Tag Archives: International Space Station

At 4:53 p.m. eastern the space shuttle Discovery launched on what is her final mission. It was a launch whose countdown went smoothly until the final few minutes when a range safety command computer malfunctioned, almost postponing the launch a day.

See how the European Space Agency’s ATV-2 nicknamed the Johannes Kepler was made. From pieces and parts to mighty spacecraft sitting atop of Ariane 5 launcher. The Johannes Kepler will carry approximately 6.6 tonnes of cargo to the International Space Station on a resupply mission. ESA’s ATV’s are sent on resupply missions approximately every 17 months.

Dextre, the Canadian Space Agency’s robotic “handyman”, is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 26 crew member aboard the International Space Station on Feb. 3, 2011.

Canada’s Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator or Dextre for Short having past its final exams in December is now officially on the job. It was 11 days ago that the Japanese H-2B Transfer Vehicle (HTV2) or as it is known as, Kounotori2, docked with the International Space Station with the help of another Canadian robot, Canadarm2.

Astronaut Steve Bowen, who is replacing Tim Kopra on the crew of STS-133, trained the week of January 24 with the remaining members of space shuttle Discovery’s mission to the International Space Station. The training took place at the virtual reality lab, space shuttle simulator and neutral buoyancy laboratory at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Kopra was replaced when a bicycle injury suffered January …

Animation of the Orbital Cygnus spacecraft commercial cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station.

After several delays Canada’s robotic handyman named Dextre aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has passed its final exam and is now ready for full duties. Dextre, short for Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, was designed and built by MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA) for the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Dextre along with Canadarm-2 on the ISS are known as the Mobile Servicing System (MSS).

A Russian Soyuz rocket lifted off at 2:09 p.m. EST with the Expedition 26 crew onboard headed to the International Space Station. The crew includes Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, American astronaut Catherine Coleman and from the European Space Agency Italian Paolo Nespoli.

This is a 2:46 video of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on-orbit starting at the T00:53:50 minute mark.

Other than watching the video of the launch there’s nothing like seeing great still images of an event. These images provided by SpaceX and Chris Thompson show the spectacular liftoff, on-orbit images and splashdown images.