The Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft, launched on October 17, has just reached the International Space Station and was captured by Canadarm2 robotic arm. Astronaut Takuya Onishi, assisted by his colleague Kate Rubins, began the slow maneuver to move the Cygnus until it docked with the Station Harmony node after about two hours.
A little while ago the Soyuz-02 MS spacecraft, which blasted off about two days ago from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, has reached the International Space Station carrying three new crewmembers. Robert Kimbrough of NASA, Andrey Borisenko and Sergey Ryzhikov of Roscosmos now complete the Expedition 49 crew.
The ESA and Roscosmos’ TGO (Trace Gas Orbiter) space probe and the lander Schiaparelli have reached Mars completing the first phase of the first mission within the ExoMars program, started with their launch on March 14, 2016. Schiaparelli had separated from the TGO on October 16 with some thrill because the maneuver was successful but its telemetry data arrived with considerable delay.
A little while ago ago the Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying Shane Kimbrough, Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko to transport them to the International Space Station. The new version of the Soyuz spacecraft was launched once again in the route that will take two days instead of the six-hour fast path to keep on testing the new on-board systems.
It was late afternoon in California when Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft blasted off atop an Antares rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), part of NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) on Wallops Island. After about nine minutes it successfully separated from the rocket’s last stage went en route to its destination. This is its sixth official mission, called Orbital-5 or simply Orb-5 but also CRS OA-5, to transport supplies to the International Space Station for NASA.
