Launched into a 206 km x 353 km x 51.6 deg orbit. The 9700 kg spacecraft carried 1823 kg of internal cargo and the 494 kg CATS lidar experiment from NASA-GSFC in the trunk. Inside Dragon were two PlanetLabs Flock-1d' cubesats and the AESP-14 1U cubesat from Brazil's space agency AEB and the ITA technical institute. On January 12 Dragon was grappled by the SSRMS arm at 10:54 GMT and berthed on the Harmony module at 13:54 GMT. The cubesats were transferred internally to the Kibo module and were to be deployed from the Kibo airlock. CATS was grappled by the Dextre robot on 2015 Jan 22 and unberthed from Dragon around 07:00 GMT; it was then handed off to the JEM-RMS at around 10:30 and installed on the Kibo Exposed Facility at location EFU3 at about 14:00. The Falcon 9 first stage performed a flyback attempt to land around 360 km downrange at 78 deg W / 31 deg N. The stage made a 'hard' landing on the ASDS (Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship). The first stage was destroyed when hydraulic fluid depletion made it tip over ahd hit the deck sideways, but the incident did not cause serious damage to the ship. The ASDS has now been renamed "Just Read The Instructions" after the name of an AI spaceship in the book 'The Player of Games' by the late science fiction writer Iain M. Banks.

Dragon CRS-5 was unberthed from the ISS Harmony module on February 10 by the SSRMS arm, which released it at 19:10 GMT. The Dragon made its deorbit burn at 23:49 GMT, with trunk separation at 00:05 GMT February 11 and splashdown at about 00:44 GMT. Six of the PlanetLabs Flock-1b cubesats (Nos. 3, 4, 13, 14, 19, 20) were returned to Earth aboard CRS-5 without having been deployed, after 212 days in space.

The Soil Moisture Active Passive satellite, carried a 6-m L-band antenna for synthetic aperture radar and radiometry measurements to map microwave emissions from water molecules in the soil. Sun synchronous orbit; 0600 GMT local time of the descending node.

Fourth Iranian satellite, and Iran's first successful orbital launch since February 2012. Fajr (Aurora) had a technology payload with a cold-gas thruster developed by Iran Electronics Industries. There is suggestive evidence (mostly based on satellite imagery of launch pad damage revealed by the magazine Jane's Intelligence Review) that Iran had two launch failures in 2012, as well as more speculative evidence of further launch failures since then. The satellite did not seem to make any orbital maneuvers. The orbit decayed from an initial 223 km x 470 km to 196 km x 293 km by February 22, and then after falling to 134 km x 155 km early on February 26 it reentered. The Safir rocket stage orbit decayed a bit more slowly, and was at 203 km x 325 km on Feb 26.

Fourth flight of the Vega booster. The AVUM 4th stage entered a 76 km x 416 km x 5.4 deg orbit at 13:53 GMT. ESA's Intermediate Experimental Vehicle was a reentry vehicle designed to study hypersonic aerothermodynamics. The IXV reentered over the Pacific at 14:44 GMT, with parachute deployment at 15:09 GMT and splashdown at 123 deg W / 3 deg N at about 15:18 GMT.

The AVUM stage made a second burn at apogee at 14:11 GMT and entered a 220 km x 430 km x 5 deg orbit. A third burn followed at 15:29 GMT as the AVUM passed over Kourou again, to deorbit the stage after one trip around Earth. The AVUM reentered over the Indian Ocean around 16:15 GMT.

