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

[nashathedog]

SpaceX's Dragon Soars As Its Rocket Lands: An Epic Spaceflight in Photos

An amazing landing onto a barge at sea, It seems like a strange way to do it though. It adds many unpredictable variables into it but maybe the point is to show how dependable and capable the design is. Whatever the reason it's pretty spectacular.

http://www.space.com/32530-spacex-rocket-landing-dragon-launch-epic-pictures.html

EDIT: Sorry, I just saw this post above

New SpaceX CRS-8 landing images have been released:

Spoiler

CRS-8 first stage landing by SpaceX Photos, on Flickr

CRS-8 first stage landing by SpaceX Photos, on Flickr

 

[Cosimo]

Continuing with Space Station 360° we have the station's sixth module, Columbus. It was launched on 7 February 2008 on Space Shuttle Atlantis. The laboratory is ESA’s largest single contribution to the Station, and Europe’s first permanent research facility in space:

The state-of-the-art facility offers 75 cubic metres of workspace and contains a suite of research equipment. External platforms support experiments and applications in space science, Earth observation and technology.

Columbus offers European scientists full access to a weightless environment that cannot be duplicated on Earth.

 

[Cosimo]

Tim Peake chats:

 

[Cosimo]

Six spacecraft docked to the station for a second time and BEAM coming tomorrow:

 

[Cosimo]

This week:

 

[Cosimo]

The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) will be attached to the station’s Tranquility module TODAY. Live coverage on NSA TV will begin at 10:30 BST (05:30 EDT):

http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv

 

[Cosimo]

BEAM (left) attached to the station:

 

[Cosimo]

BEAM installation:

 

[Cosimo]

A rather nice video showing Falcon 9 development:

 

[Cosimo]

Jeff Williams with a Q&A from the Science and Engineering Festival in Washington DC:

 

[Cosimo]

Superb video of earth from the station:

 

[Cosimo]

The United Launch Alliance's role in the Commercial Crew Program:

ULA has been selected by The Boeing Company to provide the launch service for the Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station in 2017:

 

[Cosimo]

More views of the earth from the station:

 

[Cosimo]

Another stunning view of home:

 

[Cosimo]

Continuing with Space Station 360° we have the station's seventh module, Kibo. It was launched in three parts in 2008 and 2009 aboard Space Shuttles Atlantis and Endeavour.

The laboratory is renowned for its volume and extra features such as its external robotic arm, an airlock to send experiments outside, and an external facility to expose experiments to space. Nanosats can be launched from Kibo through the airlock, making the Station a base for deploying satellites as well as a weightless research centre for biology, physics and medicine.

 

[Cosimo]

Nice to see some rockets we could make. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center hosted the 16th annual Student Launch competition in Huntsville, Alabama.

During the event student-designed and built rockets were launched in an effort to reach an altitude of one mile, deploy an automated parachute system, and safely land to be recovered.

 

[Cosimo]

Another stunning image from Rosetta:

Single frame enhanced NavCam image taken on 27 March 2016, when Rosetta was 329 km from the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The scale is 28 m/pixel and the image measures 28.7 km across.

ESA / Rosetta / Navcam

 

[Cosimo]

Preparations for launch of Sentinel-1B aboard a Soyuz VS14 for launch at Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana:

Rollout:

The Soyuz rocket that will take Sentinel-1B, three CubeSats and Microscope into orbit and launch is today @ 21:02 UTC.

 

[Cosimo]

Cassini, the beginning and the end:

2004

2017

More:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/

 

[Cosimo]

This week: