A confirmation has arrived that three Chinese taikonauts from the Shenzhou 16 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 fifth crew of the Chinese space station and will remain there for about six months, the standard duration for a mission.
A few hours ago, the Progress MS-23 spacecraft blasted off atop a Soyuz 2.1a rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. After about nine minutes it successfully separated from the rocket’s last stage and was placed on its ultra-fast track in its resupply mission to the International Space Station also called Progress 84 or 84P. After almost 3.5 hours it reached the International Space Station docking with its Poisk module. The ultra-fast track requires very precise maneuvering and a favorable position of the Station. For this reason, it wasn’t used in the previous two Russian resupply missions.
A little while ago, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft docked with the International Space Station’s Harmony module performing the first part of its private mission Axiom Mission 2 or simply Ax-2. It blasted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center when it was afternoon in the USA. After verifying that the pressure is properly balanced, the hatch will be opened to allow crew members to enter the Station.
A little bit more than one year after the Ax-1 mission, a new collaboration between public entities, which this time besides NASA includes the Saudi Space Commission, and private ones, sent new astronauts to the International Space Station to conduct a series of scientific experiments on behalf of entities that generally can’t carry out studies in microgravity conditions.
SpaceX conducted the flight test of its prototype Super Heavy rocket and Starship, launched from Boca Chica, Texas. This is the first test that saw the whole system of Elon Musk’s company which should revolutionize space travel with an unprecedented transport capacity and being totally reusable. In this case, however, these are prototypes with the Super Heavy identified as Booster 7 and Starship identified as Starship 24 or Ship24 or simply S24 which don’t have the safety requirements needed to conduct controlled landings. The test ended after almost 4 minutes with the explosion of both vehicles.
A few hours ago, SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft ended its CRS-27 (Cargo Resupply Service 27) mission for NASA splashing down smoothly off the Florida Coast. The Dragon left the International Space Station a few hours earlier. For SpaceX, this was the 7th mission of the 2nd contract with NASA to transport supplies to the Station with the new version of the Dragon cargo spacecraft.
Shortly after the splashdown, SpaceX’s recovery ship went to retrieve the Dragon to transport it to the coast. The cargo brought back to Earth will be delivered to NASA within a few hours. The Dragon spacecraft reached the International Space Station on March 16, 2023.
