Saturday saw the debut launch of the Nexø I rocket, designed and built by the Copenhagen Suborbitals team. Despite an initially positive looking ascent, the 5.6 metre tall rocket lost power around 1500 metres up and fell back to Earth shortly after. Although no conclusive evidence has been produced as a cause for failure, in a statement released shortly after the event, tentative speculation pointed towards a simple LOX overload.
 
Copenhagen Suborbitals are a crowdfunded amateur team with big ambitions. The members of the team all have day jobs, spending their spare time on building and launching rockets. Under the leadership of von Bengtson and Madsen, the group have flown four home built rockets and two mock-up capsules. The fifty-strong team aim to one day fly a human to space aboard their planned Spica launch vehicle. Such a feat would be a historic first in amateur rocketry.
 
Despite this setback, it is clear to see that the rocket itself performed well initially and many positives can be taken out of the mission. The data collected will fuel improvements to the rocket before Copenhagen Suborbitals launch again, and ensure that the planned human-rated Spica rocket will have the highest safety levels possible.

The Falcon 9 rocket will blast off from SLC-40 on July 18 carrying the Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station. The launch will be the ninth in the Commercial Resupply Services contract, and will deliver essential supplies, equipment and experiments to the orbital outpost. The Falcon 9 is also set to attempt a land landing on LZ-1, which SpaceX hope will be successful following failure on the barge last time out.
 
SpaceX are currently targeting a launch date of July 18 from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral, with lift off expected at 00:45 ET (05:45 BST). Upon launch the nine Merlin 1D engines will ignite, lifting the 500,000 kg rocket away from the launchpad. The first stage of flight is expected to last 180 seconds, ending with stage separation. The single Merlin 1D-Vac engine will then ignite, putting the spacecraft into a low Earth orbit. This orbit will allow for a rendezvous and berthing with the ISS two days later.

For the second time ever we will see a landing attempt at Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral. As the launch is to low Earth orbit, the Falcon 9 first stage has enough fuel to perform a land landing. Currently SpaceX has an 100% success rate at land landings, having landed the Orbcomm-2 Falcon 9 core at LZ-1 in December of last year, SpaceX’s first ever landing of any kind. Since then SpaceX has landed on the barge several times and has gained experience in core retrieval. Musk has said that he hopes to reuse a core later this year for a commercial customer.

​The Dragon spacecraft will be filled with just under five-thousand pounds of supplies and scientific payloads set for the ISS. The new experiments arriving to the orbital laboratory will test the capabilities for sequencing DNA in space, spacecraft temperature regulation, understanding bone loss in space, and how the heart is affected by microgravity. The Dragon will also carry in its trunk the first of two International Docking Adapters to enable future commercial crew vehicles, such as SpaceX’s Crewed Dragon, to dock to the station.
 
The Commercial Resupply Services contract was awarded by NASA in 2008. The contract asked for twelve cargo transport missions to the ISS to be completed by SpaceX. After proving themselves worthy with COTS-1 and COTS-2 demo flights, NASA announced that SpaceX were now certified to begin transporting useful cargo to the ISS. Due to a reliable launch vehicle and stringent testing, SpaceX have so far managed to complete seven successful flights to the ISS, and there are many more to come! Unlike Orbital Science’s Cygnus, which also received flights in the CRS contract, the Dragon spacecraft has the ability to bring back cargo through a controlled descent and landing in the Pacific. This enables scientific experiments to be returned to Earth for full scale analysis.

Following the successful static fire test on Saturday, the rocket is set for launch in the early hours of Monday. If you aren’t able to watch it live, make sure to follow @CosmosRevealed for live text updates throughout the launch!

Following two days orbiting Earth, the Soyuz spacecraft carrying astronauts Rubins, Onishi and Ivanishin arrived at the International Space Station. The trio oversaw a straight-forward docking in the early hours of Saturday as the automated docking system expertly guided the Soyuz spacecraft in.
 
Shortly after sunrise at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, astronauts Katie Rubins, Anatoly Ivanishin and Tayuka Onishi blasted off to the International Space Station aboard the Russian Soyuz rocket. The ascent was as smooth as could be imagined, and the spacecraft was separated in a stable orbit less than nine minutes after liftoff. From there, the crew spent two days in orbit catching up to the ISS and testing systems aboard the newly upgraded Soyuz spacecraft. Upon arrival at the Space Station, the capsule manoeuvred its way to the docking port using its upgraded Kurs system and docked successfully. Upon opening the hatch, Expedition 47 crew members Williams, Ovchinin and Skripochka were there to greet them into their new home for the next few months.

The trio will stay in space for roughly four months, working on scientific research and essential station servicing throughout their stay above Earth. The crew will help install the station’s first international docking adapter set to be launched in the trunk of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft in July. The spacecraft will also carry various new scientific experiments which the crew will help carry out. These investigations will cover bone loss, DNA sequencing in space, temperature regulation in spacecraft, and much, much more. Additionally, the crew will also help unload Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft and the Russian Progress resupply vehicle during their time aboard the Station.
 
The next launch to the ISS is the aforementioned SpaceX CRS-9 resupply mission. The Falcon 9 is set to liftoff on July 18 and the launch will of course be covered live at @CosmosRevealed!

Shortly after sunrise at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, astronauts Katie Rubins, Anatoly Ivanishin and Tayuka Onishi blasted off to the International Space Station aboard the Russian Soyuz rocket. The new crew, collectively called Expedition 48, are expected to arrival at the orbital outpost on Saturday, July 9 at 00:12 EDT following two days in orbit.
 
At 07:36 in the morning in Kazakhstan the Soyuz rocket lifted from the launchpad and headed skywards. The flight went off without a hitch, with the Soyuz spacecraft delivered to a stable orbit shortly after liftoff. The flight marked the first launch of the MS series of the Soyuz capsule, bringing new capabilities to the communication and navigation subsystems of the spacecraft, increasing the safety of the astronauts aboard and ensuring easier access to space. The crew will now spend two days in orbit as the spacecraft chases the ISS. This is longer than the usual six hours since Roscosmos scientists and engineers back on Earth wish to spend an extended period testing the Soyuz’s new systems introduced in the MS series.

The trio will stay in space for roughly four months, working on scientific research and essential station servicing throughout their stay above Earth. The crew will help install the station’s first international docking adapter set to be launched in the trunk of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft in July. The spacecraft will also carry various new scientific experiments which the crew will help carry out. These investigations will cover bone loss, DNA sequencing in space, temperature regulation in spacecraft, and much, much more. Additionally, the crew will also help unload Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft and the Russian Progress resupply vehicle during their time aboard the Station.
 
The next launch to the ISS is the aforementioned SpaceX CRS-9 resupply mission. The Falcon 9 is set to liftoff on July 18 and of course will be covered live at @CosmosRevealed!