Digital Sprocket

Of the seven launch vehicles mentioned below, three have experienced terminal failures in the past twelve months. This is just a reminder that what these people do is difficult, and success cannot be taken for granted.

April 7 – ISS Expedition 15 launches in a Soyuz-TMA From Baikonur Cosmodrome. The crew includes Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov, and Spaceflight Participant Charles Simonyi.

April 19 – Bigelow Aerospace will launch Genesis II, their second subscale inflatable demonstrator aboard a dnepr rocket from ISC Kosmotras Space and Missile Complex near Yasny, Russia.

April 28 – UP Aerospace’s SpaceLoft will carry commercial and student payloads, including the remains of Gordon Cooper and James Doohan on a suborbital flight from New Mexico’s Space Port. This will be their second attempt after their launch failure in January.

Also in April, Armadillo Aerospace plans several test flights of Pixel, their Lunar Lander Challenge vehicle. The flights will take place at the Oklahoma Space Port.

In May or June, Space Shuttle Atlantis mission STS-117 should lift off From Cape Canaveral. The flight will flesh out the space station with the addition of new solar arrays.

SpaceX has two more launches scheduled for this year from their facility on Omelek Island in the Kwajalein Atoll. The first could be as early as August and will carry TacSat 1, a US military demonstrator. Their second flight, in the fourth quarter, will carry a Malaysian communications satellite.

After their last launch ended in a launch pad explosion, Sea Launch is repairing their floating facility and plans to be ready for their next launch in October.