cosmodrome […]
Fox News ran a special entitled “Surrendering America” several times over the last weekend in March. Three of the four segments covered control of the internet, defense spending and energy production, with the theme somewhat predictably being that under the Obama Administration, the U.S. is consciously “retreating” or failing to adequately protect its own interests […]
Note: Even as members of a House Science Committee were arguing about the who is responsible for America’s inability to launch its own astronauts, the crew of Expedition 39 made its delayed docking to ISS, bringing the station’s compliment back up to six. From NASA.gov: A new trio of Expedition 39 flight engineers has arrived […]
From NASA: The next trio of crew members destined for the International Space Station is now looking forward to a Thursday arrival at the orbiting laboratory after their Soyuz spacecraft was unable to complete its third thruster burn to fine-tune its approach. Soyuz Commander Alexander Skvortsov and Flight Engineers Oleg Artemyev of the Russian […]
Image Credit: NASA Today finds two launch vehicles and two capsules at their respective pads waiting for blast-off to the International Space Station. First up is the Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, scheduled to launch expedition 39 at 5:17 pm EDT today. The crew consists of Oleg Artemyev, Alexander Skvortsov, and Steve Swanson. […]
From NASA: Expedition 38 Lands In Kazakhstan Completing Mission Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov and Expedition 38 Flight Engineers Mike Hopkins and Sergey Ryazanskiy landed in Kazakhstan at 11:24 p.m. EDT. They landed inside the Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft ending their mission after five-and-a-half months aboard the International Space Station. The trio undocked from the Poisk module […]
Some good news regarding ISS comes up in a Spacepolicyonline report of a briefing yesterday provided by Bill Gerstenmaier, Head of NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations(HEO) Mission Directorate to a NASA Advisory Council Subcommittee. In looking ahead to what comes after ISS, Gerstenmair observed: ““I don’t think there’ll be another government-sponsored space station.”” Instead, “He […]
Slight Spoiler Warning: Does the surprising success of the motion picture “Gravity” foretell an ominous future for the International Space Station? Leaving aside the numerous logical gaps in the movie, which to some least, are even more disconcerting in an effort which otherwise succeeds in achieving a hyper realism than they would be in a […]
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