SpaceQ Space news and analysis.

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.

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) renewed their cooperative agreement today for another 10 years building upon a unique relationship that has benefited Canada and the European Union. The agreement signed in Paris earlier today by Steve MacLean, President of the Canadian Space Agency and Jean-Jacques Dordain, Director General of ESA means the two agencies can continue foster cooperation in …

Rocketplane Global‘s CEO George French recalls his failed attempt to build a Space-X competitor with funds from “a Canadian teachers’ pension fund” and academics at the University of Lethbridge attempt a “reawakening of aerospace research in Canada.” Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports a “long awaited revival of nuclear civilian ships” which bodes well for advanced space propulsion technologies. All that and more, this week in …

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.

After a nearly flawless launch of Falcon 9 and recovery of the Dragon spacecraft, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was almost speechless during the first part of the press conference saying “he was in semi shock” at how well the launch went. Musk said he was extremely thankful to NASA for helping get SpaceX to this point and that SpaceX had built upon decades of NASA …

Heading into the first demo flight of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program SpaceX and NASA were both quick to remind people that this was a test program doing something SpaceX had never done before. From the look of today’s launch it seems they needed have worried so much. The first flight of Falcon 9 carrying the Dragon spacecraft to orbit appears to have …

A safe return for the Expedition 25 crew, a status report on the STS-133 mission, enter the Dragon; a newly-licensed reusable spacecraft, space talks with the ISS crew, wind tunnel testing, and it’s all Good when an astronaut goes home sweet home.

NASA funded researchers conducting tests in Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth that are able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. This new find in the field known as Astrobiology has changed our fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth.

Mutually assured exclusion (MAE) certainly seems less crazy than mutually assured destruction (MAD) as a space war doctrine, but both could end up poking eyes out and four papers (three space focused) are retracted amid charges of “self-plagiarism” and “bogus authorship” at Queens University plus launch companies beg NASA to “save the space planes.” All that and more, this week in space for Canada.