Launched into a 0.981 AU x 1.628 AU solar orbit inclined 0.6 deg to the ecliptic. Deep Impact was to fly by Comet 9P/Tempel-1 on 3 July 2005. An impacter it released was to hit the comet on 4 July at 10.2 km/s, producing a crater and ejecta plume that would allow the flyby spacecraft to determine the composition and structure of the comet's nucleus.

Student satellite for radiation studies, ejected from Cosmos 2414. The satellite was built by students at MGU (Moskovskiy Gosudarstvenniy Universitet) for the university's 250th anniversary, and was nicknamed 'Tatyana' since the university's anniversary day is St. Tatyana's day

The EO-10 crew, wearing Orlan spacesuits, first installed a work platform on the exterior of the Zvezda Service Module. Station systems were put on autopilot for the duration of the spacewalk. Atop the platform the astronauts mounted a German experiment, a small remote-controlled manipulator arm, meant to test the operation of lightweight robotic joints in space. They also moved a Japanese micrometeoroid experiment and inspected the station's environmental control system vents for blockages. They completed their work by placing Russian biological experiments on the station exterior.

Last launch of an Atlas model using the original, innovative, balloon propellant tanks conceived in 1947. Third launch of new generation paired satellites used for tracking, characterisation, and intelligence on naval vessels and civilian shipping worldwide.

Return to flight of Ariane 5 EC-A after booster failure on first launch. Delayed from April, June, September 28, October 28, November 3 and 8, 2004; and February 11, 2005. XTAR-EUR was a Spanish X-band military communications satellite operated by Hisdesat/XTAR of Spain. It had a dry mass of 1412 kg and 2219 kg of propellant. As of 2007 Mar 8 located at 28.95E drifting at 0.006W degrees per day.

Delayed from October 2004. Missile Defense Technology / EKV Prototype planned intercept attempt. The interceptor failed to leave the silo. As in IFT-13C, Orbital Sciences' booster, carrying Raytheon's production kill vehicle, was supposed to fly from Kwajalein and hit a target coming out of Kodiak, Alaska. The system shut itself down just a few seconds before launch. Arms that held the interceptor in the silo did not fully retract, and the launch software aborted the mission. MDA failure analysis resulted in a redesign of the launch mechanism and improved quality control.

The crew members aboard the International Space Station are winding down a week that saw them preparing for the arrival of a new cargo spacecraft and helping achieve a milestone in Station robotics operations, which has the potential for long-term exploration applications. Additional Details: here....

Return to flight after earlier failure; first commercial mission for H-2A. Delayed from August 2003, January 2004, and February 24, 2005. The dual-purpose satellite was to provide weather data for the Japanese Meteorological Agency (as with others in the Himawari-GMS series), and air traffic control support (airplane-ATC voice/data links, GPS augmentation and airplane position tracking) for the Japanese Civil Aviation Bureau. As of 2007 Mar 11 located at 140.26E drifting at 0.000E degrees per day.

Heaviest single payload to geosynchronous transfer orbit to that date. Delayed from October 2004, February 27, March 10, 2005. The satellite was to provide L-band mobile communications and wideband data transmission for Inmarsat's global network. As of 2007 Mar 11 located at 63.82E drifting at 0.000E degrees per day.

The EO-10 crew exited in Orlan suits from the Pirs airlock. They installed communications and GPS antennae to support rendezvous and docking by the European ATV unmanned logistics vehicle. Sharipov placed a 5 kg nanosatellite into space, Nanosputnik, into orbit. Other external trash was also released.

Flight delayed after the Columbia disaster. No crew had been named at the time of the loss of Columbia. STS-126 was to have flown ISS resupply mission ISS-UF3. It would have carried an MPLM module and Express Pallet for delivery of equipment and supplies to the station.

Delayed from November 9, 2004; January 19, March 18, 2005. Military Autonomous Rendezvous Technology. It tested navigation technologies for rendezvous that directly measured relative position to the target satellite. It was have to rendezvoused with several defunct American satellites. However it was only known to have conducted operations with its own Minotaur upper stage

The Soyuz TMA-6 docked with International Space Station's Pirs module at 02:20 GMT on April 17. Commander of the long-duration EO-11 crew was Russian cosmonaut Sergey Krikalyov. Flight engineer and science officer was American astronaut John Phillips. Italian Roberto Vittori accompanied the EO-10 crew aboard Soyuz TMA-6 to the station on the European Space Agency EP-8 Eneide mission.

