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

[Glaucus]

Oh man, things are heating up. Roll on 2020, I think we're on the cusp of another space race, this time including private companies. Just not quite there with heavy launchers, but most of them are due in next three years.

 

[Cosimo]

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[Cosimo]

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[Tibbz2]

Oh man, things are heating up. Roll on 2020, I think we're on the cusp of another space race, this time including private companies. Just not quite there with heavy launchers, but most of them are due in next three years.

Did you see Horizon on the other night? The Google challenge to get groups of students/scientists/engineers to build their own rovers and send them to the moon asap!

Hopefully the next rovers on the Moon should be next year from what they said! They have lovely HD cameras too

 

[Cosimo]

A trip down memory lane:

First Shuttle Launch

A new era in space flight began on April 12, 1981, when Space Shuttle Columbia, or STS-1, soared into orbit from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Astronaut John Young, a veteran of four previous spaceflights including a walk on the moon in 1972, commanded the mission. Navy test pilot Bob Crippen piloted the mission and would go on to command three future shuttle missions. The shuttle was humankind's first re-usable spacecraft. The orbiter would launch like a rocket and land like a plane. The two solid rocket boosters that helped push them into space would also be re-used, after being recovered in the ocean. Only the massive external fuel tank would burn up as it fell back to Earth. It was all known as the Space Transportation System.

Twenty years prior to the historic launch, on April 12, 1961, the era of human spaceflight began when Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth in his Vostock I spacecraft. The flight lasted 108 minutes.

Pictured here: a timed exposure of STS-1, at Launch Pad A, Complex 39, turns the space vehicle and support facilities into a night- time fantasy of light. Structures to the left of the shuttle are the fixed and the rotating service structure.

Image Credit: NASA

 

[DJMK4]

Here it is

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18166200&highlight=High+altitude+balloon

It all seems realy quite straight forward. Tracking is the bit you need to work out. Spend the money and attach a cheap smart phone or similar with GPS on it and you could get pretty much exact location, maybe with a back up ping radio thing.

Thanks will read this

 

[Cosimo]

Progress 49 leaves the station:

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[Cosimo]

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[Cosimo]

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[Cosimo]

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Antares is set for launch at 22:00 BST (17:00 EDT).

 

[Cosimo]

Antares launch was scrubbed because of a premature separation of an umbilical connection on the second stage. Next attempt on Friday 17th at 22:00 BST (17:00 EDT).

 

[Cosimo]

Iffy weather forces the launch to be put back until Saturday.

 

[Cosimo]

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[Cosimo]

A biological research mission....

Rollout and launch of Bion-M1:

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Aboard the satellite is a space zoo consisting of 45 mice, 15 geckos, eight gerbils and a number of snails. There are also plants and microorganisms aboard. The mission is due to return to earth on the 18th of May.

More:

http://www.spaceflight101.com/bion-m1-mission-updates.html

http://en.samspace.ru/products/satellites_of_scientific_purpose/ka_bion_m_1/

 

[Westyfield2]

That zoo is kinda odd!

 

[Cosimo]

Antares launch scrubbed because of high altitude winds. Next attempt tonight at 22:00 BST.

 

[Cosimo]

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[Cosimo]

Soyuz-U & Progress M-19M rolled out at Baikonur Cosmodrome:

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Launch is scheduled for Wednesday at 11:12 BST.

 

[Cosimo]

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[Cosimo]

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