By Merryl Azriel, Tereza Pultarova, and Dean Gentz Ever since Dean Gentz found a 35 cm titanium sphere in his backyard, he’s been on a quest to find out what it is and where it came from. Gentz noted the hand-machining and the safety wire holes around the plug. He photographed the sphere and took it to work to perform [...]
Post Tagged with: “Russian”
Progress 49 Leaves ISS as Comsonauts Prepare for EVA
Russian ISS cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Roman Romanenko have been preparing for a six-hour spacewalk. The two cosmonauts will go outside the station at 10:06 a.m. EDT on April 19. The extra vehicular activity was scheduled to deploy and retrieve several science experiments and install a new navigational aid. As part of the preparation, Vinogradov and Romanenko have installed lights [...]
Russian Crowdsourcing Project Finds Missing Soviet Mars Probe
The first probe to successfully land on Mars may have been found by Russian space enthusiasts, using images from the NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), revealed NASA in a press statement dated 11th April. The Soviet probe, known as Mars 3, successfully reached the surface of the Red Planet on December 2nd, 1971, but functioned for less than 2 [...]
Russia to Launch 5 Lunar Probes Between 2015 and 2022
According to the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti, Russia’s space research program in the coming decades will be driven by landing planetary missions. “We’ve found our direction, our niche,” said the director of the Institute of Space Research at the Russian Academy of Sciences Lev Zelyony. Russia’s plan consists of sending a succession of five unmanned probes to the [...]
Kazakhstan, Russia Compromise on Baikonour Launches
On April 1, Russian and Kazakh officials announced that they had reached a compromise. On March 27, the two nations agreed that Russia would launch at least 14 commercial spaceflights from Baikonour Cosmodrome in 2013. The agreement followed months of wrangling between the two nations over the status of Baikonour. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has paid [...]
After ISS – the Next Mir?
In June 2011 cooperating countries agreed to finance the International Space Station (ISS) Program until 2020 with the possibility to operate it until 2028. ISS represents the beginning of a new space era and an excellent example of international peaceful cooperation for the advancement of scientific knowledge. The future of this piece of space history remains unclear. The ISS program, [...]
ATV Entering Final Preparations for June Launch
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) is undergoing its final preparation phase for the planned Ariane 5 launch from Guiana Space Center (CGS) in June 2013. “After fueling has finished (towards end of April) ATV-4 will depart for the ‘Batiment Assemblage Finale’ for the final stage of preparation,” said ATV Operations Interface Manager and Launch Campaign [...]
Soyuz TMA-08M Arrives at ISS with Quicker Route
On March 28, Russia’s Soyuz TMA-08M made history, reaching the International Space Station (ISS) faster than any other manned spacecraft has ever done before. The crew reached ISS without a glitch in just under six hours from launch, with only four orbits. “The four-orbit rendezvous has the advantage of a very short period of time from launch to docking,” said [...]
News Shorts: Mars: The Game, ExoMars Deal Signed, and Brightman ISS Trip
Hi-RISE: The Video Game A Martian video game is in development, featuring textured background taken from Hi-RISE instrument’s images, which is installed on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The game is called Lacuna Passage, and it is hoped that the real life images used in the game will help to create a more realistic Mars exploration experience for gamers. The game [...]
Expedition 35/36 Passes Test, Ready for Quick Trip to ISS
Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin and NASA astronaut Christopher Cassidy, a former Navy SEAL, passed their standard Soyuz pre-flight exams with maximum scores on Monday, March 4th in Star City, Russia. To test astronauts’ capacity to face the potential risks before them, the Yuri Gagarin Center tested the crew in a four day examination inside life-sized spacecraft simulators, [...]
