Russia launches astronauts after 5-month break

Two Russians and an American on Tuesday blasted off for the International Space Station (ISS) on a Soyuz rocket in Russia's first manned space launch for almost five months.

Russians Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin and American Joseph Acaba started their journey on top of the Russian Soyuz FG rocket under crystal-clear skies from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, an AFP correspondent said.

Their Soyuz TMA-04M capsule was successfully delivered into orbit, with the rocket stages detaching as planned and all the crew were feeling good, mission control said.

They are due to dock the space station after a two-day journey on Thursday morning.

Russia is now the sole nation capable of transporting humans to the ISS after the withdrawal from service of the US shuttle but this blast-off was the first manned flight since December from the legendary Baikonur cosmodrome.

The launch had been delayed by one-and-a-half months after the spacecraft the three spacemen were initially to use in the mission was shown in testing not to be hermetically sealed and could not be used for safety reasons.

As a result, their mission has been cut down to 126 days but according to Padalka it will be extremely intense with 40 experiments planned on the Russian segment of the station alone.

Russia's space programme has been beset by a litany of technical problems which have led to the loss of a half dozen satellites and vehicles over the last year, including a Progress cargo vessel bound for the ISS.

The Soyuz rockets -- the workhorse of the Russian space programme and the direct descendant of the rocket that took Yuri Gagarin into space in 1961 -- were grounded after the Progress crashed into Siberia after launch.

However all manned launches since Russia resumed using the Soyuz have been textbook and hitch-free.

On board the ISS, the three newcomers will join Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers who have already been on the station almost five months since their December launch.

Together, the crew is set to have the historic task of receiving the first ever cargo consignment for the ISS delivered by a private company.

Private firm SpaceX is seeking to launch its Dragon spacecraft on May 19 from Cape Canaveral, Florida in what the company hopes will be the first step towards an eventual private manned mission to the station.

Padalka, who is making his fourth space flight, is one of Russia's most experienced and decorated cosmonauts who has already spent 585 days in space and made eight spacewalks.

He made his first space flight back in 1998, serving on the now defunct Russian space station Mir. He flew to the ISS again in 2004 followed by another long duration mission in 2009.

Acaba had previously made one shuttle flight while Revin is making his first trip into space.

ISRO: India hails successful Agni-V missile test

India has announced that it has successfully test launched a new nuclear-capable missile that would give it, for the first time, the capability of striking the major Chinese cities of Beijing and Shanghai.

The government has hailed the Agni-V missile, with a range of 3,100 miles, as a major boost to its efforts to counter China's regional dominance and become an Asian power in its own right.

The head of India's Defence Research and Development Organisation, Vijay Saraswat, said the missile was launched from Wheeler Island off India's east coast.

It rose to an altitude of more than 370 miles, its three stages worked properly and its payload was deployed as planned, he said.

"India has emerged from this launch as a major missile power," he added.

The window for the launch opened on Wednesday night, but the test had to be postponed because of weather conditions. Avinash Chandra, mission director for the test, said that when the launch took place on Thursday morning the missile performed as planned, adding: "We have achieved exactly what we wanted to achieve in this mission."

The Agni-V is a solid-fuel, three-stage missile designed to carry a 1.5-ton nuclear warhead. It stands 57 feet tall, has a launch weight of 50 tons and was built at a reported cost of 25 billion rupees (486 million US dollars).

It can be moved across the country by road or rail and can be used to carry multiple warheads or to launch satellites into orbit. The missile will need four or five more trials before it can be inducted into India's arsenal at some point in 2014 or 2015, Indian officials said.

China is far ahead of India in the missile race, with intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching anywhere in India. Currently, the longest-range Indian missile, the Agni-III, has a range of only 2,100 miles and falls short of many major Chinese cities.

India hailed the test as a major step in its fight to be seen as a world power. Mr Saraswat said: "India has today become a nation with the capability to develop, produce, build long-range ballistic missiles and today we are among the six countries who have this capability."

NASA Readies “Big Cheer” for Dragon Mission

The upcoming launch of a SpaceX spacecraft and rocket on a demonstration flight to the International Space Station is expected to cross a key milestone on the path to operational, commercial missions.

“It’s almost like the lead-up to Apollo, in my mind,” said Mike Horkachuck, NASA’s project executive for SpaceX. “You had Mercury then you had Gemini and eventually you had Apollo.

This would be similar in the sense that, we’re not going to the moon or anything as spectacular as that, but we are in the beginnings of commercializing space. This may be the Mercury equivalent to eventually flying crew and then eventually leading to, in the long run, passenger travel in space.”

