NASA dixit:
“NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and private industry partners, Boeing and SpaceX, will make history in 2019 with the return of human spaceflight launches to the International Space Station from U.S. soil. Get ready for the rocket rumble!”
Video Credit: NASA Kennedy
Lockheed Martin dixit:
“Human spaceflight, some consider the ultimate test. There is only one chance to do it right, no room for error. To prepare for this challenge, we expose the system to the same environments as they would be exposed to in flight. This approach of ‘Test Like You Fly’ is critical to the safety and success of Orion. Come learn about Orion and the testing campaign to prove out the safest system for human spaceflight.”
Video Credit: Lockheed Martin
ESA dixit:
“Europe’s Vega launch vehicle operating from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, has a flawless record. Vega serves a wide range of missions and payload configurations, responding to different market opportunities. It is the ideal launcher for most scientific and Earth observation missions, benchmarked to loft 1500 kg into a 700 km-altitude circular orbit at 90° inclination.
Based on this success a more powerful Vega, Vega-C, now in development is set to launch in mid-2019 offering greater performance at no additional cost. Vega-C shares technology with Europe’s other new launcher Ariane 6. The P120C solid fuel motor will be used as the first stage for Vega-C and two or four will be used as strap-on boosters for Ariane 6.”
Video Credit: ESA
ESA dixit:
“Timelapse of the Russian Progress MS-10 cargo spacecraft launched on 16 November 2018 at 18:14 GMT from Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, taken by ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst from the International Space Station.
The spacecraft was launched atop a Soyuz rocket with 2564 kg of cargo and supplies. Flying at 28 800 km/h, 400 km high, the International Space Station requires regular supplies from Earth such as this Progress launch. Spacecraft are launched after the Space Station flies overhead so they catch up with the orbital outpost to dock, in this case two days later on 18 November 2018.
The images were taken from the European-built Cupola module with a camera set to take pictures at regular intervals. The pictures are then played quickly after each other at 8 to 16 times normal speed. The video shows around 15 minutes of the launch at normal speed. The Progress spacecraft delivered food, fuel and supplies, including about 750 kg of propellant, 75 kg of oxygen and air and 440 l of water.”
Video Credit: ESA
Wikipedia dixit:
“InSight is a robotic lander designed to study the interior of the planet Mars. The mission launched on 5 May 2018 and is expected to land on the surface of Mars at Elysium Planitia on 26 November 2018, where it will deploy a seismometer and burrow a heat probe. It will also perform a radio science experiment to study the internal structure of Mars.
The mission is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA. The lander was manufactured by Lockheed Martin Space Systems and was originally planned for launch in March 2016. The name is a backronym for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport.
InSight’s objective is to place a stationary lander equipped with a seismometer called SEIS produced by the French space agency CNES, and measure heat transfer with a heat probe called HP3 produced by the German space agency DLR to study the planet’s early geological evolution. This could bring new understanding of the Solar System’s terrestrial planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars — and the Earth’s Moon. By reusing technology from the Mars Phoenix lander, which successfully landed on Mars in 2008, it is expected that the cost and risk will be reduced.”
The mission countdown clock is displayed on the InSight Mars home webpage https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/.
Video Credit: NASA
Wikipedia dixit:
“Progress MS-10, identified by NASA as Progress 71 or 71P, is a Progress spacecraft used by Roscosmos to resupply the International Space Station (ISS). Progress MS-10 launched atop a Soyuz-FG rocket on November 16, 2018, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Progress MS-10 docked as scheduled with the aft docking port of the Zvezda module on 18 November 2018.
The Progress MS-10 spacecraft is carrying 2564 kg of cargo and supplies to the International Space Station. The spacecraft will deliver food, fuel and supplies, including about 750 kg of propellant, 75 kg of oxygen and air, 440 kg of water.”
Video Credit: Roscosmos
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