On October 17, 2016 at 23:45 UTC the "Cygnus” privately owned U.S. unmanned supply spacecraft was launched from Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS). MARS is a commercial space launch facility located at the southern tip of NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, in the Atlantic Ocean just east of the Delmarva Peninsula and south of Chincoteague, Virginia, USA. The launch was performed by Orbital ATK Inc., an American aerospace manufacturer and defense industry company. The "Cygnus” (CRS OA--5 “Alan Poindexter”) unmanned supply spacecraft, built by U.S. space firm Orbital Sciences Corp., was orbited by the “Antares-230” rocket-carrier on its cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. CRS means Commercial Resupply Services. The "Cygnus” (CRS OA-5) is the 6th successful flight of the Orbital ATK uncrewed resupply spacecraft Cygnus. The &ld ... Read more »

On October 17, 2016 at 07:30 Beijing time (on October 16 at 23:30 UTC) the "Shenzhou-11” (神舟十号) manned spacecraft was launched from Chinese Jiuquan Cosmodrome in Jiuquan, northwest China's Gansu Province. The space vehicle was orbited by the Chinese "Chang Zheng-2F” (Long March 2F 长征二号F运载火箭) rocket-carrier.

Photo by Xinhua 

The spacecraft is piloted by 2 cosmonauts: Commander, Jing Haipeng (景海鵬) left; Second crewmember, Chen Dong (陳冬). The “Shenzhou-11” space vehicle is to dock with China's "Tiangong-2” space station.

On October 14, 2016 at 09:39 UTC the “Progress MS-02” unmanned supply spacecraft was undocked from the International Space Station. At the same day the spacecraft was deorbited. Its engine was started for deorbiting at 12:50 UTC. Non-burnt fragments of the spacecraft drowned in the remote area of the Pacific at 13:39 UTC.

On September 15, 2016, at 14:04 UTC the “Long March –2F” (“Changzheng-2F”) rocket-carrier was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, Gansu Province, the northwest of China. The rocket orbited the “Tiangong-2” (天宫二号) space lab. The “Tiangong-2” spacecraft is starting off a two-year mission to conduct a slate of scientific experiments and lay the technological foundation for a Chinese space station set to be assembled in orbit by 2022. If all goes according to plan, two Chinese astronauts will launch aboard the Shenzhou 11 spacecraft in mid-to-late October in pursuit of the Tiangong 2 space lab. Shenzhou 11 will dock with the spacecraft to form a mini-space station, and astronauts will live and work inside the module for 30 days, officials said.

In the period from September 14 till September 15, 2016 six micro satellites were launched from the International Space Station. On September 14, 2016 at 15:25 UTC the “Flock-2e'-13” and the “Flock-2e'-14” were launched. On September 14, 2016 at 23:15 UTC the “Flock-2e'-15” and the “Flock-2e'-16” were launched. On September 15, 2016 at 02:35 UTC the “Flock-2e'-17” and the “Flock-2e'-18” were launched. All the satellites were delivered to the ISS by the “Cygnus OA-6” spacecraft in March 2016.

On September 7, 2016 at 01:14 UTC the Russian “Soyuz TMA-20M” landing capsule landed safely in a distance of 148 kilometers from the city of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan.

photo by NASA

The spacecraft delivered to Earth the 3 members of ISS’s Expedition 48 – Russian cosmonauts Aleksey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka as well as American astronaut Jeffrey Williams. They spent in space 172 days, 3 hours and 47 minutes. Three other ISS crew members – Russian cosmonaut Anatoliy Ivanishin, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi (大西 卓哉) and American astronaut Kathleen Rubins remained in orbit aboard the International Space Station as the Expedition 49 crew. The undo ... Read more »

On September 6, 2016 at 21:51 UTC (on September 7 at 00:51 Moscow time) the Russian “Soyuz TMA-20M” spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station to deliver to Earth the 3 members of Expedition 48 – Russian cosmonauts Aleksey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka as well as American astronaut Jeffrey Williams.

On September 1, 2016 American astronauts Jeffrey Williams and Kathleen Rubins performed the spacewalk for retracting a spare cooling radiator, installing two high-definition TV cameras and inspecting a massive solar array rotation mechanism that has experience subtle vibrations in recent months. The EVA lasted 6 hours and 48 minutes. It was the 5^th spacewalk for Jeffrey Williams and the 2^nd spacewalk for Kathleen Rubins.

On August 26, 2016 at 15:47 UTC the "Dragon” capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at several hundred kilometers from Long Beach, California, USA. The Dragon delivered to Earth 1547 kilograms of cargo. It was the "SpaceX CRS-9” mission. CRS means Commercial Resupply Services. It was the 9th flight of Dragon to the ISS with docking.

On August 26, 2016 the station's robotic arm removed the “Dragon” SpX-9 (CRS-9 flight) unmanned supply spacecraft from a berthing port on the Harmony module of the International Space Station. Controlled by ground controllers and then American astronaut Kathleen Rubins and Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi, the robotic arm let go of the "Dragon” resupply vehicle at 10:11 UTC.