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NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei has broken the record for longest US human spaceflight, a title former astronaut Scott Kelly has held since 2016. Tuesday marks 341 consecutive days in space for Vande Hei, surpassing Kelly’s record-breaking 340-day stint aboard the International Space Station (ISS). But the achievement comes amid volatile relations between the US and … Read more
The International Space Station is now ready for the addition of an upgraded solar array after two NASA astronauts completed a nearly seven-hour spacewalk on Tuesday (March 15). Expedition 66 crewmates Kayla Barron and Raja Chari secured brackets and erected struts at the base of one of the space station’s eight original power-providing arrays, preparing … Read more
Western sanctions against Russia could cause the International Space Station (ISS) to crash, the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos warned Saturday, calling for the punitive measures to be lifted. According to Dmitry Rogozin, the sanctions, some of which predate Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, could disrupt the operation of Russian spacecraft servicing the ISS. … Read more
For the first time, a powerful NASA telescope aboard the International Space Station observed merging “hot spots” on a weird star, known as a magnetar. The telescope is called the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), and seeks to understand more about the extreme conditions present in super-dense, city-sized neutron stars and their variants. (Magnetars, … Read more
A Russian-made video posted on Telegram a week ago is causing some anxiety about the status of a NASA astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS). As shared by NASA Watch on Saturday (March 5), the video by Russian state news outlet RIA Novosti shows NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei being left behind on the … Read more
Axiom Mission 1 is a mission to the International Space Station by the Houston-based Axiom Space that will be the first fully private crew to the orbiting complex. It is scheduled to launch on March 30, 2022. SpaceX will launch a four-person crew on the mission that will include a former NASA astronaut and three … Read more
The first woman on China’s space station beamed a message to Earth Tuesday (March 8) to celebrate International Women’s Day from orbit. “Dear fellow women, hello, I’m Chinese astronaut Wang Yaping. I’m currently carrying out a six-month mission in the China space station,” Wang said in the video message from aboard the orbiting Tiangong space … Read more
NASA has awarded a nearly $3.5 billion contract to SpaceX to provide three additional Crew Dragon launches to the International Space Station. The contract covers missions Crew-7, Crew-8 and Crew-9, but NASA says it might order more crew launches in the future. SpaceX began flying NASA astronauts to the International Space Station in 2020, marking … Read more
Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, will no longer cooperate with Germany on science experiments aboard the Russian side of the International Space Station (ISS), it said in a tweet Thursday. “The Russian space program will be adjusted against the backdrop of sanctions, the priority will be the creation of satellites in the interests of defense,” Roscosmos … Read more
When Russia launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine on Thursday, the whole world was watching. But another, much smaller audience was watching, too: the seven crew members onboard the International Space Station (ISS), orbiting hundreds of kilometers above the chaos below. Across more than two decades of continuous operations, the ISS has been a … Read more