A little while ago, cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub and astronaut Tracy Caldwell-Dyson returned to Earth on the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft, which landed in Kazakhstan. Kononenko and Chub completed a one-year mission on the International Space Station while Caldwell-Dyson spent almost exactly 6 months on the Station.
A little while ago, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft concluded its Polaris Dawn mission splashing down without problems. Onboard were Jared Isaacman, Sarah Gillis, Anna Menon, and Scott Poteet, who finished this completely private space mission in the Gulf of Mexico. Shortly after the splashdown, the SpaceX ship went to retrieve the Crew Dragon and its crew to transport them to the coast.
A few hours ago, the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and after a little more than three hours reached the International Space Station with three new crew members on board. It docked with the Station’s Rassvet module. As is becoming increasingly common for crewed trips as well, the ultra-fast track was used which halves the journey duration.
A little while ago, the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center on the Polaris Dawn mission. After just over twelve minutes, it successfully separated from the rocket’s last stage. It will spend about five days in orbit on a completely private crewed space mission. For the first time, a spacewalk is planned during a private space mission.
A few hours ago, Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner Calypso spacecraft docked with the International Space Station’s Harmony module, completing the first leg of its Boe-CFT (Boeing Crewed Flight Test) mission which began with the launch just over 24 hours earlier. After checking that the pressure was correctly balanced, the hatch was opened to allow Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to enter the Station and begin their mission, which will last about a week.