California-based Space Exploration Technologies, known as SpaceX, is preparing to launch an ambitious mission to dock its Dragon spacecraft to the space station and return it to Earth.

The spacecraft will not have a crew, but will carry about 1,200 pounds of cargo that the astronauts and cosmonauts living on the station will be able to use. The capsule will go into space atop a Falcon 9 rocket also built by SpaceX.

Because the mission is a test flight, the cargo is not material deemed critical to the crew, Horkachuck said. Launch is targeted for April 30 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, within sight of the launch pads the space shuttles used to carry the station’s components into orbit.

There also are several tests and reviews coming up later this month similar to those performed ahead of space shuttle missions.

If this mission is successful, the Dragon is expected to become operational and launch regular supply runs to the station. Unlike any other cargo carrier, the Dragon can bring things back to Earth, too, a boon for scientists whose research is taking place on the orbiting laboratory.

First US Footage of Space - Captured german V2 Rocket

This is the first US Footage of Space taken from a German V2 Rocket launched from White Sands New Mexico in 1946. German Rocket scientists were 'extracted' from Germany at the end of the War in Europe to establish a Rocket Programme for the US.

The most famous of these scientists was Von Braun, who became a major player in US rocket technology despite being a German Nazi member and supporter of Hitler's regime.



Von Braun went on to build the Saturn-V Moon Rocket for US President JF Kennedy.

N-Korea's rocket crashes into sea

North Korea's much-anticipated rocket launch has ended in failure, splintering into pieces over the Yellow Sea soon after lift-off.

The reclusive communist state admitted in an announcement on state TV that a satellite launched hours earlier from the west coast failed to enter into orbit.

The US and South Korea also declared the launch a failure.

The Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite was fired from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station in Tongchang-ri, along the west coast, at 7.38am (11.38pm Thursday BST) but failed to reach orbit, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said.

"Scientists, technicians and experts are now looking into the cause of the failure," KCNA said.

US and South Korean officials said hours earlier that the rocket splintered into pieces about a minute after lift-off over the Yellow Sea, calling it a provocative failed test of missile technology.

In response to the launch, Washington announced it was suspending plans to contribute food aid to the North in exchange for a rollback of its nuclear programmes.

The US North American Aerospace Defence Command said it detected and tracked the launch of the rocket - which it called a missile - over the Yellow Sea; the first stage fell into the sea 100 miles west of Seoul, South Korea, while stages two and three failed.

"At no time were the missile or the resultant debris a threat," Norad said in a statement.

The US, Japan, Britain and other nations had been urging North Korea to cancel a launch seen as a covert test of the rocket technology also used to send a long-range missile to strike the US

North Korea refused to back down, saying the rocket would carry only a civilian satellite, touting it as a major technological achievement to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of the country's founder, Kim Il Sung, on Sunday.

India To Launch Astriums Spot 6 Earth Observation Satellite

India’s ISRO PSLV rocket will launch the Spot 6 commercial Earth observation satellite for Astrium Services of Europe late this year under a contract announced April 3 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

The 800-kilogram satellite, intended to operate from a near-polar low Earth orbit at 694 kilometers in altitude, will be accompanied on the launch by several other payloads that ISRO did not identify.

EADS Astrium Services is building and launching the identical Spot 6 and 7 satellites using its own funds, with no assistance, nor any guarantee of future image purchases, by the French government.

Astrium officials have said they expect to spend about 300 million euros ($400 million) to build and launch the two spacecraft.

Spot 7 is scheduled for launch in 2014, with a launch vehicle yet to be announced.

Spot 6 and Spot 7 will replace the larger Spot 5 satellite, which was launched in 2002 and has been operating beyond its contracted in-orbit service life since 2008.

Spot 5 has been the principal revenue generator for Astrium Geo-Information Services, the Astrium Services division that commercializes Earth observation imagery.

Spot 6 and Spot 7 are expected to operate 180 degrees apart in low Earth orbit, much as the higher-resolution Pleiades satellites, the first of which was launched in December. The French government financed development of the two Pleiades satellites, and Astrium Geo-Information Services is commercializing Pleiades imagery.

Spot 6 and Spot 7 will be capable of distinguishing objects of 1.5 meters in diameter in black and white, and 6 meters in color. The images will have a swath width of 60 kilometers, like the previous Spot spacecraft, but will be more agile.

The satellites will be able to move the imager up to 45 degrees off nadir back and forth to capture views in front of and behind the satellite, and up to 35 degrees off nadir from side to side.

ISRO said the agreement between Astrium and ISRO’s Antrix commercial arm is part of a long-term cooperation agreement signed in September 2008.