The Deep Space Climate Observatory, DSCOVR, was launched after many years of gestation. Originally a NASA mission called Triana and centered around its Earth observation camera, it had at one point been scheduled for launch on the fatal STS-107 flight of Columbia, but was cancelled amid political controversy (it grew out of an idea by Vice-President Gore for whole-Earth imaging to raise eco-awareness) and placed in storage. The mission was reactivated as part of a NOAA (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) effort to monitor 'space weather', the flux of particles and radiation in the solar wind and its interaction with the Earth's outer atmosphere. DSCOVR 145 kg of hydrazine propellant, and was stationed at the Earth-Sun L1 point, 1.5 million km noonward from Earth. It carried a Faraday cup instrument to measure solar wind speed, an electron spectrometer and a magnetometer to measure local plasma and fields, a broad band (0.2 to 100 microns) radiometer to measure the Earth's total energy output, and the Earth Polychomatic Imaging Camera to return images of the full Earth disk. DSCOVR was launched into a 184 km x 186 km x 37 deg parking orbit; 30 minutes after launch the Falcon 9 second stage restarted to boost DSCOVR into a 187 km x 1,371,156 km x 37 deg transfer orbit. When the probe reached the L1 point it entered a Lissajous orbit, tracing out a complex pattern around the gravitationally stable balance point. Radius of this pattern was initially around 250,000 km.

Docked with the ISS Zvezda module at 16:57 GMT the same day as launched. Progress M-26M's engines were used to move the ISS out of the path of some space debris on 23 April and (following a malfunction on May 16) made an ISS orbit reboost on 18 May 18. Progress M-26M undocked 14 August at 10:19 GMT; was deorbited at 13:28 GMT; and impacted the Pacific around 141:7 GMT.

The crew lock was depressurized by 12:40 GMT and the hatch opened at 12:42. The astronauts took the two IDA Cable Bags, A and B, and installed them on the end of the Harmony module. Each bag contained four IPIM (IDA Preparation ISS Mod) cables which would route power and data to the IDA-1 and IDA-2 international docking adapters. The IDAs were to be installed on the PMA-2 and PMA-3 Shuttle docking ports later in the year to allow direct docking of Dragon and CST-100 ships to the Station. Cables W2254, W2256, W2258, and W2262 from Bag A and W2252, W2272 from Bag B were installed and routed between PMA-2, Harmony and Destiny. Bag A was returned to the airlock at the end of the spacewalk. Cables W2264 and W2253 remain in Bag B and would be installed on the next EVA. The astronauts closed the Quest hatch at around 19:18 GMT and began airlock repressurization at 19:26 GMT.

The spacewalk begain with airlock depressurization around 11:42 GMT and hatch opening around 11:48 GMT, with the astronauts on battery power at 1151 UTC. Following on EVA USA-29, the remaining two cables were installed, and the soft thermal cover was removed from the PMA-2 docking port. The cover was launched on HTV-3 in July 2012 and installed on PMA-2 during spacewalk US EVA-22 on 9 July 2013. The cover and IDA Bag B were returned to the airlock, after which Virts performed several hours of lubrication work on the Canadarm-2's LEE-A (Latching End Effector, the part that actually grabs things) and Wilmore installed wire ties on the P1 and S1 truss segments to prepare for communications cabling on the next EVA. The hatch was closed at 18:29 GMT and repressurization was at 18:34 GMT.

Dual communications satellite payload placed initially in a supersynchronous transfer orbit. Falcon 9 reached a 174 km x 953 km parking orbit 9 minutes after launch, and then made a second burn over the equator to a 391 km x 63452 km x 24.8 deg orbit. The two payloads were 2000 kg Boeing BSS-702SP models with XIPS-25 ion thrusters as their main propulsion system. ABS-3A, for Asia Broadcast Satellite of Hong Kong, was launched directly attached to the lower satellite, Eutelsat 115 West B, until it separated from the stack following stage 2 second cutoff.

NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission was launched on Mar 13. The mission consists of four identical spacecraft, each with a mass of 1000 kg plus 400 kg of propellant. The spacecraft will fly in a tetrahedral formation some tens of kilometres apart to disentangle spatial and temporal fluctuations in the magnetospheric particle and field environment. They will deploy wire booms with a span of 112 metres to measure electric fields. Additional Details: here....

