On August 27, 2015 at 02:31 UTC the “Long March – 4C” (“Changzheng-4C”) rocket-carrier was launched from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China's Shanxi Province. The rocket orbited the “Yaogan-27” satellite. The launch was not announced in advance by Chinese authorities, keeping with standard practice for Chinese military launches. Xinhua reported the satellite will be used “for experiments, land surveys, crop yield estimates and disaster prevention.” Some analysts believe the spacecraft is intended to operate as a military spy satellite.
On August 24, 2015 at 14:58 UTC the 5th Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV "Kounotori-5”) was installed on its berthing port of the "Harmony” module of the International Space Station. Earlier at the same day, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui took control of the space station’s robotic arm and latched on to the free-floating HTV-5 supply ship at 10:28 UTC.
On August 21, 2015 at 20:34 UTC the “Ariane-5ECA” rocket-carrier was launched from Kourou Cosmodrome in French Guiana. The rocket orbited the “Eutelsat-8 West B” and the “Intelsat-34” telecommunication satellites.
On August 19, 2015 at 11:50 UTC the Japanese HTV-5 (H-2 Transfer Vehicle) unmanned supply spacecraft was launched from Tanegashima Cosmodrome situated at the island located 115 km south of Kyushu. Kyushu is the third largest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. The spacecraft was orbited by the Japanese H-2B rocket-carrier. The mission is Japan's fifth cargo delivery flight to the International Space station. The HTV 5 mission is also named Kounotori 5. Kounotori is the Japanese word for white stork. The spacecraft is to deliver about 6000 kilograms of cargo to the station’s crew.
On August 14, 2015 at 10:18 UTC the “Progress M-26M” unmanned supply spacecraft was undocked from the Russian “Zvezda” (Star) module of the International Space Station. Several hours later the “Progress M-26M” spacecraft was deorbited. Non-burnt fragments of the spacecraft sank in the South part of the Pacific at 14:17 UTC.
On August 10, 2015 at 14:17 UTC two Russian cosmonauts Gennadiy Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko began their spacewalk. The cosmonauts had 10 objectives, including installation of padded handrails to make future EVAs easier; installation of fasteners to hold antenna covers in place; the replacement of one antenna; inspections of external experiments and the retrieval of a plasma physics experiment package. They also cleaned one of Zvezda’s windows to remove residue deposited by thruster firings and collected similar residue samples from a solar array panel and the area around vents used by a Russian oxygen generator and carbon dioxide scrubber. There were no problems of any significance and the spacewalkers ran ahead of schedule most of the day. The cosmonauts spent 5 hours and 34 minutes outside the International Space Station. This was the 188th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since cons
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