A confirmation has arrived that three Chinese taikonauts from the Shenzhou 15 mission reached the Chinese space station Tiangong with an automated docking maneuver. They blasted off about seven hours earlier on a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. They form the fourth crew of the Chinese space station and will remain there for about six months, the standard duration for a mission.
A little while ago, SpaceX’s Dragon 2 spacecraft docked with the International Space Station’s Harmony module completing the first leg of its mission. It blasted off on a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in its CRS-26 (Cargo Resupply Service 26) mission, also referred to as SpX-2, on Saturday, when it was the afternoon in the USA. Astronauts Josh Cassada and Nicole Mann monitored the operation but the cargo spacecraft completed the maneuvers in an automated way without any problems.
Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft, launched last Monday, November 7, has just reached the International Space Station and was captured by the Canadarm2 robotic arm. Astronaut Nicole Mann, assisted by her colleague Josh Cassada, will soon begin the slow maneuver to move the Cygnus until it docks with the Station’s Unity module after about two hours.
Confirmation arrived that the Mengtian module successfully completed docking maneuvers with the Chinese Tiangong space station’s Tianhe core module. Mengtian was launched about 13 hours earlier from the Wenchang base on a Long March-5B rocket. A few hours after docking, the Shenzhou-14 mission taikonauts, as the Chinese call their astronauts, entered the new module. This success represents the completion of the first phase of the Chinese space station construction, as now it’s formed by the core module Tianhe and two laboratories after the Wentian reached orbit on July 24.
A few hours ago, the Progress MS-21 spacecraft docked with the International Space Station in the mission also referred to as Progress 82 or 82P. The Russian cargo spacecraft, which blasted off last Wednesday, October 26, Russian time, carries food, water, scientific experiments, fuel, and various hardware.
