Soyuz MS-25 lifts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 23. 2024. Photo: NASA
The Russian Federation’s Roscosmos launched a Soyuz capsule on the MS-25 mission to the International Space Station Saturday morning. Three crew members including NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson successfully launched at 8:36 a.m. EDT Saturday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station.
At the time of launch, the ISS was over the South Pacific. Because of Thursday’s launch scrub, Soyuz will take about two days to reach the ISS instead of the planned two-orbit track that would have placed the crew at their destination the same day. They will now dock at the space station’s Prichal module at about 11:09 AM EDT. on Monday, March 25.
Dyson will begin a six-month stint aboard ISS as part of Expedition 70/71, while Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya will be aboard the station for 12 days before returning to Earth in the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft already docked at the orbiting outpost.
Dyson is scheduled to return to Earth in September along with Russian astronauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub. Both will be completing a year-long mission onboard the ISS.
This will be the third spaceflight for Dyson, the fourth for Novitskiy, and the first for Vasilevskaya.
Starliner CFT-2 launching May 19, 2022. Photo: Charles Boyer / ToT
Boeing’s Crewed Flight Test of Starliner has pushed a little further to the right again and is now scheduled to launch no earlier than May 1st. That shift is not due to any concerns with the vehicle or its readiness, but instead, ISS scheduling, specifically docking port availability.
Steve Stich, NASA’s Manager of Commercial Crew said in a press conference today that “The launch date right now is no earlier than May 1, and that’s driven by the ISS traffic.” He added, “As you know, it’s been a busy year on ISS. We have a cargo vehicle en route right now, and Dana will talk a little bit more about that mission and then how, at the end of the undocked time frame, we have to set up for a crewed flight test.”
NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore emerge from the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024, as part of an integrated crew exercise simulation for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT). Photo credit: NASA/Isaac Watson
“I had a chance to go over to one of the recent simulations and watch Butch and Suni and talk to them a bit. They’re in great spirits. They are ready and anxious to fly both the Starliner vehicle and also anxious to get on board ISS once they get there. They’ll be there for just under two weeks and the main focus will be putting Starliner through its paces,” Stich said.
CFT Will Be A Busy Flight Test
Mark Nappi, Boeing’s Vice President and Program Manager of the Starliner Program outlined what promises to be a busy schedule for Williams and Willmore during the flight. “The CFT flight is really the introduction of crew into our vehicle system. So a lot of our flight test objectives are about how that interface is going to work.”
Mark Nappi, Boeing’s Vice President and Program Manager of the Starliner Program in today’s press conference. Photo: NASA Livestream
As to flight test objectives, Nappi said, “We’ve got just under 90 of them. And it’s all, does the vehicle perform with the human in the loop, as expected?”
“We flew OFT-2,” Nappi added, “And that was the uncrewed mission for the Starliner vehicle. It was very successful. Now we introduce the human. And so what are we going to do to establish that interface?”
“From prelaunch through ascent, we’re going to be looking at how the astronauts fit into the seats, how they interface with the equipment in the vehicle. when we go through approach and rendezvous.” After that, Nappi said, “We’ll confirm the thruster performance and manual scenarios are working as expected. We’ll check the communications. We’ll check the manual and auto navigation systems and the operation of the life support system with crew now in the vehicle.”
Starliner at ISS Photo: Boeing
After arriving at ISS, Nappi said “once we’re on dock, we’ll look at hatch operations and how that works with the crew. And, once we get past the first few days, we’ll go into a quiescent mode and make sure that performs Rnominally. And then after that, it’s about crew, excuse me, about cargo transfer.”
Preparing for re-entry and landing will also be a major set of test objectives: “We’ll undock,” Nappi said. “We’ll confirm our manual piloting system. We’ll be able to go into the backup mode and let Butch and Suni use the hand controllers to make sure the vehicle reacts as expected.”
Starliner after landing a test flight at White Sands, NM Photo: NASA
Finally, Nappi said, “How we separate from the crew module with the service module and how we re enter and use the parachute systems and test the landing systems out. So a lot of nominal operations, but this time the crew is involved and so we want to check that interface out.”
“CFT is a test flight, so we expect that there may be some lessons learned,” Nappi concluded.
Williams and Willmore’s flight is expected to last around eight days.
Rocket Lab launched for the fourth time from US soil and for the first time this year earlier this morning when it sent the NROL-123 classified payload to orbit from Wallops Island, Virginia. Liftoff was at 3:25 AM EDT after the company’s engineers resolved a brief hold.
Yesterday’s planned launch of Soyuz M-25 to the International Space Station was aborted with twenty seconds left in the countdown. NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus are fine, and were evacuated from the Soyuz capsule shortly afterwards.