Docked with the Poisk module of the ISS at 5 hours 50 minutes after launch. Padalka was the commander, and Kelly and Kornienko were part of a long-duration crew that would spend nearly a year aboard the space station. On 28 August Padalka, Kelly and Kornienko flew Soyuz TMA-16M from the Poisk to Zvezda docking ports. Undocking from Poisk was at 07:12 GMT and docking with Zvezda was at 07:30 GMT. This freed the Poisk port for the TMA-18M arrival, and freed Zvezda for a refuelling spacecraft once TMA-16M returned to Earth. ISS EO- 44 concluded when Soyuz TMA-16M undocked from the Zvezda aft port at 21:29 GMT on 11 September, carrying Expedition 44 commander Padalka and EP-18 visiting crew members Mogensen and Aimbetov. Soyuz TMA-16M landed in Kazakhstan at 00:51:36 GMT on 12 September.

First in the Beidou-3 generation of Chinese navigation satellites. For the first time the CZ-3C rocket used an additional fourth stage, the Yuanzheng-1 (Expedition-1). The stage used UDMH/N2O4 storable propellants like the Briz-M or Fregat, but had an even lower thrust - only 6.5 kN - and so will need yet longer burn times.

Additional military payload carried on a Gonets launch, evidently to prove orbital rendezvous or anti-satellite technology. For the first time, this payload was ejected from the Briz-KM upper stage after its depletion burn, and ended up in a lower perigee orbit than the Gonets trio. The payload began small orbit maneuvers on 9 April. On 14 April it completed a rendezvous with its Briz-KM rocket stage and appeared to have deliberately or accidentally hit the stage. It made a major orbit change on 3 July around 07:10 GMT, from its 1172 km x 1506 km orbit to a lower 1119 km x 1451 km orbit. To be the first move in a new rendezvous experiment of some kind. The satellite previously

ISS resupply mission. Delivered into a 206 x 357 km orbit. Attempted recovery of the Falcon 9's first stage failed. It was flown down to the barge 'Just Read The Instructions' in the Atlantic but a stuck valve caused control problems in the final burn and the stage crash-landed. The Dragon itself arrived at ISS on April 17. The SSRMS arm grappled CRS-6 at 10:55 GMT and berthed it on the Harmony module at 13:29 GMT. After unloading and packing with materials to be returned to earth, the cargo ship was unberthed again around 09:29 GMT May 21, released at 11:04 GMT, and splashed down in the Pacific at 16:42 GMT.

CRS-6 carried 16 cubesats: 14 3U-size Flock-1e for Planet Labs, one Arkyd-3R for Planetary Resources (also a 3U) and a 1U cubesat, Centennial-1, for Booz Allen Hamilton carrying an Air Force Research Lab imaging experiment. The cubesats were transferred to the Kibo module after Dragon docking and later ejected into orbit via the NanoRacks deployers and the Kibo robot arm. CRS-6 also carried a number of mice aboard the Rodent Research 2 package, and a 20 kg microgravity-qualified Lavazza espresso machine.

Communications satellite owned by the Turkmenistan National Space Agency and the Turkmen Ministry of Communications, which operated 26 Ku-band transponders. The GEO orbital slot was assigned to Monaco and its GEO telecom operator Space Systems International; Monaco had a further 12 Ku-band transponders on the satellite for the MonacoSat portion of the payload, operated by the SES company on its behalf. Stationed in geosynchronous orbit at 52.0 deg east.

Classified mission of the winged, recoverable X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. Publicly stated to be carrying an AFRL ion engine test and a NASA materials exposure experiment. After releasing the X-37B the Centaur AV-054 rocket stage reignited to reach a 355 km x 700 km x 55-57 deg orbit and at around 17:00 GMT released a set of 9 cubesats. Centaur then made a third burn to deorbit itself over the Indian Ocean.

Planetary Society's 3U cubesat with a solar sail deployment experiment. The cubesat went into safe mode a few days after launch but rebooted on May 30. Its solar panels were deployed on June 3 and the solar sail was unfurled on June 7 at 19:47 GMT. The satellite reentered on June 14.

