Multiple private space companies want to operate commercial businesses taking tourists into space. One of those companies is called Space Adventures, and it planned to launch a mission sometime between late-2021 and mid-2022. Space Adventures had a reservation with SpaceX using Crew Dragon for its tourist mission.
NASA is putting out a call for more astronaut shuttles, expanding the Commercial Crew program with additional missions beyond those already agreed with SpaceX and Boeing. The request for "safe, reliable, and cost-effective human space transportation services to and from the International Space Station" comes as the US space agency looks ahead to the future of the ISS and, beyond that, missions to the Moon and further afield.
NASA and SpaceX have announced that they have changed the launch date for the Crew-3 mission. The launch is now targeting Sunday, October 31 at 2:21 AM ET. The Crew-3 mission will see four astronauts head to the ISS. In addition, a backup launch date of 1:10 AM EDT on Wednesday, November 3, has been announced.
Russia became the first country to put an actor and director who acted as the cameraman onto the ISS to film a feature-length movie. The actress was Julia Peresild, and she and director Klim Shipenko returned to Earth on a Soyuz capsule commanded by cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy. The cosmonauts successfully returned to Earth and upon landing, filmed a few additional scenes for the conclusion of the movie.
In July, Russia finally got its new Nakua laboratory module into orbit and attached to the ISS. Unfortunately for the crew and the space station, shortly after being attached an inadvertent thruster firing in the laboratory module pushed the entire space station off-axis. Another unplanned thruster firing by Russian spacecraft happened this week that pushed the ISS out of proper orientation again.
Astronaut Thomas Pesquet took a photograph on October 8 from the International Space Station that captured something exceedingly rare. The photo seen below clearly shows a bright blue-white luminous event on the horizon of the Earth. Pesquet took the single frame showing the blue luminous event from a longer time-lapse.
Russia has announced that it will be the first nation to launch an actor and film director into space to shoot a feature film while in orbit. The actor heading into space is Yulia Peresild, and the director is Klim Shipenko. The duo will be accompanied by cosmonaut Anton Ahkaplerov and will constitute the crew of Soyuz MS-19.
A month after docking with the International Space Station, SpaceX's Dragon capsule is preparing to detach itself from the ISS and make the relatively short trip back to Earth. The Dragon capsule was used for SpaceX's most recent ISS cargo run on behalf of NASA, supplying astronauts in orbit around the planet with the supplies they need to survive and the latest scientific investigations.
SpaceX successfully sent and returned the first all civilian crew to and from orbit with its Inspriation4 mission earlier this month. While there were some challenges with the flight, namely issues with the toilet aboard the spacecraft, the mission was trouble free. SpaceX has now confirmed that after the Inspriation4 mission, it has seen an increased interest in civilian spaceflight.
The crew aboard the ISS has had a rough few months with a few potentially significant issues happening in the Russian segment of the space station. When Russia connected the new laboratory module to the space station, the thrusters on the segment fired unintendedly, pushing the entire station out of its normal orientation. Russian cosmonauts also recently discovered cracks in one of their modules.
Astronauts aboard the ISS have been working to install new solar panel arrays outside the ISS over the last handful of weeks. The new solar panel arrays are upgrades to aging panels that have lost their effectiveness and will give the space station the power it needs to operate into the future. One of the spacewalks to install solar panels was previously canceled.
Two Russian cosmonauts have been undertaking a spacewalk at the International Space Station today, and while their task may be to establish key links to the new Nauka module, it's also an opportunity for some jaw-dropping helmet-cam footage. Expedition 65 Flight Engineers Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov - both of Roscosmos - opened the airlock hatch at 10:41am EDT.