** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **

Rollout time:



This time a Proton Rocket with the Sirius FM-6 Satellite at Baikonur Cosmodrome. Launch is scheduled for 19:12 BST on Sunday.
 
LADEE demonstrating laser communication:

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On October 18th, 2013 the Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) made history, transmitting data from lunar orbit to Earth at a rate of 622 Mbps. LLCD, flying aboard NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), is the first NASA mission dedicated to proving high-rate, two-way laser communications is possible. LLCD not only demonstrated a record-breaking download rate but also an error-free data upload rate of 20 Mbps. The laser beam was transmitted the 239,000 miles from the primary ground station at NASA's White Sands Complex in Las Cruces N.M., to the LADEE spacecraft in lunar orbit.
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http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ladee/main/
 
Hot off the press today:

v9e5.jpg


:)
 
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Expedition 38 aboard Soyuz TMA-11M will launch on Thursday at 04:14 GMT. Docking to the Rassvet Module is planned for 10:31 GMT.

EDIT: Video updated, about the mission and the Olympic torch starts at 08:00. :)
 
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A little on MAVEN:

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Expected to launch aboard an Atlas V 401 on 18th November but the launch window extends until 7th December.
 
Some amazing pictures from the space station:


ESA’s fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle, Albert Einstein, burnt up on 2 November at 12:04 GMT over an uninhabited area of the Pacific Ocean. It left the International Space Station a week earlier with 1.6 tonnes of waste after spending five months attached to the orbital outpost.

Each ATV mission ends with the spacecraft burning up harmlessly in the atmosphere. This time, however, the ATV team organised a special departure to gain valuable data on reentries.

After undocking at 09:00 GMT on 28 October, Albert Einstein was instructed by its control centre in Toulouse, France to perform delicate manoeuvres over the course of five days to position itself directly below the Station. Astronauts on the Station observed the vessel from above as it disintegrated.

This image from the Station was taken when Albert Einstein was around 100 km directly below and had began its destructive dive. It is the first view of an ATV reentry since the first, of Jules Verne, in 2008.

ATV Albert Einstein delivered 7 tonnes of supplies, propellant and experiments to the Space Station. ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano oversaw the unloading and cataloguing of the cargo, comprising over 1400 individual items.

Credit: ESA/NASA
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The slide show:

http://www.flickr.com//photos/esa_events/sets/72157637345106796/show/
 
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