Mir was a Soviet-Russian space station, flying from 1986 to 2001. Mir built on the Soviet space program’s previous success with the Salyut series of single-module space stations and modified them to interlock into new expandable modular space stations. The station was serviced by the Soyuz spacecraft, carrying cosmonaut crew members and the automated Progress spacecraft, carrying cargo. Both spacecraft were developed to service the previous Salyut stations and continue to be the primary vehicles to service the International Space Station today.
Asteroid 433 Eros
From Wikipedia:
433 Eros is a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) discovered in 1898, and the first asteroid to be orbited by a probe (the NEAR Shoemaker probe in 2000). It is an S-type asteroid approximately 34.4×11.2×11.2 km in size, the second-largest NEA after 1036 Ganymed, and belongs to the Amor group.
Spacecraft assembled for first private shot to ISS
A private spaceship is one step closer to launching to the International Space Station. SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule and Falcon 9 rocket have been assembled in Florida, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Saturday.
The two will probably launch in late April on an uncrewed mission to test the Dragon capsule’s ability to rendezvous and dock with the station.
Observers will be watching the launch with bated breath. In the wake of last year’s retirement of the US space shuttles, the main means of ferrying supplies to the orbital outpost is Russian Progress cargo ships. Unfortunately, a Progress launch failed last year, temporarily grounding all missions to the station. Dragon would be the first commercial craft to attempt to visit the outpost (take an interactive tour of the Dragon capsule).
Reblogged from Futurist Foresight
From Wikipedia:
Project Gemini was the second human spaceflight program of NASA, the civilian space agency of the United States government. Project Gemini was conducted between projects Mercury andApollo, with ten manned flights occurring in 1965 and 1966.
Its objective was to develop space travel techniques in support of Apollo, which had the goal of landing men on the Moon. Gemini achieved missions long enough for a trip to the Moon and back, perfected extra-vehicular activity (working outside a spacecraft), and orbital maneuvers necessary to achieve rendezvous and docking. All manned Gemini flights were launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida using the Titan II GLV launch vehicle.[1]
Reblogged from Gary Lee Hutchings
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