On January 3, 2023, US astronaut Ronnie Walter Cunningham passed away. He was 90. Walter Cunningham was an American astronaut, fighter pilot, physicist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, NASA's third civilian astronaut (after Neil Armstrong and Elliot See). He was a lunar module pilot on the “Apollo-7” mission in 1968.

On December 22, 2022 American astronauts Josh Cassada and Francisco Rubio performed the spacewalk. The astronauts installed an IROSA (ISS Rollout Solar Array) to augment power generation for the 4A power channel on the station's port truss. The EVA lasted 7 hours and 08 minutes. It was the 3^rd spacewalk for both Josh Cassada and Francisco Rubio.

On 15 December 2022 at 12:45 UTC, a "visible stream of flakes" was observed emanating from the Soyuz spacecraft, concurrent with a loss of pressure in the external radiator cooling loop. The leak in the radiator occurred due to a micro-meteorite impact. The damage left a 0.8 mm diameter hole into the external cooling radiator on the service module. The “Soyuz MS-22” spacecraft is scheduled to return to Earth with Prokopyev, Petelin, and Rubio on March 28. Until then, the spacecraft serves as the emergency lifeboat for the three-man crew that launched aboard it in September 2022. If Russian officials determine the “Soyuz MS-22” spacecraft is unable to bring the crew home, a replacement “Soyuz” could be launched from Baikonur without anyone on-board to automatically dock with the station. But it’s unclear when ... Read more »

Polish cosmonaut Mirosław Hermaszewski passed away on December 12, 2022. He was 81 years old. Mirosław Hermaszewski was the first and only representative of Poland in space. He performed his flight together with the Soviet cosmonaut Pyotr Klimuk as a research cosmonaut on board the “Soyuz-30” spacecraft and the “Salyut-6” orbital station. He spent 7 days 22 hours 2 minutes 59 seconds in space - from June 27 to July 5, 1978.

On December 11, 2022 at 17:40 UTC, the US “Orion” unpiloted spacecraft (Artemis-1 mission) splashed down in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California after 25-day moon mission. It was the roundtrip journey to the moon. While there were no humans on-board Artemis 1, the Orion spacecraft carried three instrumented mannequins inside its pressurized cabin to gather data on accelerations, vibrations, and radiation on the flight to the moon and back.

On December 4, 2022 at 12:09 UTC the Chinese "Shenzhou-14” landing capsule landed safely at the designated area of the Dongfeng landing site in the Gobi Desertin, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The spacecraft delivered to Earth the 3 Chinese cosmonauts – Chen Dong (陈冬), Liu Yang (刘洋), Cai Xuzhe (蔡旭哲).

The cosmonauts spent in space 182 days, 9 hours and 25 minutes. The “Shenzhou-14” mission was the 9^th crewed spaceflight in China& ... Read more »

On December 4, 2022 at 03:01 UTC, the Chinese "Shenzhou-14” manned spacecraft undocked from the “Tiangong” space station to deliver to Earth the 3 cosmonauts – Chen Dong (陈冬), Liu Yang (刘洋), Cai Xuzhe (蔡旭哲). Three other crew members of the “Tiangong” space station – Chinese cosmonauts Fei Junlong (费俊龙), Deng Qingming (邓清明), Zhang Lu (张鹭< ... Read more »

On December 3, 2022 American astronauts Josh Cassada and Francisco Rubio performed the spacewalk. They installed an IROSA (ISS Rollout Solar Array) on the starboard 4 truss at the International Space Station. The EVA lasted 7 hours and 05 minutes. It was the 2^nd spacewalk for both Josh Cassada and Francisco Rubio.

On November 29, 2022 at 21:42 UTC (On November 30 by Beijing time) the Chinese "Shenzhou-15” manned spacecraft successfully completed the docking with the Chinese “Tianhe” core module of the “Tiangong” space station. The spacecraft delivered 3 Chinese cosmonauts to the station: Fei Junlong (费俊龙), Deng Qingming (邓清明), Zhang Lu (张鹭). The new comers joined the current Tiangong expedition members - Chen Dong ( ... Read more »

On November 27, 2022 at 12:30 UTC, the private U.S. unmanned supply spacecraft, the "Dragon” SpX-26 (CRS-26 flight), was successfully docked to the International Space Station. It was the new generation of Dragon cargo spacecraft also known SpaceX Dragon 2 or Cargo Dragon 2. It was the 6^th SpaceX cargo vehicle that automatically docked to the space station without being captured by the Canadarm. This docking marked the 26^th time a Dragon cargo spaceship has reached the space station, counting a demonstration flight in 2012.