According to state-owned Russian domestic news agency RIA Novosti, the launch was canceled due to a voltage drawdown of a chemical power source.
“All preparations for liftoff on March 21 went without a hitch until around L-20-second mark when the Emergency Engine Cutoff, AVD, command interrupted the final countdown. At that moment, the launch control had already issued the “Pusk” (launch) command (normally issued at L-19 seconds), however, one umbilical mast, VKM (from the Russian Verkhnyaya Kabel Machta), located above the surface of the pad, remained connected to the rocket, with its nominal retraction usually taking place at L-15 seconds in the countdown.”
Russian space reporter Katya Pavlushchenko posted later on the X platform that this launch was “the first time ever when a crewed Soyuz launch was aborted a few minutes before launch. If it happened before, it was a day before launch during the standard checks.”
Soyuz MS-25 crew members: (L-R) Tracy C. Dyson, Oleg Novitskiy, and Marina Vasilevskaya. Photo: Credits: GCTC/Andrey Shelepin
The launch has been postponed to March 23, at 7:36 AM EDT. Coverage of launch and docking activities will air live on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.
SpaceX / NASA CRS-30 liftoff aboard Falcon 9 on March 21, 2024. Photo: Ed Cordero, Florida Media Now
SpaceX launched its thirtieth resupply mission to the International Space Station on Thursday from Pad SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Launch was right on time at 4:55 PM EDT into nearly perfect weather. Today’s launch was the company’s 27 launch of the year so far.
Talk of Titusville Publisher Michael Lynch caught this view of CRS-30 lifting off from Titusville Photo: Michael Lynch, Talk of Titusville
Several minutes after launch, the booster used for the flight — B1080 — returned to CCSFS and touched down successfully, completing its mission for the day and sixth mission overall while the payload continued to orbit. A sonic boom heard across the Space Coast region heralded the arrival of the booster, which touched down at SpaceX’s LZ-1 only a few miles from the launch pad at SLC-40.
This launch was the first Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft from SLC-40 and will be the first mission-use of the newly installed Crew Access Arm on the SLC-40 launch tower.
Late in the first stage’s booster flight over Florida skies yesterday. Photo: Ed Cordero, Florida Media Now
The Cargo Dragon spacecraft is planned to arrive at ISS at 7:30 AM EDT on Saturday, where it will autonomously dock to Station’s Harmony module on the zenith port.
After docking, the spacecraft is expected to spend about a month attached to ISS before it returns to Earth off the coast of Florida.
Booster B1080
Thursday’s flight was the sixth for Booster 1080. It entered service on May 21, 2023 when it carried four astronauts aboard the Axion-2 mission. Its most recent flight before yesterday was the Axiom-3 mission, where it again carried four astronauts to orbit.
A Rocket Lab Electron departing this morning from Wallops Island, Virginia Photo: Charles Boyer / ToT
Rocket Lab launched for the fourth time from US soil and for the first time this year earlier this morning when it sent the NROL-123 classified payload to orbit from Wallops Island, Virginia. Liftoff was at 3:25 AM EDT after the company’s engineers resolved a brief hold.
Rocket Lab’s “Live And Let Fly” lifts off Thursday, March 21, 2024 Photo: Charles Boyer / ToT
The classified payload was launched aboard Rocket Lab’s nine-engine Electron from Launch Complex (LC) 2 at Wallops, and its fourth from that facility. Electron is a 59-foot tall rocket capable of launching around 300 kilograms of mass.
The mission — designated “Live And Let Fly” by Rocket Lab, carried the fourth and last from the Rapid Acquisition of a Small Rocket (RASR) contract agreed to by NRO and Rocket Lab in 2020.
“Live And Let Fly” Mission logo Graphic: Rocket Lab
Cargo Dragon on the launch pad at SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station with the Crew Access Arm attached. Photo: SpaceX
SpaceX will launch its thirtieth resupply mission to the International Space Station on Thursday from Pad SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Launch time is set for 4:55 PM EDT in an instantaneous window.
This is an RTLS (Return To Launch Site) mission, meaning Falcon 9 will return and land at LZ-1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. A sonic boom heard across the Space Coast region will herald the arrival of the booster.
This launch will be the first Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft from SLC-40 and will be the first mission-use of the newly installed Crew Access Arm on the SLC-40 launch tower.
The Cargo Dragon spacecraft is planned to arrive at ISS at 7:30 AM EDT on Saturday, where it will autonomously dock to Station’s Harmony module on the zenith port.
After docking, the spacecraft is expected to spend about a month attached to ISS before it returns to Earth off the coast of Florida.
