A little while ago the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft, which blasted off about two days ago from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, has reached the International Space Station carrying three new crew members. The astronauts Serena Auñón-Chancellor of NASA and Alexander Gerst of ESA and the cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos now complete the Expedition 55 crew.
A little while while ago the astronauts Scott Tingle and Norishige Kanai and the cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov returned to Earth on the Soyuz MS-07 spacecraft, that landed without problems in Kazakhstan. The three of them spent almost 6 months on the International Space Station, where they arrived on December 19, 2017 as part of Expedition 54.
The Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft, launched on May 21, has just reached the International Space Station and was captured by Canadarm2 robotic arm. Astronaut Scott Tingle, assisted by his colleagues Ricky Arnold, and Drew Feustel, will soon begin the slow maneuver to move the Cygnus until it docks with the Station’s Unity node after about two hours.
A little while ago the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft was captured by the Canadarm2 robotic arm on the International Space Station. Norishige Kanai and Scott Tingle, assisted by their colleague Ricky Arnold, managed the operation then started moving the Dragon to the berthing point at the Harmony module. The cargo spacecraft blasted off last Monday.
Confirmation arrived that the Chinese space laboratory Tiangong 1 has fallen back to Earth. To be precise, at about 0.16 AM UTC it was destroyed over the Pacific Ocean. At the moment there are no information about possible damage caused by its fall but it’s possible that some pieces haven’t disintegrated.
Launched on September 29, 2011, the Tiangong 1 space laboratory was built to test a number of technologies needed to develop the Chinese space program. They concern docking systems, including automatic one, and the habitat inside it with the instruments needed to perform scientific experiments.
