Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013
by Theras Wood The photographers’ cameras have long stopped flashing, and you’re all strapped in. Forget ‘space celebrity’, you’re the childhood hero of an entire generation. But none of that matters here in the bowels of the Russian Soyuz TMA spacecraft. Here, you’re just a woman or man headed to space, with scores of trainingRead more…
Tuesday, September 25th, 2012
by AJ Plunkett
In honor of the upcoming 55th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, RSC Energia recently donated a full-scale mockup of a Soyuz TMA manned spacecraft to the Museum of the Baikonur. The museum is located at the Baikonur Cosmodome in Kazakhnstan, site of the historic launch of Sputnik on Oct. 4, 1957, as well as cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s venture into history as the first human in space almost four years later. Read more.
Tuesday, June 5th, 2012
In an age when the latest and greatest technology is quickly deemed obsolete, the former Soviet Union’s Soyuz spacecraft stands as a testament to the efficient design and engineering of a bygone era. This year the Soyuz will celebrate its 46th birthday, and, unlike other crafts, it shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. We think it’s time the Soyuz got some credit. Read more.
Monday, February 6th, 2012
On July 17 at 3:17 p.m. 1975, two men, one from Russia and one from the United States shook hands. Aside from the political setting of the time, this event would be entirely unremarkable if it was not for the fact that this particular handshake took place thousands of miles above Earth. The meeting of their two spacecraft, one an Apollo Command and Service Module from the lunar missions and the other a Soviet Soyuz craft, set the stage for the modern partnerships that dominate 21st century space travel. Read more.
Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
You could call it one small step for UrtheCast or one giant leap for Soyuz, but one thing is certain: the Soyuz System, the only rocket fleet on Earth available to reach the International Space Station, is back in action. Read more.
Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
What a year it’s been – from UrtheCast’s incorporation in December of 2010, to signing vital contracts with UK Rutherford Appleton Labs and the Russian Federal Space Agency, to the acquisition of the social media platform GroundMap, UrtheCast leaps ever closer to beta launch in Summer 2012. In addition to the excitement surrounding beta launch, 2012 will see us expanding our stellar team and testing our camera, Iris. If you’ve been living under a space rock for the past year and haven’t been able to keep up with all the blogs, tweets and news releases, we want to remedy that. Here’s a look at what we’ve done and where we’ve been over the past 12 months: Read more.
Tuesday, November 8th, 2011
The Russian Federal Space Agency had an important achievement this past week – a cargo ship was successfully launched to the International Space Station, clearing the way for the next missions and putting minds at ease about future plans for the ISS. On October 30, the unmanned Progress M-13M took off as scheduled from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Read more.