Spacecraft

The Shenzhou 12 capsule after landing (Photo courtesy Xinhua/Ren Junchuan)

1

A few hours ago, the three Chinese taikonauts of the Shenzhou 12 mission returned to Earth after spending about three months on the Chinese space station’s Tianhe core module. Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming, and Tang Hongbo had left Tianhe about a day earlier to land at a site called Dongfeng in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. It was the longest Chinese space mission completed so far but the next missions to the Chinese space station are expected to last six months.

The Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft blasting off in the Inspiration4 mission (Photo courtesy Inspiration4 / John Kraus)

1

A few hours ago, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft blasted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in the Inspiration4 mission. After about eleven minutes it successfully separated from the rocket’s last stage. It will spend three days in orbit for the first completely private crewed space mission. It opens a further frontier for space tourism but is also linked to a charity campaign for the American St. Jude hospital in Memphis.

The Dragon 2 cargo spacecraft starting its CRS-23 mission blasting off atop a Falcon 9 rocket (Image NASA TV)

1

A little while ago, the SpaceX Dragon 2 spacecraft blasted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in its CRS-23 (Cargo Resupply Service 23) mission, also referred to as SPX-23. After almost exactly 12 minutes it separated successfully from the rocket’s last stage and went en route. This is the 23rd mission, the 3rd for the Dragon 2 version, for the Dragon spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station with various cargoes and then return to Earth, again with various cargoes.

The Cygnus S.S. Ellison Onizuka captured by the Canadarm2 robotic arm (Image NASA TV)

0

Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft, launched last Tuesday, August 10, has just reached the International Space Station and was captured by the Canadarm2 robotic arm. Astronaut Megan McArthur, assisted by her colleague Thomas Pesquet, will soon begin the slow maneuver to move the Cygnus until it docks with the Station’s Unity module after about two hours.