NASA

SpaceX's Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft docking to the International Space Station (Image NASA TV)

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A few hours ago, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft docked to the International Space Station’s Harmony module completing the first part of its Crew-1 or SpaceX Crew-1 mission that began last Sunday with its launch. After checking that the pressure is correctly balanced, the hatch was opened to allow Shannon Walker, Victor Glover, Mike Hopkins, and Soichi Noguchi to enter the Station.

The Crew Dragon Resilience starts its Crew-1 mission blasting off atop a Falcon 9 rocket (Photo NASA/Joel Kowsky)

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A few hours ago, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft blasted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in its Crew-1 o SpaceX Crew-1 mission with Shannon Walker, Victor Glover, Mike Hopkins, and Soichi Noguchi on board. After about eleven minutes, it successfully separated from the rocket’s last stage and went en route to carry out its mission. This is the second crewed mission of the Crew Dragon spacecraft, this time within the normal rotation of the International Space Station crew.

The TAGSAM mechanism's head

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NASA has announced that the first visual inspection of the OSIRIS-REx space probe’s TAGSAM system, which captured soil samples from asteroid Bennu in the night between 21 and 22 October, has done its job well. In fact, the problem appears to be that the mechanism captured far too many materials and, after OSIRIS-REx moved away from Bennu, they started escaping. For this reason, the mission team decided to skip the various operations that would have allowed more significant examinations of the samples to try to seal them in the Sample Return Capsule to bring them back to Earth.

Chris Cassidy, Anatoly Ivanishin e Ivan Vagner (Photo NASA)

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A few hours ago, astronaut Chris Cassidy and cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner returned to Earth on the Soyuz MS-16 spacecraft, that landed in Kazakhstan. The three of them spent a bit more than 6 months on the International Space Station, where they arrived on April 9, 2020 as part of Expedition 62. After landing, they were assisted by a skeleton crew with the precautions needed to avoid the risk of Covid-19 infection.

Artist's concept of OSIRIS-REx descending to Bennu's surface (Image NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona)

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A few hours ago NASA’s OSIRIS-REx space probe descended to the surface of the asteroid Bennu to take soil samples in what was called TAG (Touch-And-Go). The selected area is in a crater that was named Nightingale with a diameter of about 16 meters in Bennu’s northern hemisphere. The operation was carried out fully automatically because there’s an 18.5 minute delay in communications due to the fact that OSIRIS-REx is about 334 million kilometers from Earth. If the result is satisfactory, this part of the mission will be over.