On February 27, 2015 at 11:01 UTC the “Soyuz-2.1a” rocket-carrier was launched from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Arkhangelsk region, North Russia. The launch was performed by Russian Aerospace Defence Forces. The rocket orbited the “Kosmos-2503” satellite. It is a next-generation military reconnaissance satellite.The secretive satellite — the first in the so-called the Bars M series — is believed to carry a high-resolution digital camera to collect global imagery for Russian military forces. Its exact capabilities are kept secret by Russian authorities. The Bars M satellite’s Karat electro-optical camera was developed by the Leningrad Optical Mechanical Association, and the satellite is expected to operate at least five years, according to documents posted on a Russian government procurement website.

On February 25, 2015 American astronauts Barry Wilmore and Terry Virts performed the spacewalk for the second of three spacewalks to help ready the ISS for dockings by commercial crew capsules being built by Boeing and SpaceX. The EVA lasted 6 hours and 43 minutes.

On February 24, 2015, Aleksey Alexandrovich GUBAREV, pilot-cosmonaut of USSR, passed away at the age of 83.

On February 21, 2015 American astronauts Barry Wilmore and Terry Virts performed the spacewalk to install wiring needed for two new docking mechanisms that will be attached later this year for use by Boeing and SpaceX crew capsules. The astronauts installed 8 cables with the total length of about 100 meters. The EVA lasted 6 hours and 41 minutes.

This was the second spacewalk for Wilmore and the first for Virts. With the completion of Saturday’s work, 120 astronauts and cosmonauts representing nine nations have logged 1,159 hours and eight minutes of spacewalk time, or 48.3 days.

On February 17, 2015 at 16:57 UTC the Russian “Progress M-26M” unmanned supply spacecraft docked to the International Space Station. The spacecraft was docked to the Russian “Zvezda” (Star) module. The spacecraft carried about 2400 kilograms of cargo for the six-member ISS crew.

On February 17, 2015 at 11:00 UTC the “Progress M-26M” unmanned supply spacecraft was launched from Baykonur Cosmodrome to the International Space Station. The spacecraft was orbited by the “Soyuz-U” rocket-carrier.

On February 15, 2015 the European ATV-5 " Georges Lemaître” unmanned supply spacecraft was deorbited. Non-burnt fragments of the spacecraft sank in the South part of the Pacific at about 18:04 UTC.  It was the last flight of the ATV series spacecraft.

On February 14, 2015 at 13:42 UTC the European ATV-5 " Georges Lemaître” unmanned supply spacecraft was undocked from the Russian "Zvezda” ("Star”) module of the International Space Station.

On February 11, 2015 at 13:40 UTC the "Vega” rocket was launched from Kourou space center in French Guiana, the northern coast of South America. The rocket provided a suborbital flight of the Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV). The IXV is an European Space Agency (ESA) experimental re-entry vehicle to validate European reusable launchers, evaluated in the frame of the Future Launchers Preparatory Programme (FLPP), and developed under the leadership of the NGL Prime SpA company.

The test flight marked new territory for Europe and in hypersonic research, laying the foundation for plans to develop a robotic mini-shuttle and reusable launcher stages in the future. The flight lasted about 100 minutes from liftoff to landing. The IXV passed above ground stations in Africa, radioing its status back to engineers as ... Read more »

On February 11, 2015 at 23:03 UTC the “Falcon-9R” rocket-carrier was launched from Cape Canaveral launch site of US Air Force. The launch was performed by SpaceX company supported by the 45th Space Wing of US Air Force. The rocket orbited DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory).

The DSCOVR spacecraft will operate at the L1 Lagrange point nearly a million miles from Earth in line with the sun. The $340 million mission will measure fluctuations in the supersonic solar wind streaming toward Earth from the sun, warning forecasters of possible solar storms that could disrupt air traffic, communications, satellite navigation and electrical grids.