Updated 24 December 2025 Image from NASA. The first module of the ISS, called Zarya, was launched by a Russian rocket back in November 1998. Zarya was not an inhabitable module and its function was to provide electrical power, storage and propulsion to the ISS during the initial stages of assembly. Interesting the word ‘Zarya’… Continue reading The International Space Station
Tag: Soyuz
Soyuz 50 years on
On 23 April 1967, six years after Yuri Gagarin had became the first man to go into space, a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft was launched carrying cosmonaut Vladimir Komorov. It completed 18 orbits and then returned to Earth. Mission patch for the first Soyuz mission Sadly, during its reentry the parachute failed to open properly and the… Continue reading Soyuz 50 years on
July 8 2011- The Final Mission
On 8 July 2011 Atlantis took off for the final 13 day mission of the Space Shuttle programme and it remains to this day the last American spacecraft to carry humans into orbit. The landing of Atlantis on 21 July 2011, which brought the Space Shuttle programme to a close - Image from NASA. Development of… Continue reading July 8 2011- The Final Mission
Space Tourism
This post is about space tourism, which means ordinary people travelling into space for leisure purposes and paying to do so. This is a subject which has always been of great interest to me and although the market is very small at the moment I think it will grow over the coming decades. With the… Continue reading Space Tourism
Explaining Science 