Delayed from April 15; October 18, 19, 26, 28; Nov. 4, 9 and 11; 2004, and March 2, 2005. Autonomous Rendezvous Technology mission, planned to guide itself to within a few metres of a US satellite. On April 16, DART closed within 100 m of the MUBLCOM satellite, then evidently began a series of out-of-control maneuvers resulting in an in-space collission and MUBLCOM being bumped into a 3 to 5 km higher orbit. Remarkably both satellites continued to function. DART then detected that it was running unexpectedly low on nitrogen cold gas used for orientation. Its autonomous software aborted further rendezvous operations and the DART was deorbited shortly thereafter. Air dropped in Point Arguello WADZ.

The EO-10 crew, having handed over the ISS to EO-11, boarded Soyuz TMA-5 together with EP-8 astronaut Vittori. They undocked from the ISS Zarya module at 18:45 GMT, made retrofire on schedule at 21:17, and landed on muddy ground at 51 deg 03" N / 67 deg 18" E at 22:07

First launch from new second PSLV pad at Sriharikota. Eleventh satellite in the Indian Remote Sensing satellite series, Cartosat-1 carried two panchromatic cameras, one fore-mounted with a tilt of +26 deg and the other aft-mounted with a tilt of -5 deg from the yaw axis. Together they provided black-and-white stereoscopic pictures in the visible region ( 0.50-0.85 micron) of the electromagnetic spectrum with a spatial resolution of 2.5 metre. The cameras covered a swath of 30 km and a solid state memory recorded up to 120 GB of images for downloading when the satellite passed over the Spacecraft Control Centre at Bangalore or ISTRAC stations at Lucknow, Mauritius, Bears Lake in Russia and Biak in Indonesia. Cartosat 1's sun-synchronous orbit crossed the equator at a local time of 10:30. The spacecraft was 3-axis stabilised using reaction wheels, magnetic torquers and hydrazine thrusters. 1100 W of eectrical power was provided by a 5 sq m solar array and two 24 Ah Ni-Cd batteries. Mission life was 5 years. Launch delayed from February, late April. The multispectral satellite had a 2.5-meter resolution camera.

Microsatellite providing satellite-based Amateur Radio services to the international community of Amateur Radio Operators (HAMs). Primarily intended for HAM operators in South Asia. One of the transponders was developed by Indian amateurs with the assistance of ISRO, and the second by a student at the Higher Technical Institute, Venlo, Netherlands. Hamsat was a 630 mm x 630 mm x 550 mm cube of aluminium-honeycomb structure. Power was provided by body-mounted gallium arsenide solar panels and a lithium ion battery. The satellite was spin-stabilised at 4 rpm. Uplink/downlink frequencies were 435.25 MHz / 145.9 MHz.

Provided United States direct-television broadcast coverage from the 101 degrees West longitude orbital slot. The satellite carried 16 high-power transponders for high-quality national digital video services. Purchased in October 2003 together with DirecTV-9S for a total price of $220 million for both. As of 2007 Mar 11 located at 100.77W drifting at 0.002W degrees per day.

The Expedition 11 crew entered its seventh week in space today, wrapping up a week highlighted by research, maintenance and training for photography tasks to be done during the Space Shuttle's Return to Flight mission in July. Commander Sergei Krikalev and Flight Engineer John Phillips spent several days conducting examinations of each other using an ultrasound device that provides data on the ability of crewmembers to conduct detailed medical exams in space. The experiment could have future applications for telemedicine or rural health care. Additional Details: here....

Microgravity mission with the experiments being returned to earth after 16 days in a spherical Vostok capsule of the type that first carried Yuri Gagarin into space in 1961. The capsule landed in Kazakhstan at 07:36 GMT on 16 June. For this mission a 385 kg European payload of 39 experiments in fluid physics, biology, material science, meteoritics, radiation dosimetry and exobiology was carried. A further 215 kg of Russian instruments were also flown. Many were experiments were being reflown following loss of Foton-M1 on 15 October 2002. The planned Fotino miniature re-entry capsule experiment was not flown.

