On June 3, 2017 at 21:07 UTC the "Falcon 9” rocket-carrier was launched from LP-39A of the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The launch was performed by the "SpaceX” private company. US private company SpaceX launched its "Dragon” (CRS-11 flight also known as SpX-11) unmanned spacecraft on a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. CRS means Commercial Resupply Services. It is the 12th successful flight of a “Dragon” spacecraft and the 11th successful flight of a “Dragon” to the ISS.
On June 2, 2017 at 14:10 UTC the Russian “Soyuz MS-03” landing capsule landed safely to south-east from the city of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan.
photo by Reuters
The spacecraft delivered to Earth the 2 members of ISS’s Expedition 51 – Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and French astronaut Thomas Pesquet. They spent in space 197 days. Three other ISS crew members – Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, American astronauts Jack Fisher and Peggy Whitson remained in orbit aboard the International Space Station as the Expedition 52 crew. The undocking of Soyuz MS-0
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On June 02, 2017 at 10:47 UTC the Russian “Soyuz MS-03” spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station to deliver to Earth the 2 members of Expedition 51 – Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and French astronaut Thomas Pesquet.
On May 25 and 26, 2017, total 17 mini-satellites (CubeSat) were launched from the “Kibo” module of the International Space Station. All of the satellites were delivered to the ISS by the “Cygnus CRS-7 (John Glenn)” unmanned supply spacecraft in April 2017.
On May 17, 2017, several mini-satellites were launched from the “Kibo” module of the International Space Station. At 01:45 UTC the following satellites were launched: the Taiwanese “Phoenix” (QB50 TW01); the French “X-Cubesat” (QB50 FR01) and the Sweden “gbee50-LTU-OC” (QB50 SE01). At 08:12 UTC the American “ALTAIR-1” (ALTAIR Pathfinder) satellite was launched. At 12:40 UTC the American SHARC (Satellite for High Accuracy Radar Calibration) satellite was launched. All satellites were delivered to the ISS by the “Cygnus CRS-7 (John Glenn)” unmanned supply spacecraft in April 2017. On May 18, 2017 at 01:00 UTC, the South Korean “LINK” (Little Intelligent Nanosatellite of KAIST) satellite and South African “ZA-Aerospace&r
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On May 17, 2017, Viktor Gorbatko, pilot-cosmonaut of USSR, passed away at the age of 82. A retired cosmonaut and twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Viktor Gorbatko, performed three journeys into space.
He was among the first group of Soviet cosmonauts. He began training in early 1960. In 1988 – 1991 he was Chairman of the All-Soviet Union Philatelic Society. His philatelic exhibit on Space Mail was demonstrated in the Class of Honor at the “Mosocw-97” World Philatelic Exhibition. In 2001 – 2009 Viktor Gorbatko was President of the Union of Philatelists of Russia.
On May 16, 2017, several mini-satellites were launched from the “Kibo” module of the International Space Station. At 08:24 UTC the following satellites were launched: the German “SOMP-2” (Student's Oxygen Measurement Project-2); the Turkish “HAVELSAT”; the American “QBUS-4”. At 11:54 UTC the following American satellites were launched: CXBN-2 (Cosmic X-Ray Background-2); KySat-3 (SGSat); IceCube (Earth-1). All satellites were delivered to the ISS by the “Cygnus CRS-7 (John Glenn)” unmanned supply spacecraft in April 2017.
On May 12, 2017, American astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fisher performed the spacewalk for several repair and maintenance tasks. Their first job was to remove and replace an ExPRESS Carrier Avionics box located on the starboard-side S3 truss of the space station. After that Fischer repaired the Japanese robotic arm’s thermal insulation, while Whitson installed a terminator cap on the AMS instrument, a massive experiment attached to the station truss designed to study dark matter and antimatter. The spacewalk lasted 4 hours and 13 minutes. This was the ninth spacewalk for Peggy Whitson and the first for Jack Fisher. This EVA was the 200th spacewalk in support of the International Space Station assembly and maintenance since December 1998, and the fifth this year.
On April 22, 2017, the American "Cygnus” (CRS OA--7 “John Glenn”) private unmanned supply spacecraft was docked to the International Space Station (ISS). The Cygnus spacecraft was grappled by a robotic arm operated by astronauts inside the space station at 10:05 UTC. The cargo spacecraft was docked to the station’s "Unity” module at 12:39 UTC. The spacecraft delivered about 3300 kilograms of supplies to the Space Station. It was the 7th docking of a "Cygnus” spacecraft with the ISS.
On April 22, 2017 at 04:16 UTC the Chinese “Tianzhou-1” unmanned supply spacecraft docked to the Chinese “Tiangong-2” space station. The unmanned supply spacecraft will pump propellants into the “Tiangong-2” space station, which launched last year and hosted two astronauts for a month-long stay in October and November. The refueling experiment will validate key technologies China needs to build and maintain a much larger orbital complex starting as soon as next year.