Weather
According to the 45th Weather Squadron, the Probability of Violation is 10%, meaning there is a 90% chance of acceptable weather. Prime concerns are the Thick Cloud Layers Rule, Cumulus Cloud Rule.
Trajectory
Northeast, along the orbital inclination of the International Space Station.
Booster
SpaceX has not yet announced which Falcon 9 booster it is using for this launch.
SpaceX generally provides live launch coverage starting fifteen minutes prior to launch on their account on the X platform. Click here
Spaceflight Now will provide launch coverage one hour prior to liftoff on their YouTube channel. Click here
In Person Viewing
Tomorrow’s launch is from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral, which means that the best direct views of liftoff are at either the Banana River Bridge on FL-528 W near Port Canaveral, or the southern parks on US-1 / S. Washington Avenue in Titusville. The Banana River Bridge will offer both a direct view of the launch pad as well as an excellent view of the returning booster.
Jetty Park in Port Canaveral has good views, but viewers will not be able to see the launch pad directly. Once Falcon 9 rises over the sand berm on the north side of the Port’s inlet, however, an excellent view of the rocket rising is available. Jetty Park is also an excellent spot to see the booster landing.
Important Note: Jetty Park has an entry fee and requires advance purchase of a pass. CLICK HERE to purchase parking passes.
The ascending rocket will also be visible on the beaches after liftoff when Falcon 9 clears any obstructions.
Soyuz MS-25 crew members: (L-R) Tracy C. Dyson, Oleg Novitskiy, and Marina Vasilevskaya. Photo: Credits: GCTC/Andrey Shelepin
After an incredibly busy week for spaceflight last week, this week promises to be equally busy. We have two Starlink launches (one from Vandenberg, another from KSC), SpaceX/NASA CRS-30 from SLC-40 sending supplies to ISS, and a Rocket Lab launch from Wallops early on the 21st. Also, a NASA astronaut is heading to ISS aboard a Soyuz on Thursday as well.
NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus, are scheduled to lift off on the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 9:21 AM EDT (6:21 p.m. Baikonur time).
Dyson, Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya will be taking the fast-track to ISS, with a two-orbit, three hour journey with a planned docking at the Russian Prichal module at 12:39 PM EDT.
MS-25 Crew
Tracy C. Dyson will be taking her second long-duration mission to the ISS, with her first being a stint coming from her being a member of the Expedition 23/24 crew from April 2010 to September 2010. She also flew aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor on STS-118 in 2007, and has spent over 188 days in space. She will spend several months aboard ISS as part of Expedition 70/71, with a planned return date of September 24, 2024 aboard Soyuz.
Oleg Novitskiy is a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Russian Air Force, and an old salt when it comes to space travel: he has spent some 588 days in orbit already, as a member of Expedition 33/34, Expedition 50/51 and Expedition 64/65, and will serve as the commander for this flight, Soyuz MS-25. His stay at ISS is planned for twelve days.
Marina Vasilevskaya is not officially designated by Roscosmos as a cosmonaut, but instead as a spaceflight participant. The Belarusian was selected from over 3,000 applicants to be the country’s first woman in space by the Belarus Academy of Sciences. She has been training at Star City with Roscosmos since July of last year in theoretical and practical training for the flight as well as emergency operations and zero gravity conditions. As part of the 21st Visiting Expedition to ISS, she will also spend approximately twelve days aboard the orbiting international outpost.
Loral O’Hara To Return With Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya
Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya will return aboard Soyuz MS-24, which has been docked at ISS since September of last year. Dyson will remain aboard ISS, and NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara will return with them, concluding her roughly six month assignment on orbit. The spacecraft has a planned landing zone in Kazakhstan after re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.
Launch Viewing
Launch coverage will begin at 8:20 a.m. on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.
Starlink 6-44 Rising: Photographer Ed Cordero captured Falcon 9 in flight Friday night. Photo: Ed Cordero, Florida Media Now
After two scrubs, SpaceX launched the Starlink 6-44 mission aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center Friday night. The payload was another tranche of 23 Starlink V2 Mini satellites for the company’s burgeoning LEO-based satellite Internet service.
Third Time The Charm
Wednesday evening, the launch was delayed for reasons that the company did not disclose. Thursday night, with slightly more than two minutes left on the countdown clock, a mechanical issue to the rocket’s cradle — its transporter-erector — forced another cancelation. Friday, repairs were made and SpaceX tried again. This time, no issues arose and Falcon flew into partly cloudy skies and made its way to orbit successfully.
Liftoff from Launch Complex 39A happened at 8:21 PM ET. Approximately 8.5 minutes after its launch, Booster B1062 landed safely on the automated spaceport droneship (ASDS) ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’ near the Bahamas, completing its mission for the evening. That flight was the booster’s 19th, tying it with two other SpaceX boosters — B1058 and B1061 — as the most reused rockets in the company’s inventory.