Applied research included heat transfer experiments with the European FluidPac facility, chemical diffusion experiments in the SCCO (Soret Coefficients in Crude Oil), and material science investigations in the Agat and Polizon furnaces. These experiments were expected to contribute to new heat-exchanger designs, more efficient oil exploration processes, and better semiconductor alloys. The Biopan facility carried life science experiments, including a student seed germination test.

Aboard the International Space Station this week, the eleventh Expedition crew spent the latter part of its second month in space preparing for the arrival of new cargo as its commander quietly slipped into second place on the all-time human space endurance list. Additional Details: here....

Delayed from June 10. Space station resupply mission. After a communications failure, ISS Commander Krikalyov took manual remote control used the TORU system to guide Progress M-53 to a docking at the ISS Zvezda module at 00:42 GMT on 19 June. Undocked at 10:26 GMT on 7 September into a 350 km x 351 km orbit. Progress M-53 began retrofire at 13:26 GMT the same day, lowering its perigee to 56 km and thereby ensuring a destructive re-entry into the Pacific Ocean.

Launched from SSBN Borisoglebsk. First orbital flight attempt of converted SLBM. Payload was solar sail demonstrator. Delayed from late 2001; March 20 and October 2002; late March, August 28 and October, 2003; February, March, April 6, May 20 and 31, 2005.

Delayed from February, June 26, July 6 and 8, 2005. CUTE-1.7 nanosat mistakenly reported on this flight. Astro-E2 was renamed Suzaku (after a legendary red bird) after launch. It replaced the Astro-E, which never reached orbit due to an M-V-4 launch failure in 2000. The satellite had five 0.4-meter diameter X-ray telescopes, one with an XRS microcalorimeter and the other four with X-ray CCD cameras. However it was revealed that the XRS failed on 9 August due to leaking of helium coolant.

Return to flight after loss of Columbia. Delayed extensively as NASA attempted to fix the external tank foam-shedding problem that resulted in the loss of Columbia (first planned for September 12, 2004, the launch slipped to March; May 14, 15 and 22; July 13, 2005). Discovery safely reached orbit at a total mass of 121,485 kg, but extensive video coverage detected external tank foam shedding during ascent. Discovery docked at the Pirs module of the ISS on 28 July 28 at 11:18 GMT. Following replenishment of the station (using the Raffaello MPLM-6 module with 8240 kg of supplies), a series of spacewalks verified the integrity of the shuttle's heat shield and tested repair techniques, Discovery undocked from the ISS at 07:24 GMT on 6 August and landed safely on Runway 22 at Edwards Air Force Base at 12:11 GMT on 9 August. However the shuttle fleet was immediately grounded again while NASA attempted to find a permanent fix to the external tank foam woes.

Robinson and Noguchi demonstrated Shuttle thermal protection repair techniques in the Shuttle bay. They also installed a stowage platform and rerouted power to ISS Control Moment Gyroscope-2 (CMG-2). They also brought into the station two materials exposure experiments.

Now spacewalk veterans, Astronauts Soichi Noguchi and Steve Robinson will step outside for the second of three planned spacewalks today at 3:14 a.m. CDT. The sole objective of the 6 ½-hour excursion is to replace a failed International Space Station attitude control gyroscope. Additional Details: here....

"Amarillo by Morning" by George Strait. Expedition 11 crew of Commander Sergei Krikalev and Flight Engineer and NASA ISS Science Officer John Phillips, woke up 30 minutes later."Amarillo By Morning" was dedicated not to the crew in space, but to the Columbia

Krikalyov and Phillips retrieved external exposure experiments (Biorisk, left on the Pirs module by the EO-11 crew seven months earlier; Micro-Particles Capturer and Space Environment Exposure Device on the Zarya module). On the Zvezda module they installed a backup television camerafor future use in docking the European Automated Transfer Vehicle. After checking and collecting other external experiments, they were 45 minutes behind timeline, and the planned relocation of a Strela cargo crane adapter from Zarya to the Unity node was cancelled.

Moved from J-1A . Delayed from August 15. Optical Inter-Orbit Communications Engineering Test Satellite. Its laser communications experiment was be used in with ESA's Artemis geostationary satellite. The satellite was renamed Kirari (twinkle) after launch.

