Landing on the Kazakh Steppe, two members of the International Space Station’s Expedition 51 crew returned to Earth on June 2, 2017, after spending 196 days in orbit. Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet landed in their Soyuz MS-03 capsule about an hour before sunset local time at 8:10 p.m. (10:10 a.m. EDT / 14:10 GMT).
Read MoreJust a day before Memorial Day, SpaceX performed its customary static fire test on a Falcon 9 slated to send the CRS-11 Dragon capsule to the International Space Station. The test took place at noon EDT (16:00 GMT), May 28, 2017, at Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A. The several-second ignition, as well as the following planned abort, was soon confirmed by SpaceX via its Twitter account.
Read MoreJust three days after the failure of a key data relay box, a contingency spacewalk was planned by ground teams and executed by International Space Station astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer to replace the component.
Read MoreA data relay box failure outside the International Space Station has prompted mission managers to begin planning a contingency spacewalk. On Tuesday, May 23, 2017, NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer will venture outside the Quest airlock to replace the failed component.
Read MoreFor the 200th time in nearly two decades, two people aboard the International Space Station donned spacesuits and ventured outside to perform a spacewalk. Problems during preparations for the excursion, however, ultimately caused it to be cut short by more than two hours.
Read MoreNASA astronaut Peggy Whitson has broken the space duration record set by Jeff Williams last year by surpassing 534 cumulative days in space over her three long-duration missions.
Whitson is currently aboard the ISS on her third long-duration mission and is the current commander of the outpost. She launched in November 2016 and is new expected to stay in space through early September 2017, a three-month extension to her original flight plan. She broke the duration record at 1:17 a.m. EDT (05:17 GMT) April 24, 2017.
Read MoreAfter a four-day cruise to the International Space Station, Orbital ATK’s OA-7 Cygnus spacecraft, named S.S. John Glenn, was captured and berthed to the outpost.
Capture of the 6.4-meter long spacecraft by the station’s robotic Canadarm2 came at 6:05 a.m. EDT (10:05 GMT) April 22, 2017. Expedition 51 Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency as well as Commander Peggy Whitson of NASA were at the Robotics Work Station in the Cupola window controlling the arm.
Read MoreNASA astronaut Peggy Whitson’s stay aboard the International Space Station has been extended by three months through Expedition 52, adding to her already record-breaking mission.
Instead of returning to Earth in June 2017 with the Soyuz MS-03 capsule she launched in along side Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet, 57-year-old Whitson will remain aboard the ISS and fly home in September 2017 with the crew of Soyuz MS-04, which will have a vacant seat.
Read MoreAn astronaut duo stepped outside the International Space Station in the second spacewalk in less than a week. Expedition 50 Commander Shane Kimbrough and Flight Engineer Peggy Whitson ventured outside on a 7-hour long spacewalk to outfit a recently relocated docking module to ready it for commercial crew spacecraft sometime in 2018.
Read MoreGround-based robotics teams remotely commanded the International Space Station’s robotic Canadarm2 to move the Space Shuttle-era Pressurized Mating Adapter 3 to the forward end of the outpost. The March 26, 2017, relocation was part of a multi-year effort to prepare the ISS for future commercial crew spacecraft.
Read MoreOrbital Velocity is designed to be "living time capsule" about the International Space Station.
This project is an attempt to bridge an information gap between space agencies and companies, as well as a public that supports space endeavors with their tax dollars. Despite the importance of the space station, the general public doesn't always know what is happening aboard this amazing complex on a regular basis. Research being conducted isn't always readily available and what information is out there can sometimes be difficult to understand. Some people aren't even aware there is an active space program, let alone a space station.
Orbital Velocity hopes to change that by building a database of information through blogs, a website, small videos and longer documentary-like series'.
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