Kobal't-M spy satellite s/n 565, maneuvered on 8 and 13 June from an initial orbit of 177 km x 285 km x 81.4 deg to 203 km x 264 km. Current version of the Yantar satellite which returns its main section, with film and camera, to Earth at the end of its flight. It also carried two small ejectable film canisters which can return some data to Earth during the mission.

Visible/infrared band earth observing satellite. The visible camera had a 10 metre resolution and a 290 km swath. Sun synchronous orbit; 1030 GMT local time of the descending node. Built under a EUR 195 million ESA contract as part of the European Global Monitoring for Environment and Security system.

Third Persona-1 spy satellite, built by TsSKB-Progress in Samara and equipped with electro-optical imaging cameras. Said to be the first to return its data via an optical communications link to an unidentified geosynchronous satellite. On June 28 the satellite manuevered from an elliptical transfer orbit to a circular sun synchronous orbit with 0840 GMT local time of the descending node.

High resolution imaging satellite. The previous two Gaofen satellites, 1 and 2, were civilian operated and extensively described before launch. GF-8 was said to be civilian as well, but was not discussed prior to the launch, indicating it was used for military imaging. Sun synchronous orbit; 1330 GMT local time of the descending node.

Carried critical supplies to the ISS after consecutive failures of all three primary resupply spacecraft to reach orbit… a prior Progress, a Cygnus, and a Dragon. Docking was at the Pirs module of the ISS on 5 July at 07:11 GMT. This launch used the older Soyuz-U rocket instead of the newer Soyuz-2-1a which ran into problems on the Progress M-27M launch. Undocked from Pirs at 0735 UTC Dec 19 and was deorbited over the South Pacific, with debris impact at 1128 UTC.

Third generation Disaster Monitoring Constellation. The three satellites were deployed on a single launch. DMC Imaging International was a Surrey Satellite spinoff which operated the DMC imaging satellites in collaboration with several developing countries. The satellites have the capability to return prompt imaging of areas in those countries affected by natural disasters. The SSTL-300S1 platform provided 45 degree fast slew off-pointing and was capable of acquiring multiple targets in one pass using multiple viewing modes. The high resolution imager on board the satellites was designed and manufactured by SSTL and provided 1 meter resolution in panchromatic mode, and 4 meter resolution in multispectral mode, with a swath width of 23.4km. The three satellites were phased 120 degrees apart around the same sun synchronous orbit with a 22:10 local time longitude of descending node sun synchronous orbit. This was acommplished using their on board propulsion systems in the three months after the launch. With off-pointing capability, the DMC3/TripleSat Satellite Constellation was able to target anywhere on Earth once per day.

Wideband Global Satcom military communications satellite launched initially into a supersynchronous geotransfer orbit. WGS satellites were managed by the USAF Space and Missile Center and replaced the older DSCS system with X-band and Ka-band communications systems. Second Delta 4 launch to use the uprated RS-68A main engine.

Single launch of the first two of the third generation medium-orbit Beidou satellites. The CZ-3B launch vehicle deployed the YZ-1 upper stage in a 189 km x 18390 km x 55 deg transfer orbit. CZ-3B stage 3 coasted in a low parking orbit for only a minute or so before its second burn to the elliptical orbit. The YZ-1 then separated and made its first burn almost immediately at about 12:45 GMT, raising apogee to 22,000 km. The Beidou/YZ-1 stack then coasted to apogee and at about 16:10 GMT the YZ-1 made a second burn to circularize the orbit. The two payloads were quickly released in a 21,523 km x 22,193 km x 55 deg orbit. At about 16:20 GMT YZ-1 made a disposal burn to a 22,151 x 27,736 km x 55 deg orbit.

The hatch open was opened at 14:17 GMT and closed at 19:51 GMT. The astronauts installed a new WAL6 antenna to replace the old one (its cover floated away on 19 August 2013). New retaining straps were added to the other WAL antenna covers. The old WAL-6 antenna and two decontamination towels were jettisoned into orbit.