Seventh Inning Stretch: A Rocket Launch
While the launch was visible to observers in Brevard County, they weren’t the only people who got to enjoy seeing the rocket heading to space.
Due to the southeasterly trajectory of Falcon 9 last night, fans and players at the New York Mets – Washington Nationals spring training game in Port St. Lucie enjoyed a long view of Falcon 9’s flight off of the coast as it headed towards orbit. A fan shared an iPhone video of the launch as seen inside Clover Park.
They say that the best camera you own is the one that you have with you. Despite its weaknesses at recording video at night, an iPhone was sufficient to capture the memory of the sight of Falcon 9 over the game. Dozens, if not hundreds of fans did just that.
Booster: B1062
Booster B1062 successfully completed its 19th flight.
B1062 was first used for a GPS launch in 2020, and its last launch was in January of this year when it launched Starlink 6-38. Its most notable missions are Inspiration 4 and Axiom-1, both of which were crewed.
After the landing, ASOG will return to Port Canaveral with the booster. It will then be returned to SpaceX’s Hangar X facility on Roberts Road inside Kennedy Space Center for inspection, refurbishment and possible preparation for its next mission, which will be its 20th.
Flight
Mission
Date
1
GPS III SV04 Sacagawea
11/05/2020
2
GPS III SV05 Neil Armstrong
06/17/2021
3
Inspiration 4
09/16/2021
4
Starlink 4-5
01/06/2022
5
Axiom-1
04/08/2022
6
Starlink 4-16
04/29/2022
7
Nilesat-301
06/08/2022
8
Starlink 4-25
07/24/2022
9
Starlink 4-27
08/19/2022
10
Starlink 4-36
10/20/2022
11
Starlink 5-1
12/28/2022
12
Starlink 5-4
02/12/2023
13
OneWeb 17
03/09/2023
14
ArabSat 7B
05/27/2023
15
Starlink 6-7
07/28/2023
16
Starlink 6-23
10/18/2023
17
Starlink 6-30
11/28/2023
18
Starlink 6-38
01/29/2024
19
Starlink 6-44
03/15/2024
Booster 1062 flight record as of March 15, 2024
Trajectory
Trajectory was to the southeast.
Next Launch
NET Thursday, March 21, 2024, SpaceX and NASA will send a batch of supplies to the International Space Station aboard a Falcon 9: CRS-30. It is slated to launch from SLC-40 at Space Canaveral Space Force Station at 4:55 PM EDT.*
* Note: launch dates and times change often. Keep up with the latest launch news and times at Talk of Titusville.
Sierra Space announced today on the X platform that its Dream Chaser “Tenacity” orbiter has arrived at “NASA’s Armstrong In-Space Propulsion facility in Ohio for thermal vacuum testing. This will be its last testing phase in Ohio before it makes its way to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.” The Armstrong test facility is part of NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.
Robert Vess, a lecturer in mechanical and aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, N.C., installing twindow flange trim on a full-size engineering model of the HL-20 lifting body in 1990. The model was built by NCSU and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University, Greensboro, N.C. Photo: NASA
A Long Path To The Launch Pad
Dream Chaser is the company’s reusable lifting-body spaceplane based on NASA’s HL-20 Personnel Launch System, first studied by NASA Langley in 1990. That spacecraft was intended to ferry astronauts to the proposed Space Station Freedom, which eventually evolved into the International Space Station.
While no flight hardware for the HL-20 was ever built by NASA, the idea of a relatively low-cost, lifting-body design that could land on conventional runways persisted. Both Orbital Sciences (now Northrup-Grumman) and SpaceDev (now Sierra Space) proposed HL-20 derivatives for ferrying crews and supplies to the ISS.
Orbital never built its version, called “Prometheus,” a Blended Lifting Body (BLB) spacecraft, after failing to be selected for a CCDev phase 2 award by NASA. Afterward, Orbital announced that it was winding down its effort to build a commercial spacecraft and discontinued the program.
Sierra, for its part, also faced selection hurdles: its design for a crewed Dream Chaser was not selected by NASA for the final phase of development of commercial crew (CCtCap). The company persisted, however, and NASA selected a cargo-only version of Dream Chaser for its Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS2) program.
Crewed variant of Dream Chaser landing in 2017 after a drop test. Photo: Sierra Nevada
Space Flight Nearly In Sight
“We are coming out of years of development, years of hard work and years of resolving tough engineering challenges that come from revolutionary new ways of doing things,” said Sierra Space CEO Tom Vice last month.
If it tests successfully at the Armstrong Test Facility, Dream Chaser will make its maiden flight sometime in 2024 on top of a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket.
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