On November 03, 2016 at 12:43 UTC the Chang Zheng-5 (Long March-5) rocket-carrier was launched from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center (WSLC), located in Wenchang on Hainan Island off China’s southern coastline. The maiden test flight gives China a rocket that nearly identically matches the capability of the world’s current space lift leader, United Launch Alliance’s Delta 4-Heavy rocket, and exceeds the performance of other heavy-lifters like Europe’s Ariane 5 and Russia’s Proton launcher. The rocket orbited the mission’s experimental payload, Shijian 17, designed for an electric propulsion demonstration in orbit. The Long March 5 rocket-carrier is the product of two decades of research and at least nine years of construction, fabrication and testing. It is a centerpiece of China’s plans to assemble a permanently-crewed space station in orbit and send robotic missions to the moon and ... Read more »

On October 30, 2016 at 03:58 UTC the Russian “Soyuz MS” landing capsule landed safely in a distance of about 150 kilometers from the city of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan.

The spacecraft delivered to Earth the 3 members of ISS’s Expedition 49 – Russian cosmonaut Anatoliy Ivanishin, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi (大西 卓哉) and American astronaut Kathleen Rubins. They spent in space 115 days. Three other ISS crew members – Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrei Borisenko as well as American astronaut Robert Kimbrough remained in orbit aboard the International Space Station as the Expedition 50 crew. The undocking of Soyuz MS marked the end of Expedition 49 and the start of Expedition 50. The “Soyuz MS” spac ... Read more »

On October 30, 2016 at 00:35 UTC the Russian “Soyuz MS” spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station to deliver to Earth the 3 members of Expedition 49 – Russian cosmonaut Anatoliy Ivanishin, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi (大西 卓哉) and American astronaut Kathleen Rubins.