One mission concluded, one moved into its next phase, and another is getting ready to launch. Here’s a brief recap of the last few days’ worth of human spaceflight stories.
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With ULA sneaking in its first Atlas V launch between issues in this series, the only exciting launch I have to discuss this week is Russia’s crew rotation to the ISS. While it might seem like the only topic, it is indeed a significant event. MS-24, a crewed Soyuz mission, will replace the crew of MS-22, who have been in space for approximately a year.
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In contrast to the last few weeks, this week is relativity quiet in modern space launch terms. However, we do have the possibility of two SpaceX launches within 24 hours of each other again if launch dates hold and the weather is good.
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Over the weekend, an uncrewed Soyuz spacecraft arrived at the ISS to take the spot of MS-22, which sprang a leak last December. MS-23 will be the return spacecraft for two Russian cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut in the fall.
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Roscosmos launched the Soyuz MS-21 mission to the ISS this Friday at 15:55 UTC. Following spacecraft separation, the Soyuz Capsule docked with the ISS’s Prichal module around three hours later to begin a six-month mission.
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Over the past few days, the director of Russia’s space agency, Dimitry Rogozin, took to Twitter to make demands before launching OneWeb‘s next group of satellites. Then on March 3, the company decided to pull out entirely of its Baikonur-based Soyuz launches.
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Over the weekend, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy undocked his MS-18 Soyuz spacecraft from the International Space Station. Along for the ride were Russian actress Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko finishing their short stay in space.
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The International Space Station made an unplanned rotation this morning, and the station’s on board cameras captured it.
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Early Thursday morning, Arianespace launched Russia’s Soyuz rocket carrying 36 OneWeb satellites. This launch brought OneWeb’s constellation over the halfway point to completion.
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Roscosmos is preparing to launch two private citizens and a Russian cosmonaut to the International Space Station for a week and a half to film scenes for a movie called Challenge. NASA will provide live coverage of the launch.
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Roscosmos is preparing to relocate the MS-18 Soyuz spacecraft next Tuesday to make room for the crew of MS-19 arriving next month.
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Earlier today, 34 more OneWeb satellites were lifted into orbit on a Soyuz rocket that launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, this being the company’s 9th launch.
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After coming back from the dead recently, OneWeb continues to build out its constellation of satellites to provide networking service to terminals around the world.
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After six months working on the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Kate Rubins is returning to Earth tonight alongside her mission colleagues Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov. NASA will have live coverage through the night of the crew’s departure from ISS and return to Kazakhstan.
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Before Commercial Crew the Soyuz was the only way to the ISS and normally only two were ever docked, making up a crew size of no more than 6. Now with SpaceX’s Crew 1 is on board, upon MS-18’s arrival, there are now 10 crew members for Expedition 64.
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Expedition 64 continues and the beginning of Expedition 65 begins as teams prepare to launch the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft carrying 2 Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut to the ISS in the beginning of April.
Date: Friday, April 9th, 3:42 AM EDT
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