HTV-5 arrived at the ISS on 24 August and was berthed at the Harmony nadir port at 14:02 GMT. HTV-5's External Platform carries the CALET electron/cosmic-ray detector which was installed on the Kibo Exposed Facility. The pressurized compartment carried nine racks: the US Galley Rack, to be installed in the Unity node; the JAXA Multipurpose Small Payload Rack 2 (MSPR-2), installed in Kibo at JPM1F2; and seven HTV Resupply Racks. One of these used the new HRR-D storage system to increase the HTV capacity. Contained in the HRRs were a SAFER EVA backpack, a Mouse Habitat Unit (but no mice for it), 18 cubesats, the Nanoracks External Platform (NREP) and JAXA ExHAM-2 expsoure unit. The latter two were used for mounting external experiments. The cubesats were: PlanetLabs Flock 2b-1 to 2b-14, for Earth imaging; GOMSpace GOMX-3, for tests of ADS-B aircraft data relay; Aalborg University AAUSAT-5, a 1U sat for tests of AIS ship tracking receivers; Brazilian Space Agency/University of Brasilia SERPENS with technology communications payloads; Chiba Inst. Of Technology S-CUBE with UV and visible imagers to observe meteors from above. All the cubesats are 3U form factor except for AAUSAT-5. CALET had a mass of 650 kg; the 7 HRR racks carried 6057 kg of cargo. HTV-5 carried 2306 kg of propellant. The Galley and MSPR racks probably had a mass around 500 kg each; the dry HTV without payloads was about 6100 kg. On 25 August the SSRMS robot arm extracted the HTV Exposed Pallet and handed it to the JEM RMS, which berthed the EP on the Exposed Facility at location EFU10. The JEM RMS then grappled the CALET experiment and moved it to EFU9. The SSRMS arm unberthed the HTV-5 from the Harmony module at 11:12 GMT on 28 September. Release was delayed one orbit due to a robotics problem and occurred at 16:53 GMT. The next day HTV-5 lowered its orbit with two burns and then made a final deorbit burn at 20:08 GMT, with atmosphere entry around 20:33 GMT for destruction over the South Pacific.

Padalka, Kelly and Kornienko flew Soyuz TMA-16M from the Poisk to Zvezda docking ports. Undocking from Poisk was at 07:12 GMT and docking with Zvezda was at 07:30 GMT. This freed the Poisk port for the TMA-18M arrival, and freed Zvezda for a refuelling spacecraft once TMA-16M returned to Earth.

Docked with ISS at the Poisk port at 07:39 GMT on 4 September. On Mar 2 at 0102 UTC Volkov, Kornienko and Kelly, aboard Soyuz TMA-18M, undocked from the Poisk module, concluding Expedition 46. Tim Kopra then became commander of Expedition 47, with flight engineers Yuriy Malenchenko and Tim Peake. Soyuz TMA-18M made the deorbit burn at 0332 UTC and landed in Kazakhstan at 0426 UTC. Soyuz commander Volkov had spent six months in space, while Kornienko and Kelly completed 340d 8h 21min in space, or about 0.93 years.

MUOS (Multiple User Objective System), US Navy UHF-band communications satellite,was launched into a geotransfer orbit. The Centaur upper stage made three burns, to 167 km x 630 km, 194 km x 34,447 km, and 3,802 km x 35,786 km orbits, before releasing the satellite. The satellite used its BT-4 liquid engine to raise its orbit to geosynchronous altitue.

Tongxing Jisshu Shiyan Weixing yi hao (Communications Engineering Test Satellite No. 1). Military satellite; speculation was that it was the first in a constellation of ballistic missile early warning satellites. The booster's upper stage reached a 208 km x 635 km x 27.1 deg parking orbit 10 minutes after launch and coasted to the equator, where a second burn at 16:01 GMT sent the stage and payload to a 195 km x 35,814 km x 27.1 deg geotransfer orbit.

Zhineng hao shouji weixing (Smart Phone Satellite), a 1 kg satellite also known as NUDT-Phone-Sat, built around the motherboard of an Android smartphone. Deployed four Xingchen 100 gram picosats. The overall experiment was to control a cluster of satellites using intersatellite communications.

