Europe’s Ariane 5 launch vehicle, after 82 consecutive successes over a 15-year streak, encountered a potentially serious anomaly on Thursday when lifting a pair of cutting-edge communications satellites into a high-energy Supersynchronous Transfer Orbit.
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Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket rolled out to its French Guiana launch pad in preparation for liftoff on Thursday on the vehicle’s year-opening mission, tasked with deploying a pair of innovative satellites to a Supersynchronous Transfer Orbit peaking 45,000 Kilometers above the planet.
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Two U.S. spacewalkers successfully changed out a grappling mechanism on the International Space Station’s Canadarm2 on Tuesday, essentially giving the Station’s most important robotic asset a brand new hand to continue grasping external hardware and visiting spacecraft until the end of the ISS program.
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Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are gearing up for a pair of spacewalks on January 23 and 29 to complete the rejuvenation of the Station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm by replacing its second Latching End Effector to ensure the critical robotic asset remains in working order for capturing visiting vehicles, moving large equipment and carrying spacewalkers during complex EVA scenarios.
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SpaceX’s Dragon C108.2 spacecraft departed the International Space Station after a month-long stay on Saturday via the first-ever ground-controlled release of a visiting vehicle, sending the spacecraft on a five-and-a-half hour return journey expected to culminate with a parachute-assisted splashdown landing
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SpaceX and NASA are working towards a Saturday ISS departure and splashdown landing of the Dragon SpX-13 spacecraft after a month-long stay at the International Space Station
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The year 2017 saw a total of 90 known orbital launch attempts from seven nations and space ports in eight different countries. 2017 had the second most orbital launch attempts of any year in the current century, short of 92 launches in 2014 and showing a slight increase from 2016 that had 85 known launch attempts.
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Three new arrivals pulled into their orbital docking port at the International Space Station Tuesday morning after a flawless two-day rendezvous executed by the Soyuz MS-07 spacecraft
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The S.S. Gene Cernan, Orbital ATK’s eighth operational Cygnus spacecraft, closed out a 36-day mission on Monday via destructive re-entry after completing a 22-day stay at the International Space Station and deploying a series of small CubeSats after finishing its ISS resupply mission.
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A science-laden SpaceX Dragon spacecraft pulled up ten meters underneath the Space Station on Sunday in a high-fidelity orbital link up to be captured by the Space Station’s robotic arm to begin a four-week stay for the delivery of over two metric tons of science hardware, supplies and two new sensors to be installed externally.
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Three crewmen from Russia, the U.S. and Japan blasted off in freezing temperatures on Sunday to set sail on a two-day rendezvous with the International Space Station to kick off a half-year mission living and working in space to conduct world-class science and outfit the orbital outpost for operations heading into the next decade.
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Three days after a Soyuz spacecraft touched down on the frozen steppe of Kazakhstan with three ISS crew members, the next crew vehicle took flight from an equally frigid Baikonur Cosmodrome on Sunday.
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Three days after a Soyuz spacecraft touched down on the frozen steppe of Kazakhstan with three ISS crew members, the next crew vehicle took flight from an equally frigid Baikonur Cosmodrome on Sunday.
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A third-time Soyuz commander, a physician-turned-astronaut, and a former naval test pilot are on the eve of liftoff atop a Russian Soyuz rocket taking them into orbit on Sunday for a five-and-a-half-month mission aboard the International Space Station.
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On Friday, for the first time, SpaceX launched a flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket and a previously used Dragon spacecraft, lifting
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On Friday, for the first time, SpaceX launched a flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket and a previously used Dragon spacecraft, lifting off on the company’s fourth ISS resupply mission in 2017.
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Sporting a sooty attire from a previous voyage, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket successfully lifted the fourth Dragon mission of 2017 to the International Space Station into orbit on Friday to deliver science gear, systems hardware, crew supplies and two external payloads
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