Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft docks with space station

October 11th, 2009 MOSCOW - The re-entry capsule of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft has landed safely in Kazakhstan's steppe Sunday, officials said. Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, NASA's (US space agency) Michael Barratt and space tourist Guy Laliberte onboard the capsule landed safely in northern Kazakh steppe.

October 2nd, 2009 Craft carrying circus tycoon reaches space stationKOROLYOV, Russia — A spacecraft carrying a Canadian circus tycoon and a two-man Russian-American crew has docked at the International Space Station. Billionaire Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte is the seventh paying space tourist to visit the orbital station.

September 18th, 2009 TOKYO - Japan's first unmanned cargo spacecraft docked Friday to the International Space Station to deliver 4.5 tonnes of goods to its crew. The H-II Transfer Vehicle manoeuvred within 10 metres of the station before astronauts on board used the station's robotic arm to reel the H-II the rest of the way in, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said.

September 17th, 2009 BEIJING - China has selected 30 men and 15 women candidates in the second round of its space-training programme, officials said Thursday. All 45 candidates are air force pilots.

September 1st, 2009 GUWAHATI - US astronaut Mike Fincke Tuesday took a close look here at the river Brahmaputra, which he had viewed from space some months ago. I saw the Brahmaputra from space.

August 31st, 2009 WASHINGTON - US space shuttle Discovery arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) Sunday night after nearly two days of journey. Using space shuttle Discovery's reaction control system jets, Commander Rick Sturckow steered the shuttle to a soft docking with the ISS at 8.54 p.m.

August 29th, 2009 India loses communication with lunar satelliteNEW DELHI — India's national space agency said communications with the country's only satellite orbiting the moon snapped Saturday and that its scientists were no longer controlling the spacecraft. Radio contacts with Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft were abruptly lost at 0130 Saturday (2000 GMT Friday), the Indian Space Research Organization said.

July 19th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The crews of the space shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station have successfully installed a four-ton "porch" to the station's Japanese laboratory. US astronauts Dave Wolf and Timothy Kopra completed a five-hour and 32-minute spacewalk Saturday to prepare the way for astronauts using a robotic arm inside the station to attach the outdoor shelf to the Kibo module.

July 17th, 2009 BANGALORE - A malfunctioning star sensor of India's first lunar mission spacecraft Chandrayaan-I was set right by space scientists to ensure correct orientation, an official said here friday. "One of the star sensors, which gives the orientation of the spacecraft, was malfunctioning but our scientists have overcome this problem with innovative techniques of using antenna pointing mechanism and gyroscope on board the spacecraft to get the orientation information," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) direcvtor S.

July 16th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Space shuttle Endeavour blasted off Wednesday on its sixth attempt to launch since June, headed to the International Space Station to expand Japan's Kibo module. The seven-member crew is to deliver an outside porch on the module at the station to expose scientific experiments to the extremities of space.

July 1st, 2009 Ulysses probe ends 18-year study of heliospherePASADENA, Calif. — The U.S.

June 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The latest Geo-stationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-O, soared into space Saturday after a successful launch from Space Launch Complex 37 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The GOES-O spacecraft lifted off at 6:51 p.m.

May 29th, 2009 MOSCOW - The Russian space capsule Soyuz successfully docked with the orbiting International Space Station (ISS) Friday, bringing three more crew members to the ISS, Russian TV reported. The Soyuz had been launched from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan Wednesday.

May 27th, 2009 MOSCOW - A Russian Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft carrying three astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) was launched Wednesday from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, the mission control said. "The craft is due to dock with the ISS May 29," a spokesperson said.

May 23rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama Saturday named Charles Bolden, a black ex-astronaut, to lead the US space agency into its next chapter that could take it back to the moon. The retired Marine Corps general, 62, flew four times in the space shuttle in the '80s and '90s - two times as mission commander.