The XiWang-2 ('Hope') cluster of amateur radio satellites was from CAMSAT, the Chinese AMSAT chapter, and Aerospace DFH Satellite Co (Beijing). The 25 kg XW-2A carried two 1.5 kg subsatellites, XW-2E/2F, while the 10 kg XW-2B, 2C and 2D satellites were deployed directly from the rocket third stage.

The Tiantuo-3 constellation was from the National University of Defense Technology (Guofang Keji Daxue Yan) in Changsha, Hunan. Its primary satellite, the 20 kg, Luliang-1, was developed in collaboration with the municipal government of Luliang city in Shanxi, near the Taiyuan launch site, for tests of AIS (ship tracking) and ADS-B (airplane data relay) systems. Luliang-1 ejected the Zhineng hao shouji weixing (Smart Phone Satellite), a 1 kg satellite also known as NUDT-Phone-Sat,

First launch of the CZ-11 solid-fuel, four-stage, light launch vehicle, though to be related to the DF-31 and DF-41 ICBMs. Pujiang, the Chinese Technology Experiment Satellite, was designed to promote the construction of smart cities in China, by monitoring urban weather, traffic and population density. It was the first Chinese satellite to use 3D printing for the titanium structure of its antenna. It included a Wi-Fi router providing a communication network between the three Tianwang cubesats released on the same launch.

Part of the Tianwang constallation of three CubeSats for space networking experiments. Codeveloped by the Shanghai Engineering Center for Microsatellites (SECM), the Nanjing University of Science and Technology (NJUST), GomSpace Denmark, Tekever Space Portugal and NanoSpace Sweden.

India's first space astronomy observatory. The satellite carried near and far ultraviolet telescopes, a large X-ray proportional counter array, a soft-X-ray imaging telescope, a hard X-ray coded mask telescope, and a monitor to detect flaring X-ray sources.

3U cubesat by San Francisco-based Spire Global, built in Glasgow, Scotland. 3U cubesat, carried an AIS payload and GPS radio occultation equipment, which used the bending of GPS radio signals by the atmosphere to derive atmospheric temperature and pressure.

3U cubesat by San Francisco-based Spire Global, built in Glasgow, Scotland. 3U cubesat, carried an AIS payload and GPS radio occultation equipment, which used the bending of GPS radio signals by the atmosphere to derive atmospheric temperature and pressure.

3U cubesat by San Francisco-based Spire Global, built in Glasgow, Scotland. 3U cubesat, carried an AIS payload and GPS radio occultation equipment, which used the bending of GPS radio signals by the atmosphere to derive atmospheric temperature and pressure.

3U cubesat by San Francisco-based Spire Global, built in Glasgow, Scotland. 3U cubesat, carried an AIS payload and GPS radio occultation equipment, which used the bending of GPS radio signals by the atmosphere to derive atmospheric temperature and pressure.

NBN 1 communications satellite, with a Ka-band payload for the Australian NBN Corporation, a government-owned company running the national broadband network. Purpose was to provide access to high speed broadband to every household and business in the country.

Docked with the ISS Zvezda module at 22:52 GMT on 1 October. The spacecraft delivered a variety of supplies and maintenance equipment to the station. Progress M-29M undocked from the Zvezda module on Mar 30 at 1415 UTC and performed attitude control experiments in a 373 x 401 km orbit. Progress M-29M was deorbited on Apr 8, reentered around 1416 UTC over the S Pacific.

Satellite cluster deployed in a single launch, described as China's first commercial imaging satellite system, built by the Chang Guang Satellite Technology Company, a spinoff of the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics (CIOMP) in Jilin province. The 420-kg main satellite had an 0.7 m resolution imager. Two 92-kg 'smart video imaging satellites' and a single 50-kg 'smart imaging verification satellite' completed the cluster.

