OrbitalHub

Wikipedia dicit:

The Progress is a Russian expendable cargo spacecraft. Its purpose is to deliver supplies needed to sustain human presence in orbit. While it does not carry a crew it can be boarded by astronauts when docked with a space station, hence it being classified as manned by its manufacturer. Progress is derived from the manned Soyuz spacecraft and launches on the same vehicle, a Soyuz rocket.

Progress has supported space stations as early as Salyut 6 and as recently as the International Space Station. Each year there are between three and four Progress flights to the ISS. A Progress remains docked until shortly before being replaced with a new one or a Soyuz (which will use the same docking port). Then it is filled with waste, disconnected, and de-orbited, at which point it burns up in the atmosphere. Due to the variation in Progress vehicles flown to the ISS, NASA uses its own nomenclature where “ISS 1P” means the first Progress spacecraft to ISS.

Progress was developed because of the need for a constant source of supplies to make long duration space missions possible. It was determined that cosmonauts needed an inflow of consumables (food, water, air, etc.), plus there was a need for maintenance items and scientific payloads that necessitated a dedicated cargo carrier. Such payloads were impractical to launch with passengers in the restricted space of a Soyuz. As of 1 December 2016 there have been 155 Progress flights with three failures. All three failures have occurred since 2011.

Video Credit: Roscosmos

Wikipedia dicit:

The SpaceX Dragon is a reusable cargo spacecraft developed by SpaceX, an American private space transportation company. Dragon is launched into orbit by the company’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle.

During its maiden flight in December 2010, Dragon became the first commercially built and operated spacecraft to be recovered successfully from orbit. On 25 May 2012, a cargo variant of Dragon became the first commercial spacecraft to successfully rendezvous with and attach to the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX is contracted to deliver cargo to the ISS under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services program, and Dragon began regular cargo flights in October 2012.

On 3 June 2017, the CRS-11 capsule, largely assembled from previously flown components from the CRS-4 mission in September 2014, was launched again for the first time, with the hull, structural elements, thrusters, harnesses, propellant tanks, plumbing and many of the avionics reused while the heat shield, batteries and components exposed to sea water upon splashdown for recovery were replaced.

Video Credit: NASA Kennedy/SpaceX

Wikipedia dicit:

The Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) is a NASA Explorers program Mission of Opportunity dedicated to the study of the extraordinary gravitational, electromagnetic, and nuclear physics environments embodied by neutron stars, exploring the exotic states of matter where density and pressure are higher than in atomic nuclei. NICER will enable rotation-resolved spectroscopy of the thermal and non-thermal emissions of neutron stars in the soft (0.2–12 keV) X-ray band with unprecedented sensitivity, probing interior structure, the origins of dynamic phenomena, and the mechanisms that underlie the most powerful cosmic particle accelerators known. NICER will achieve these goals by deploying, following launch, an X-ray timing and spectroscopy instrument as an attached payload aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Video Credit: NASA

NASA dicit:

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, Oleg Skripochka of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, and Hazzaa Ali Almansoori from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) launched safely for their mission aboard the International Space Station on the Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft at 9:57 a.m. EDT. [September 25, 2019]

The crew began their six-hour trip to the orbital laboratory during which they will orbit Earth four times.

Video Credit: NASA/Roscosmos

NASA dicit:

Wherever there are humans, there are microbes, too. Bacteria and fungi live all around us, in our homes, offices, industrial areas, the outdoors – even in space. People literally could not live without these tiny organisms, many of which are beneficial.

The trick is limiting the number of potentially harmful ones, particularly in a contained environment such as a spacecraft. So from the launch of the very first module of the International Space Station, NASA has monitored its microbial community.

Because the station is an enclosed system, the only way that microbes get there is hitching a ride on the contents of resupply spacecraft from Earth and on arriving astronauts. The NASA Johnson Space Center Microbiology Laboratory puts a lot of effort into knowing which microbes ride along.

Video Credit: NASA Johnson

Wikipedia dicit:

The Soyuz launcher was introduced in 1966, deriving from the Vostok launcher, which in turn was based on the 8K74 or R-7a intercontinental ballistic missile. It was initially a three-stage rocket with a Block I upper stage. Later a Molniya variant was produced by adding a fourth stage, allowing it to reach the highly elliptical molniya orbit. A later variant was the Soyuz-U. While the exact model and variant designations were kept secret from the west, the Soyuz launcher was referred to by either the United States Department of Defense designation of SL-4, or the Sheldon designation of A-2 (developed by Charles S. Sheldon, an analyst with the Library of Congress). Both systems for naming Soviet rockets stopped being used as more accurate information became available.

The production of Soyuz launchers reached a peak of 60 per year in the early 1980s. It has become the world’s most used space launcher, flying over 1700 times, far more than any other rocket. Despite its age and perhaps thanks to its simplicity, this rocket family has been notable for its low cost and high reliability.

Video Credit: Roscosmos