The same collaborative accord covered the construction of the Hylas 1 Ka-band broadband satellite operated by Avanti Communications of London. ISRO and Antrix built the Hylas 1 satellite structure, or bus, with Astrium providing the telecommunications payload.

NASA (ATREX) Launches: Anomalous Transport Rocket Experiment

The ATREX mission will launch 5 Sounding rockets in 5 minutes to gather information to better understand the process responsible for the Earth's high-altitude jet stream.

This map shows the projected area in which the chemical tracers released from the rockets may be visible to the public. Credit: NASA/Wallops

For the 5 Rocket launches to go ahead, clear skies are required at three special camera sites located along the mid-Atlantic coast in Virginia, North Carolina and New Jersey.

The visible tracers may be observed for up to 20 minutes by residents in the mid-Atlantic region, and along the east coast of the United States from parts of New Jersey to South Carolina.

Launch Viewing at Wallops
The launch window each night will vary but will open no earlier than 11 p.m. EST and close no later than 6:30 a.m. The NASA Visitor Center at Wallops will be open at least one hour before the opening of the daily launch window for viewing the mission by the public. Call 757-824-2298 to confirm opening time.

› Launch Sequence PDF

Web Cast
The ATREX mission will be web cast beginning 2 hours before the opening of the launch window. Visit http://sites.wff.nasa.gov/webcast.

Mariners/Boaters
Information for mariners on areas to avoid on the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Wallops Island during launch operations. Visit: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/wallops/home/marine.html.

Rocket Launch Image: University of Alaska's Poker Flat Research Range near Fairbanks, Alaska

A rocket flies through the aurora borealis after lifting off from the University of Alaska's Poker Flat Research Range near Fairbanks, Alaska. 

The mission was launched by a NASA funded group of 60 researchers studying electrical activity in the aurora borealis and the likelihood it is interfering with GPS and other signals. 

Cornell University says the 46-foot rocket sent back data as it flew through the aurora at an altitude of 217 miles.

Picture: NASA Wallops, Lee Wingfield/AP

ESA Vega Lift-Off: Inaugural Flight Of European Rocket

The small payload rocket launched from French Guiana on February 13, 2012. It will deploy nine satellites.
Credit: ESA

ESA VEGA Launch - Video

Click on the image to visit the ESA website and play video!

ESA: First Vega rocket assembled on launch pad - images

ESA’s new Vega rocket is now fully assembled on its launch pad. Final preparations are in full swing for the rocket’s inaugural flight.

Flight VV01 will lift off from the new Vega launch site at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, carrying nine satellites into orbit: the LARES laser relativity satellite and ALMASat-1 from ASI with seven CubeSats from European Universities.

Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja, 2012

Vega's upper composite, comprising LARES, ALMASat-1, seven CubeSats and the fairing, was transferred to the pad on 24 January and added to the vehicle at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.

Credits: ESA - M. Pedoussaut, 2012

Vega's upper composite, comprising LARES, ALMASat-1, seven CubeSats and the fairing, was transferred to the pad on 24 January and added to the vehicle at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.

Credits: ESA - M. Pedoussaut, 2012

Soyuz Launch of Proton-M carrier rocket postponed

The launch of a Russian Proton-M carrier rocket with a Dutch telecommunications satellite SES-4 (NSS-14) onboard was called off on Monday due to "technical problems", a spokesman for the Khrunichev State Research and Production Center said.

He said the new date for launch was being discussed. He did not elaborate on the cause of the delay.

The launch would have been the 70th commercial launch of a Proton carrier rocket since 1995 and the 10th launch of this type of carrier rocket this year.

The SES-4 satellite, built by U.S. company Space Systems/Loral for the Dutch operator Ses World Skies, is designed to provide various satellite services to customers in the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Latin America.

Russia has experienced a number of launch mishaps in the past 13 months, including the crash of a Meridian dual purpose satellite shortly after take-off last week.

That incident led the head of Russia's Roscosmos space agency to say the industry was "in crisis."

The rocket failures come on top of the loss of Phobos-Grunt, Russia's most ambitious planetary mission in decades.

It became stuck in Earth orbit after its launch in November and is expected to fall back to Earth in mid-January.

A Siberian resident miraculously escaped serious injury or even death when a fragment of a Russian communication satellite crashed through the roof of his house.

A Meridian satellite that was launched on Friday from the Plesetsk space center in northern Russia on board a Soyuz-2 carrier rocket crashed near the Siberian city of Tobolsk minutes after liftoff.

Eight satellite fragments were found in an area some 100 kilometers from the city of Novosibirsk.