The Atlas deployed two NRO satellites and a cluster of cubesats in orbit. Items listed as USA 264 and USA 264 'debris', thought to be a clandestine active payload, were deployed in a 1014 km x 1201 km x 63.4 deg orbit. The satellites were believed to be NRO/Navy signals intelligence satellites, the latest successors to the GRAB/POPPY series, and probably codenamed INTRUDER. Following deployment of the main payloads, the Centaur upper stage made two further burns to a 496 km x 800 km x 64.8 deg orbit and deployed the cubesats from GRACE, the fourth NPS Cubesat Launcher flown on an Atlas Aft Bulkhead Carrier.

The Quest airlock was depressurized from about 12:00 GMT to 19:19 GMT. The crew removed a thermal cover from a failed MBSU unit, added thermal covers to the AMS-02 particle physics experiment, installed cabling for the future IDA docking adapters, and lubricated part of the LEE-B end of the Canadarm-2. Part of the LEE lubing and the IDA wiring, as well as the installation of a vent on Node 3, were omitted due to lack of time.

Launched from the Kauai Test Facility's Kokole Point pad; went out of control during first stage burn and was destroyed. The University of Hawaii's Hiakasat and 12 cubesats were aboard. The vehicle had three solid stages (LEO-46, LEO-7 and LEO-1) developed by Aerojet.

The airlock was depressurized around 11:20 GMT and repressurized at 19:10 GMT. The astronauts successfully reconfigured part of the station's cooling system on the P6 truss segment. The work went a bit slower than planned, though, and a backup radiator panel (the P6 TTCR) had to be redeployed because there wasn't enough time to fasten it down; this leaves it a bit more vulnerable to space debris.

Trident II D-5 submarine-launched ballistic routine launch which hit the headlines. Missiles were launched from the submarine USS Kentucky on November 8 and 9. The missiles were launched from near San Clemente Island off the coast of California and flew to Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific. The first missile was launched just after local sunset and its expanding exhaust gases were illuminated by the sun, causing widespread UFO reports across the southwestern United States. The 2-dimensional projection on the sky of the missile's westward motion, as seen from the mostly southwest-facing southern California coast, fooled many observers into thinking the missile was flying north along the coast. California observers were also able to see the deployments of the MIRV reentry vehicles as the vehicle's final stage approached the horizon.

Chinese-built DFH-3B communications satellite for Laos. LaoSat-1 was owned by Lao Satellite Joint Venture Co, a collab between China APMT Co. and the Lao National Authority for Science and Tech. LaoSat-1 was placed in a 189 x 41778 km x 18.4 deg geotransfer orbit. Onboard liquid thruster raised orbit to GEO at 128.5 deg E

Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle carried its prototype crew capsule to 100.5 km altitude, the booster reaching 100.4 km. The booster was recovered in a controlled vertical rocket landing, the first such successful landing on the Earth's surface following an exoatmospheric flight. The crew capsule landed nearby on a parachute.

Telesat of Canada's Telstar 12 Vantage comms satellite launched to geotransfer orbit in the first commercial launch of Japan's H-IIA rocket and the first use of an uprated LOX/LH2 upper stage modified for a long coast to a third burn at geotransfer apogee. The stage venting was visible to observers in the USA. Telstar 12 Vantage replaces Telstar 12 and provides Ku-band capacity to the Americas.

A new Yaogan satellite. The orbit was very similar to that of the Yaogan 1, 3 and 10 satellites though to be radar imaging vehicles developed by the Shanghai Academy of Space Technology (SAST). Placed in sun synchronous orbit with 04:30 Equator crossing time.

