Progress MS-08 undocked from the International Space Station after just over six months attached to the orbiting outpost’s Zvezda service module. Rather than an immediate deorbit, however, the cargo freighter will continue orbiting Earth for a week.
Undocking occurred at 02:16 UTC Aug. 23, 2018. Once the unpiloted Progress MS-08 was safely away from the station, the second phase of its mission began.
Read MoreTwo Russian cosmonauts stepped outside the International Space Station for more than 7.5 hours to deploy several small satellites and install an experiment designed to monitor animal migration.
Expedition 56 flight engineers Oleg Artemyev and Sergey Prokopyev were tasked with Russian EVA 45, which officially began at 16:17 UTC Aug. 15, 2018, when the Pirs docking compartment's airlock hatch was opened.
Read MoreSpaceX’s CRS-15 Dragon returned to Earth on Aug. 3, 2018, after a month-long stay at the International Space Station. The capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean with cargo and research samples that were returned for further analysis.
Since July 2, the spacecraft was berthed to the Earth-facing port of the space station’s Harmony module.
Read MoreFollowing two months attached to the International Space Station, the ninth Cygnus resupply spacecraft was unberthed and released from the orbiting outpost to perform a secondary two-week free-flight mission.
The Northrop Grumman (formerly Orbital ATK) OA-9 Cygnus was unberthed in the early-morning hours of July 15, 2018, before being released at 8:37 a.m. EDT (12:37 GMT).
Read MoreRussia’s Progress MS-09 freighter launched atop a Soyuz 2.1a rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and docked with the International Space Station in less than four hours—a mere 2.5 laps around Earth.
Liftoff from Site 31 at the Cosmodrome took place at 5:51 p.m. EDT (21:51 GMT) July 9, 2018. Once in orbit, the spacecraft began a series of automated burns to catch up with and dock to the station’s Pirs docking compartment. Docking took place at 9:31 p.m. EDT (00:31 GMT July 10).
Read MoreSpaceX’s CRS-15 Dragon cargo resupply ship has been attached to the International Space Station. the spacecraft rendezvoused with the orbiting outpost in the early-morning hours of July 2, 2018, and is expected to remain berthed for about a month.
Capture took place at 6:54 a.m. EDT (10:54 GMT) by the 17.6-meter Canadian-built robotic Canadarm2, which was under the control of Expedition 56 NASA astronauts Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel at the robotics work station in the station’s cupola window.
Read MorePeggy Whitson retired from NASA on June 15, 2018, after 32 years with the space agency—22 as an astronaut. Between 2002 and 2017, she participated in three long-duration International Space Station expeditions, accumulating 665 days orbit—a record for any U.S. space flyer.
Whitson, now 58, concluded her most recent mission in September 2017. Her nine-month stay aboard the ISS as part of Expedition 50, 51 and 52 was the longest for any woman and included multiple spacewalks.
Read MoreTwo NASA astronauts ventured outside the International Space Station to perform the sixth spacewalk of 2018 at the orbiting complex. The nearly seven-hour long outing saw the duo install new cameras in preparation for upcoming commercial crew flights.
The primary task for this particular extravehicular activity was to install high-definition cameras to provide enhanced views during the docking of commercial crew spacecraft.
Read MoreExpedition 56 has three new crew members with the arrival of Soyuz MS-09. The two spent the last two days catching up with the International Space Station before rendezvousing and docking with the 400-metric-ton complex at 9:01 a.m. EDT (13:01 GMT) June 8, 2018.
After docking with the station’s Rassvet module, the Soyuz MS-09 crew spent a couple hours pressurizing the space between the hatches of the two vehicles.
Read MoreThree space flyers are on their way to the International Space Station after launching to orbit inside their Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft atop a Soyuz-FG rocket. Liftoff took place at 4:12 p.m. local time (7:12 a.m. EDT / 11:12 GMT) June 6, 2018.
Flying to space to be part of the space station’s in-progress Expedition 56 is Russian cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev, NASA astronaut Serena Aunon-Chancellor and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst.
Read MoreOrbital Velocity is designed to be "living time capsule" about the International Space Station.
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