One, a titanium ball of about five kilograms, fell on to the roof of a village house in the Ordyn district.

The house owner, Andrei Krivorukov, had gone out to the yard to fetch firewood minutes before the crash.

Another Russian Soyuz-2 Rocket Fails to reach Orbit

An unmanned Soyuz-2 rocket carrying a Russian communications satellite lifted off from Russia's Plesetsk space center at 7:08 a.m. EST (1208 GMT), but failed to reach orbit after a third-stage engine failure.

The rocket and its payload crashed in Siberia, according to the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

There was no immediate word about whether the Soyuz-2 failure will impact upcoming launches, including a Soyuz flight slated for Wednesday to put six Globalstar mobile communications satellites into orbit.

The engine on the Soyuz-2 rocket lost Friday is different than the one used on the rocket that launches space station cargo and crews, NASA said.

"This is unlikely to have any effect on operations to the International Space Station," said NASA spokesman Joshua Buck.

NASA Expedition 30 Lifts Off at Baikonur

The Soyuz TMA-03M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2011, carrying Expedition 30 Soyuz Commander Oleg Kononenko of Russia, NASA Flight Engineer Don Pettit and European Space Agency astronaut and Flight Engineer Andre Kuipers to the International Space Station.

Image Credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi

ESA prepares new technologies for future launchers

ESA and the DLR German Space Center fired a Texus rocket 263 km into space on 27 November to test a new way of handling propellants on Europe’s future rockets.

Texus 48 lifted off at 10:10 GMT (11:10 CET) from the Esrange Space Centre near Kiruna in northern Sweden on its 13-minute flight.

During the six minutes of weightlessness – mimicking the different stages of a full spaceflight – two new devices were tested for handling super-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellants and then recovered for analysis.

Building on over 30 years of Texus missions, flight 48 was the first to demonstrate a new technology for future launchers.

DLR procured the rocket for this flight, which was performed under ESA’s Cryogenic Upper Stage Technologies (CUST) project as part of the Future Launchers Preparatory Programme (FLPP).

ESA Portal - Europe prepares new technologies for future launchers

Improved upper stage
ESA is working on a restartable cryogenic upper stage to improve Europe’s launchers.

Liquids naturally float around in weightlessness but to ensure engine ignition after a long coast in low-gravity, propellant must be held ready at the tank’s outlet using ‘capillary’ forces – the same force that helps paper towels soak up water.

Although this has already been mastered for launchers and satellites that use storable liquids, higher-performance cryogenic fluids are more difficult to handle.

On Texus 48, liquid nitrogen represented the cryogenic propellants to ease cost and safety constraints, and simplify the thermal design.

“The launch of Texus 48 demonstrating new technologies for future rockets was a success. It also shows great cooperation with DLR, where joint efforts made this flight possible on time,” said Guy Pilchen, Future Launchers Preparatory Programme Manager.

NASA - Artist Concept of SLS on Launchpad

The Space Launch System, or SLS, will be designed to carry the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, as well as important cargo, equipment and science experiments to Earth's orbit and destinations beyond.

Additionally, the SLS will serve as a back up for commercial and international partner transportation services to the International Space Station.

Image Credit: NASA

Ex-Soviet ICBM: SS18 'Satan' rocket launches three European micro-satellites

Ex-'Satan' rocket launches three European micro-satellites

A former Soviet SS-18 intercontinental missile lofted a trio of European micro-satellites into space on Wednesday, including a satellite to monitor the Sun's impact on climate change, France's National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) said.

The Russian-Ukrainian Dnepr lifted off at 1442 GMT from Yasny, southern Russia, the CNES said in a press release issued in Paris.

Its triple payload included a 150-kilo (330-pound) French satellite called Picard that will scrutinise the Sun for changes that could affect Earth's climate system.

More than 80 percent of current climate change is attributable to greenhouse gases that trap solar heat, leaving variations in solar output as the other big contributor.

Picard, named after a 17th-century French astronomer who investigated solar activity, will orbit at an altitude of 725 kilometres (453 miles), the CNES said.

It carries a telescope that will take images of the Sun in five wavelengths, and two other instruments to measure the Sun's energy output.

The other passengers aboard the Dnepr were the satellites Mango and Tango, under a Swedish Space Corporation project called Prisma.

They will test new sensors and navigation technologies designed to enable satellites to rendezvous or fly in formation in space.

The SS-18 was code-named "Satan" by NATO in the Cold War's heyday. In the 1990s, a number of the missiles were converted so that they could carry small civilian payloads into low Earth orbit.