On December 17, 2015, at 00:12 UTC the “Long March –2D” (“Changzheng-2D”) rocket-carrier was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, Gansu Province, the northwest of China. The rocket orbited the “DAMPE” space probe. The Dark Matter Particle Explorer, or DAMPE, mission is the first dedicated astrophysics observatory put into orbit by China. Chinese officials announced that the DAMPE mission would be nicknamed "Wukong" after a global naming campaign garnered 32000 name suggestions. Wukong is a fictional monkey king in the Chinese fairy tale “Journey to the West.

On December 16, 2015 at 12:30 UTC the PSLV-C29 (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) rocket-carrier was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on Sriharikota Island, India's primary launch site on the country's east coast. The rocket orbited six Singaporean satellites: TeLEOS-1, KR-1, VELOX-CI, VELOX-II, Galassia and Athenoxat-1. The prime satellite is TeLEOS 1, a 400-kilogram commercial Earth imaging observatory made by ST Electronics in Singapore. TeLEOS 1 has a five-year design life, and its orbit will yield regular revisits of observation targets every 12 to 16 hours. The five other spacecraft orbited by the PSLV-C29 rocket included microsatellites and CubeSats.

On December 15, 2015 at 17:33 UTC the "Soyuz TMA-19M” spacecraft docked with the Russian "Rassvet” (MIM-1) module of the International Space Station. Due to a malfunction in automatic docking mode, the docking was performed manually by Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, Commander of the "Soyuz TMA-19M”. The spacecraft delivered three new members of Expedition 46 to the ISS, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, American astronaut Timothy Kopra and British astronaut Timothy Peake. The new comers joined current ISS expedition members – Russian cosmonauts Sergey Volkov and Mikhail Kornienko as well as American astronaut Scott Kelly to form Expedition 46 crew of 6 members.

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On December 15, 2015 at 11:03 UTC the Russian “Soyuz TMA-19M” spacecraft was launched from Baykonur Cosmodrome. The space vehicle was orbited by the Russian “Soyuz-FG” rocket-carrier. The spacecraft is piloted by 3 cosmonauts: Commander, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko (center); flight-engineer-1, American astronaut Timothy Kopra (right); flight-engineer-2, British astronaut Timothy Peake (left).

Photo by Russian Cosmonaut training center.

The space vehicle is to dock with the International Space Station in several hours after lift off. Malenchenko, Kopra and Peake will join current ISS expedition members V ... Read more »

On December 13, 2015 at 00:19 UTC the Russian "Proton-M” rocket-carrier was launched from Baykonur Cosmodrome. The rocket equipped with the "Briz-M” booster orbited the Russian “Kosmos-2513” military satellite. Experts believe the rocket orbited the second “Garpun” (harpoon) relay satellite for the Russian military. The first satellite in the communications network was orbited in September 2011.

On December 11, 2015 at 13:45 UTC the Russian " Zenit-2SB” rocket-carrier was launched from Baykonur Cosmodrome. The rocket equipped with the "Fregat-SB” booster (upper stage) orbited the Russian “Elektro-L” meteorological satellite. The satellite is beginning a 10-year mission to collect near-realtime images of weather systems from Europe to the Asia-Pacific.

On December 11, 2015 at 13:18 UTC the Russian “Soyuz TMA-17M” landing capsule landed safely in a distance of 121 kilometers north-east from the city of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan.

The spacecraft delivered to Earth the 3 members of ISS’s Expedition 45 – Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui (油井 亀美也) and American astronaut Kjell Lindgren. They spent in space 142 days. Three other ISS crew members – Russian cosmonauts Sergey Volkov and Mikhail Kornienko as well as American astronaut Scott Kelly remained in orbit aboard the International Space Station as the Expedition 46 crew. The undocking of Soyuz TMA-17M marked the end of Expedition 45 and the start of Expedition 46. ... Read more »

On December 11, 2015 at 13:18 UTC the Russian “Soyuz TMA-17M” landing capsule landed safely in a distance of 121 kilometers north-east from the city of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. The spacecraft delivered to Earth the 3 members of ISS’s Expedition 45 – Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui (油井 亀美也) and American astronaut Kjell Lindgren. They spent in space 142 days. Three other ISS crew members – Russian cosmonauts Sergey Volkov and Mikhail Kornienko as well as American astronaut Scott Kelly remained in orbit aboard the International Space Station as the Expedition 46 crew. The undocking of Soyuz TMA-17M marked the end of Expedition 45 and the start of Expedition 46.

On December 11, 2015 at 09:49 UTC  the Russian “Soyuz TMA-17M” spacecraft undocked from the Russian "Rassvet” (MIM-1) module of the International Space Station to deliver to Earth the 3 members of Expedition 45 – Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui (油井 亀美也) and American astronaut Kjell Lindgren.

On December 09, 2015 at 16:46 UTC (on December 10 at 00:46 Beijing time), the Chang Zheng-3B (Long March-3B) rocket-carrier was launched from Xichang Cosmodrome, Sichuan province, southwestern China. The rocket orbited the “Zhongxing-1C” (Chinasat-1C) telecommunication satellite.