Today’s Tidbits: September 16, 2017

Today’s Tidbits: September 16, 2017

Here are our tidbits for September 16, 2017.  Enjoy!

Kennedy Space Center Back in Business

NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) has finally reopened in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma.  Lack of potable water had been a problem all week.

Chinese Space Station

China conducted its third and final refueling test of its unoccupied Tiangong-2 space station with its robotic Tianzhou-1 cargo spacecraft today.

This was a fast docking test, where the two spacecraft docked in just 6.5 hours instead of 2 days according to Andrew Jones of GBTimes.com, who also reports that 250 kilograms (kg) of propellant was transferred.

Tianzhou-1 now will be deorbited.

Tiangong-2 has been in space for exactly one year. It hosted a two-person crew for 30 days last fall, but has been empty the rest of the time.  It and its predecessor, Tiangong-1, are steps in China’s plan to place a three-module 60-ton space station in orbit in the early 2020s.  The schedule has been delayed because of the Long March 5 launch failure this past July.  LM-5 is needed to launch the modules.  LM-5 has been launched only once successfully.  The failure was on the second attempt.  No new launch date has been announced for the next attempt or what it will carry.

 

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