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.
A little while ago, Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner Calypso spacecraft blasted off atop a ULA Atlas V rocket from the Cape Canaveral base on its Boe-CFT (Boeing Crew Flight Test) mission. After about fifteen minutes, it successfully separated from the rocket’s last stage and soon it will start the maneuvers it needs to enter orbit and begin tracking the International Space Station.
Yesterday, the three Chinese taikonauts of the Shenzhou 17 mission returned to Earth after spending a little more than six months on the Chinese space station Tiangong. The three taikonauts Jiang Xinlin, Tang Hongbo, and Tang Shengjie had left the station about nine hours earlier to land at a site called Dongfeng in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. It’s a procedure that significantly reduces the time to return to Earth and now has become routine.
