NASA’s RapidScat instrument hosted outside the International Space Station has ended its mission of measuring winds over the world’s oceans after suffering a power failure earlier this year – just before reaching its planned two-year mission duration.
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The European Space Agency’s Trace Gas Orbiter successfully completed a pair of science checkout orbits around Mars and delivered a first glimpse of the scientific results to be expected from the orbiter’s instrument suite once reaching a low orbit around the planet in late 2017.
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A Russian Soyuz U rocket topped with a Progress cargo resupply craft was moved to its Launch Pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the early hours on Tuesday to enter final preparations for a Thursday liftoff on a two-day chase of the International Space Station to keep up a steady supply of cargo for the six crew members in orbit.
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The penultimate Soyuz U rocket was greeted by a colorful sunrise as it arrived at Site 1/5 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome Tuesday morning, being raised to its vertical launch position to enter final preparations for a nighttime liftoff on December 1, 2016
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The Cygnus OA-5 cargo craft closed out another very successful mission Sunday night via a targeted destructive re-entry over the Pacific Ocean, capping a flight of 41 days
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Japan’s Shootingstar Sensing Satellite re-entered the atmosphere on November 23, 2016 after 14 months in orbit tasked with collecting data on meteors entering Earth’s atmosphere.
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A one-second glitch led to a 3.7-Kilometer free fall for the European Space Agency’s Schiaparelli lander that crashed on Mars back on October 19 when attempting an experimental parachute-and-rocket-assisted landing on the red planet to pave the way for the ExoMars 2020 mission that aims to dispatch a rover to the Martian surface.
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China’s Shijian-17 satellite has reached its destination in Geostationary Orbit after a successful launch on the inaugural Long March 5 rocket and two weeks of orbital drifting until settling in its operational position.
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Unique photos captured last week’s Ariane 5 launch with a quadruplet of Galileo navigation satellites but observers also had eyes high in the sky to capture equally tantalizing views of the four satellites arriving at their orbit destination nearly 23,000 Kilometers above the Earth.
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NASA announced on Tuesday it selected SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket for the launch of the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission,
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The third stage of the Soyuz Rocket that helped boost the Soyuz MS-03 spacecraft into orbit re-entered the atmosphere this wee, four days after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and dispatching Oleg Novitskiy, Thomas Pesquet and Peggy Whitson into orbit for a six-month stay aboard the International Space Station as part of Expeditions 50 and 51.
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China launched its fourth Tianlian-1 tracking and data relay satellite on Tuesday atop a Long March 3C rocket blasting off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 15:24 UTC on a half-hour climb to a highly elliptical transfer orbit.
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The Cygnus OA-5 cargo craft departed the International Space Station on Monday after a month-long cargo delivery mission, heading off on a one-week free flight to release a series of small satellites and perform the second Spacecraft Fire Experiment ahead of a planned end of mission date on November 27.
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A planned twilight liftoff of ULA’s Atlas V carrying the GOES-R weather satellite turned into a night launch on Saturday when the rocket was forced to stay on the ground until the very last second of the day’s launch window.
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Riding on pillars of smoke and flames, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral to lift into orbit the GOES-R next-generation weather satellite that will revolutionize the collection of meteorological data over the Western hemisphere.
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Riding on pillars of smoke and flames, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral to lift into orbit the GOES-R next-generation weather satellite that will revolutionize the collection of meteorological data over the Western hemisphere.
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Three new arrivals pulled into port at their Orbital Home for the next half year Saturday night, marking the start of a very busy mission filled with a packed science schedule, plenty of visiting vehicle moves and a series of spacewalks that will outfit the International Space Station to head into its next decade of operations.
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