Russia launched a Soyuz rocket with the latest Progress resupply freighter bound for the International Space Station, docking nearly 3.5 hours later.
Progress MS-11 launched atop a Soyuz 2.1a rocket from site 31 at Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. Liftoff took place at 11:01 UTC April 4, 2019, setting the stage for the spacecraft to rendezvous with the outpost just over three hours later.
Read MoreNASA astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Koch ventured outside the International Space Station to continue work to replace aging nickel-hydrogen batteries on the P4 truss segment.
The March 29, 2019, extravehicular activity was the second of three planed in less than a month and focused on installing three battery adapter plates and new lithium-ion units.
Read MoreNASA said assignments for the next two spacewalks outside the International Space Station have been changed because of “spacesuit availability.”
On Mach 25, 2019, NASA said Expedition 59 Flight Engineers Anne McClain and Nick Hague will switch spacewalking assignments.
Read MoreTwo NASA astronauts ventured outside the 20-year-old International Space Station to replace aging nickel-hydrogen batteries with fresh lithium-ion units.
Floating outside the Quest airlock to perform the 6.5-hour-long U.S. EVA-52 was NASA’s Anne McClain and Nick Hague, both Expedition 59 flight engineers.
Read MoreAfter a successful launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft rendezvoused and docked with the International Space Station some six hours later.
Aboard Soyuz MS-12 was Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin and NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Koch. The spacecraft’s arrival at the Earth-facing port of the Rassvet module at 01:01 UTC March 15 doubled the outpost’s crew size and set the stage for a busy next couple of weeks of spacewalks and science.
Read MoreThe historic Crew Dragon Demo-1 mission has come to a conclusion with a successful splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean not far from where its mission began six days ago.
Following a five-day mission attached to the International Space Station, the unpiloted Crew Dragon autonomously undocked at 07:32 UTC March 8, 2019, and began moving to a safe distance. The spacecraft left the vicinity of the outpost about 20 minutes later.
Read MoreIf humans are ever to settle the Solar System sustainably, a number of technologies will need to be perfected, including in-space refueling.
As such, NASA created the Robotic Refueling Mission, or RRM, a series of experiments designed to understand and perfect technologies for robotic propellant transfer and help extend the life of spacecraft.
Read MoreFor the first time since the end of the Space Shuttle program, a U.S. spacecraft designed to fly humans has docked with the International Space Station.
At 10:51 UTC March 3, SpaceX’s unpiloted Crew Dragon Demo-1 spacecraft made contact with the docking adapter at the forward end of the International Space Station.
Read MoreHaving launched Nov. 17, 2018, and spent 81 days attached to the International Space Station, the NG-10 Cygnus, named SS John Glenn by Northrop Grumman, was unberthed Feb. 8 to perform a two-week stand-alone mission. That post-ISS flight came to an end at about 09:00 UTC Feb. 25, 2019, when the spacecraft’s engine performed a deorbit burn to lower its orbit enough for Earth’s atmosphere to drag it down, safely burning it up of the Pacific Ocean.
Read MoreWhile the first Commercial Crew flights are just around the corner, NASA is looking to buy a little more buffer time in order to ensure uninterrupted access to the International Space Station.
First reported by NASASpaceflight, a procurement document published on Feb. 13, 2019, shows the U.S. space agency is looking to buy two more seats aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft. These seats would presumably be on Soyuz MS-15 and Soyuz MS-16 in the fall of 2019 and spring of 2020 respectively.
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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