Results tagged “ISS”

In an article posted on Spaceflight Now Gilles Leclerc, Director General of Space Technologies at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) confirms that the International Space Station (ISS) partners have contacted Russia about purchasing an additional Soyuz spacecraft, potentially one new flight per year between 2013 and 2016. Currently an additional seat on a Soyuz costs $56 million based on the last contract signed by the U.S.

Veteran astronaut Chris Hadfield has been apparently slotted in as the International Space Station Expedition 35 Commander according to sources. This is something of a surprise as Canada was not expected to have another long duration stay until 2015. Hadfield becomes the first Canadian to be selected as an Expedition Commander.

Space shuttle Atlantis and six astronauts ended a 12-day journey of more than 4.8 million miles with an 8:48 a.m. EDT landing Wednesday at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Watch how the Shuttle's Canadarm and Canadarm2 will work together on Flight Day 5 to install the Russian-built Mini Research Module-1 (MRM-1), which will mark the first time the Station's robotic arm installs a Russian module on the International Space Station.

The seven-member STS-131 crew headed to the International Space Station aboard space shuttle Discovery after its launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 6:21 a.m. EDT. The liftoff came 45 minutes before sunrise Monday, Apr. 5, and lit up Florida's Space Coast sky. The STS-131 Commander is Alan Poindexter; Jim Dutton is the Pilot and the Mission Specialists are Rick Mastracchio, Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, Stephanie Wilson, Clay Anderson and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Naoko Yamazaki. Dutton, Lindenburger and Yamazaki are making their first spaceflights.

Today in Tokyo the leaders of the space agencies from Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia and the United States met to discuss the future of the International Space Station (ISS). The space station is nearing completion and the group noted there are no technical constraints to continue operations beyond 2015 to 2020 and possibly 2028. Extending the lifespan of the station to 2028 is a matter of certifying the on-orbit elements, something the ISS partners are currently doing.

Canadian Space Agency Flight Engineer Robert Thirsk, Expedition 21 Flight Engineer and Soyuz Commander Roman Romanenko and European Space Agency Flight Engineer Frank De Winne undocked their Soyuz spacecraft from the station at 10:56 p.m. EST Monday and landed in Kazakhstan at 2:15 a.m. Tuesday, 1:15 p.m. local Kazakhstan time. The Soyuz spacecraft landed upright which helped the search and recovery teams extract the astronauts.

Six months aboard the International Space Station has flown by at orbital speed. If asked to do so, I could remain aboard the Station and continue to perform well. But I feel a fatigue setting in that even weekends and a good night's sleep cannot relieve. It is now time to return home.

Next Tuesday Robert Thirsk will return to Earth on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft ending his six month stay on the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 21. In his last week in space he will be very busy with ongoing experiments but will no doubt have time to reflect on the past six months and among those thoughts will be the realization that this is most likely his last time in space.

NASA's space shuttle Atlantis lifted-off today at 2:28 p.m. ET on an 11-day mission to service the the International Space Station (ISS). On-board the shuttle is the Canadian APEX-Cambium (Advanced Plant EXperiments on Orbit) experiment. The experiment will help determine the role gravity plays in trees forming different kinds of wood.

The US space program is scheduled to fly its last Space Shuttle mission late next year meaning Canada's astronauts will have to ride a Russian Soyuz rocket if they are to visit the International Space Station (ISS). The Russians have been charging space tourists $35 million US of late and will be charging the US space program $51 million US per flight starting in 2016 to fly on a Soyuz.