A 2½-ton delivery arrived at the back door of the International Space Station today as an unpiloted Russian cargo ship linked up to the Zvezda module's docking port at 9:42 a.m. CDT, filled with supplies for Expedition 11 Commander Sergei Krikalev and Flight Engineer John Phillips and spare parts for repair to some Station systems. Additional Details: here....

Delayed from December 2004; February 1, March 17, 2005. Moved up from May 20 2005. Then delayed from May 4, July 29, August 26, September 22, 2005. Became operational at 23:30 GMT on 16 December. First GPS Block IIR-M version, which added extra navigation signals for both civil and military users. The NASA-funded L2C tracking demonstration was managed by JPL and explored the use of a new Civilian code signal (L2C). The data was collected with Trimble NetRS receivers L2C-enabled firmware. The sites were globally distributed: South Africa, Norway, Antarctica, Hawaii, and Alaska.

Launch delayed from September 27. Soyuz TMA-7 docked with the International Space Station at 05:27 GMT on 3 October, bringing the long duration EO-12 crew of (McArthur, Commander; Tokarev, Flight Engineer) and space tourist Olsen. McArthur, Tokarev and Pontes (brought to the station aboard Soyuz TMA-8) transferred to TMA-7 on April 8, 2006, closing the hatches at 17:15 GMT and undocking from Zvezda at 20:28 GMT, leaving Vinogradov and Williams from Soyuz TMA-8 as the Expedition 13 in charge of the station. Soyuz TMA-7 fired its engines at 22:58 GMT for the deorbit burn and landed in Kazakhstan at 23:48 GMT.

Suborbital test of the Demonstrator inflatable reentry technology test vehicle. The reentry vehicle could not be located in the Kamchatka Peninsula impact zone and was not recovered. Test delayed from the fourth quarter of 2003, then May and October 2004, then July 5, July 8, September 15, September 27, 2005.

Moved up from October 13. Second Chinese manned space mission. The two-astronaut crew spent 5 days in space, and worked in the Shenzhou orbital module for the first time. Aside from biomedical experiments, the nature of their work was not divulged, and few images of the interior of the orbital module (with its probable military experiments) were released.

Delayed from 2003; February 2004; and June 30, July 10, September 9, 2005. Last launch of the Titan series put a classified National Reconnaisance Office satellite into polar orbit. Its orbital parameters, as determined by amateur observors, suggested it was an Improved Crystal electronic imaging reconnaissace satellite, replacing USA 129, which was launched in 1996.

Growing increasingly familiar with their microgravity home and laboratory in space, the 12th international space station crew turned its attention to experiment work, began preparations for the first space station-based spacewalk using U.S. suits since 2003 and captured spectacular images and video of the latest tropical cyclone in the Atlantic basin, Hurricane Wilma. Additional Details: here....

Beijing-1 carried a 31-cm focal-length cartographic telescope with a resolution of 4 meters. It was to be part of the international Disaster Monitoring Constellation. Operated by Tsinghua University for Beijing Landview Mapping Information Technology Ltd.

First Iranian satellite, with an experimental surveillance camera payload. It may have used the Russian Polyot enterprise's Sterkh satellite bus. The same bus was to be used in future Nadezhda satellites. The Strekh bus was said to accomodate 80-100 kg satellites, and be 1.0 m high and 0.4 m in diameter, with a design life of 5 years. Sinah was 160 kg, and 0.8 x 1.3 x 1.6 m in dimensions. Or it may have been a version of the previously-announced satellite dubbed Mesbah-2.

Evasive Warhead ICBM Test. The missile was said to have entered a lower suborbital trajectory than was standard, and the warhead to have made evasive maneuvers both in space and during re-entry. This was said to give the system an 87% chance of penetrating planned American ballistic missile defence systems.

The EVA started an hour late due to a misaligned valve in the Quest airlock module. The crew installed a television camera on the outboard end of the port truss segment of the ISS and removed a failed Rotary Joint Motor Controller (RJMC). They then moved hand over hand to the P6 truss, 16 m above the Destiny module. McArthur removed an old experiment, the Floating Potential Probe, and pushed it away from the station. Finally the crew replaced a failed circuit breaker in the Mobile Transporter.

