 China's first manual space docking was successful.
On June 24, 2012 the crew of China’s "Shenzhou-9” spacecraft performed the China's first manual space docking.
First the "Shenzhou-9” spacecraft undocked from the "Tiangong-1” space station at 03:09 UTC and departed from the station at a distance of about 300 meters. Then the crew (Liu Wang, Jing Haipeng, Liu Yang) began to perform a docking. When the spacecraft was at a distance of 140 meters from the station the crew continued the docking in manual regime.
Cosmonaut Liu Wang controlled the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft and docked the spacecraft to the "Tiangong-1” space station at 04:48 UTC. |
Chinese enter the space station for first time.
On June 18, 2012 at 09:07 UTC Jing Haipeng, commander of China's first manned space docking mission onboard the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft, entered the "Tiangong-1” orbital station, assisted by his crew mates Liu Wang and Liu Yang.
The 8.5-tonne space lab module has been traveling around Earth for 262 days since it was launched in September 2011.
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Chinese Spaceship Docks with Orbiting Module.
On June 18, 2012 at 06:07 UTC the "Shenzhou-9” spacecraft automatically docked with the "Tiangong-1” orbital station. The "Shenzhou-9”, with three crew members on board, including China’s first female cosmonaut, 33-year-old Liu Yang, was launched from the Jiuquan space center in the Gobi Desert, China on June 16.
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The First Chinese Woman in Space.
On June 16, 2012 at 10:37 UTC the "Shenzhou-9” manned spacecraft was launched from Jiuquan Launch Center in Jiuquan, northwest China's Gansu Province (China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region). The crew consists of Jing Haipeng - a veteran Chinese cosmonaut – Commander of the crew; Liu Wang an officer in the Chinese Air Force, the pilot of Shenzhou 9; Liu Yang, a 33-year-old Air Force pilot, the China's first woman in space.
Liu Yang, Jing Haipeng and Liu Wang (left to right) depart their crew quarters on the way to t
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Dragon returned to Earth following historic flight.
Six days after arriving at the International Space Station on a demonstration flight, SpaceX's "Dragon” unmanned supply spacecraft departed the complex on May 31, 2012.
At 08:07 UTC astronauts Andre Kuipers and Joseph Acaba undocked the "Dragon” vehicle from the "Harmony” module of the ISS with the help of Canadarm robotic arm and released it at 09:49 UTC.
photo by NASA
At 15:42 UTC the "Dragon” splashed down in the Pacific Ocean in a distance of about 740 kilometers to south-west from Los-Angeles.
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Private Dragon spacecraft links up with space station.
On May 25, 2012 at 16:02 UTC the first private U.S. unmanned supply spacecraft, the Dragon, was successfully docked to the International Space Station.
The linkup operation was carried out by astronauts Donald Pettit (USA) and Andre Kuipers (the Netherlands) with the help of the giant 17-meter Canadarm that had earlier (at 13:56 UTC) grabbed the Dragon capsule.
The Dragon is a reusable spacecraft developed by SpaceX company to fly cargo to the ISS after NASA retired its space shuttle fleet last year.
Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, is a space transport company headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by former PayPal entrepreneur Elon Musk. In the future the firm also hopes to carry U.S
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First private spacecraft was launched to ISS.
On May 22, 2012 at 07:44 UTC the Dragon COTS 2 DEMO unmanned spacecraft was launched from launch pad 40 at Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA. The first private spacecraft was orbited by the "Falcon-9” rocket-carrier.
If all goes according to plan, the Dragon will become the first commercial space vehicle to reach the International Space station, a 450-ton orbiting complex staffed by six crew members from Russia, the United States and the Netherlands.
The Dragon is to dock with the ISS on May 25 at 12:06 UTC. |
Russian Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft docked to the ISS.
On May 17, 2012 at 04:35 UTC the "Soyuz TMA-04M” spacecraft docked with the Russian "Poisk” (MIM-2) module of the International Space Station. The Soyuz TMA-04M delivered three new members of Expedition 31 to the ISS, Russian cosmonauts Gennadiy Padalka and Sergey Revin as well as American astronaut Joseph Acaba.
The hatches between the spacecraft ant the station was opened at 07:16 UTC. The new comers joined current ISS expedition members, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, American astronaut Donald Pettit and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers (the Netherlands) to form Expedition 31 crew of 6 members. Kononenko, Pettit and Kuipers have been aboard the station for almost five months since arriving in December 2011.
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Russia launched Soyuz TMA-4M manned spacecraft.
On May 15, 2012 at 03:01 UTC the Russian"Soyuz TMA-04M” spacecraft was launched from Baykonur Cosmodrome. The space vehicle was orbited by the Russian "Soyuz-FG” rocket-carrier.
The spacecraft is piloted by 3 cosmonauts: Commander, Russian cosmonaut Gennadiy Padalka (center); flight-engineer, Russian cosmonaut Sergey Revin (left); flight-engineer, American astronaut Joseph Acaba (right).
Photo by the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre.
The space vehicle is to dock with the Internat
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Progress M-14M mission completed.
On April 28, 2012 at 14:39 UTC the "Progress M-14M” unmanned supply spacecraft was deorbited. Non-burnt fragments of the spacecraft sank in the South part of the Pacific.
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