Launch delayed from October 26. The Soyuz placed the probe and Fregat upper stage into a 30 km x 190 km x 51.6 deg orbit around the earth. At apogee the Fregat stage made a 50 m/s maneuver to circularize the orbit. At the appropriate moment in this parking orbit, the Fregat fired again, then separated from the now Venus-bound probe at 05:11 GMT. Venus Express passed lunar orbit on November 10 at 10:10 GMT and went into a 0.702 AU x 0.993 AU x 0.26 deg inclination solar orbit. It was to brake itself into a 250 km x 326,550 km x 89.7 deg orbit around Venus on 11 April 2006 at 08:40 GMT. Two maneuvers would put in its final 24-hour Venus orbit of 282 x 66,911 km x 90.0 deg on 30 April. This was selected to synchronise the satellite with tracking stations on earth, while the planet slowly revolves below its perigee point over the following several months.

Hayabusa probe skimmed at an altitude of 55 m over asteroid Itokawa. The Minerva nano-lander was released, but missed the asteroid and floated out into deep space. Hayabusa was then moved to a safe position 5 km from the surface and the control team considered its next move.

Heaviest total commercial GTO payload to that date. Qualification flight for the Ariane 5 EC-A version. Launch delayed from June 25 due to launch vehicle problems. Spaceway 2 launch delayed from April for problems with the satellite. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 99.24W drifting at 0.010W degrees per day.

Hayabusa released the second target marker at 20:30 GMT and this marker stayed on the surface, arriving at 20:36. Hayabusa then homed on the target and bounced off the surface at 21:10, followed by a firm landing at 21:30. It stayed on the surface until 21:58 - it was uncertain whether the planned surface sample had been obtained. A safe-mode command sent it Hayabusa to a distance of 100 km from the asteroid as the team considered their next move.

The spacecraft grazed the surface again at 22:07. However it was again uncertain if any surface material was obtained. Control of the spacecraft was lost again due to orientation jet failures which prevented the satellite from pointing its high gain antenna toward earth.

This was the first launch of the Brazilian sounding rocket VSB-30, replacing the British Skylark, from Esrange. The speed when leaving the launcher was about 60 m/s and after 45 seconds of acceleration the max speed was over 200 m/s. During the flight the experiments onboard spent approximately 6 minutes of microgravity and all experiments worked successfully. The payload was brought back for analysis at Esrange by helicopter within one hour after landing.

Delayed from late July 2005. Launch delayed from August 23, October, November 14 and 30, December 8, 16 and 20. Dry mass 1385 kg. The satellite was equipped with Ku-band and C-band transponders and would join other Insats in providing telecommunications and television services to the Indian subcontinent. After three engine burns the satellite reached geostationary altitude over the Indian Ocean at 04:30 GMT on 26 December, then deployed its solar arrays. As of 2007 Mar 11 located at 83.00E drifting at 0.006W degrees per day.

The Block D upper stage delivered three GLONASS navigation satellites into their planned orbits at 08:39 GMT. These satellites were placed in GLONASS orbit plane 3. The satellites had an extended seven-year service life compared to earlier models. This was the sixth end-of-year replenishment launch since 2000. When operational they brought the total of operational GLONASS SVs in orbit to 16. The launch was part of a Russian government-funded program to replenish and expand the Glonass constellation to at least 18 operating satellites satellites by 2007 (compared to 14 satellites at the end of 2005). In 2006 launch of a new Glonass satellite design with a ten-year service was planned.

Delayed from September, October, December 26. Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element, a prototype for the Galileo European navigation satellite network. Giove carried carried two rubidium atomic clocks and a large L-band phased array antenna. Retired in 2012 as the production models went on-line.

Delayed from November, December 1 and 6. AMC-23 was to provide Ku-band multimedia and telecommunications services to Pacific rim countries over a planned 16 year life. A C-band payload was partly leased to the Japanese JSAT system. The Briz-M upper stage separated from the three-stage Proton launch vehicle at suborbital velocity, then conducted five engine burns before delivering the satellite to a 6193 km x 35,615 km x 18.5 deg geosynchronous transfer orbit at 11:48 GMT. The satellite would use its own Astrium S400 apogee engine to circularize the orbit at geostationary altitude. As of 2007 Mar 9 located at 171.97E drifting at 0.002W degrees per day.