Russia carried out the second launch of the Soyuz-2-1V rocket, carrying the 440 kg Kanopus-ST military satellite as its primary payload. Kanopus-ST carried optical, infrared and microwave imagers to test technology to locate submerged submarines. The two-stage core of Soyuz-2-1V reached a 208 x 681 km x 98.2 deg transfer orbit. The Volga upper stage coasted to apogee and at about 1503 UTC made a circularization burn to reach a 684 x 693 km sun-synchronous orbit. The KYuA-1 satellite was successfully ejected at about 1540 UTC, but one of several latches on the Kanopus-ST failed to open, and the payload failed to separate.The two payloads were given the public cover names Kosmos-2511 (Kanopus-ST/Volga) and Kosmos-2512 (KYuA-1). Following the failure, at about 0200 UTC Dec 6 the Volga reignited in an attempt to deorbit the Kanopus/Volga stack and prevent it becoming long-lived space debris. This burn reached an orbit of 106 x 655 km. Natural orbital decay from atmospheric drag quickly set in. On Dec 7, with the orbit at 90 x 348 km, the spacecraft split into two pieces, possibly but not certainly the Kanopus satelite and the Volga stage. The two pieces reached an orbit of 88 x 297 km on Dec 8 before reentry.

United Launch Alliance launched Atlas V flight AV-061 carrying the Cygnus OA-4 cargo ship mission. Following the Antares failure in the prior year, Cygnus payloads were temporarily moved to Atlas. The OA-4 Cygnus, called 'SS Deke Slayton II', was the first Cygnus with the enhanced (stretched) EPCM pressurized cargo module, and the first with a service module carrying the circular UltraFlex solar arrays originally designed for NASA's Orion. This was the first time an Atlas launched a payload towards the ISS. The AV-061 Centaur reached a 234 x 237 km orbit at 2203 UTC, released Cygnus 3 min later, and performed a 10s deorbit burn at 2232 UTC for disposal of the Centaur in the ocean south of Australia at about 132E 49S. The Deke Slayton II reached the ISS on Dec 9, with SSRMS grapple at 1119 UTC and berthing on Harmony at 1426 UTC. Aboard the Cygnus were the small NovaWurks SIMPL satellite, 12 Flock 2e cubesats from Planet Labs, and the CADRE, STMSat-1, MinXSS-1, Nodes 1 and Nodes 2 cubesats. Mass of ISS after the OA-4 arrival was 418 metric tons. The Canadarm-2 unberthed the Cygnus OA-4 cargo ship, SS Deke Slayton II, from the Unity node on Feb 19 at 1040 UTC and released it into orbit at about 1227 UTC. The Cygnus was deorbited over the S Pacific at about 1600 UTC Feb 20.

Russia launched a Ukrainian-built Zenit-2SB vehicle with an NPO Lavochkin 'Fregat-SB' upper stage carrying the Elektro-L No. 2 weather satellite to GEO. The Zenit-2SB second stage reached a 164 x 539 km x 51.4 deg parking orbit at 1352 UTC. The Elektro-L/Fregat-SB separated; after a first Fregat burn to 271 x 4277 km at 1500 UTC, the SBB drop tank was jettisoned. A second burn at 1711 UTC put the vehicle in geotransfer orbit, and a third burn at 2232 UTC circularized the orbit at apogee. Fregat separated and later made a fourth burn to graveyard orbit, leaving Elektro-L in the geosynchronous region.

Docked with ISS. On Jun 18 Expedition 47 crew members Yuriy Malenchenko, Tim Kopra and Tim Peake transferred from the Rassvet module to Soyuz TMA-19, closing hatches at 0235 UTC and undocking at 0552 UTC. Soyuz TMA-19M made its deorbit burn at 0822 UTC and reentered for a safe landing in Kazakhstan at 0915 UTC.

For the National University of Singapore, the 78 kg Kent Ridge 1 satellite developed using the TUBSAT LEOS-50 bus by Berlin Space Technologies, a spinoff of the old TUBSAT group at Technische Universitat Berlin. KR-1 carried two low-resoluton hyperspectral Earth imagers and a 6-meter-resolution imager.

China launched the Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE), given the postlaunch name Wukong ('Monkey King'). DAMPE was a Chinese Academy of Sciences particle physics experiment with a bismuth-germanium oxide calorimeter, and will study electrons, gamma rays and cosmic rays in the GeV to TeV energy range. The satellite has a mass of 1900 kg.

On Dec 17 the Mobile Transporter (the truck that the SSRMS Canadarm-2 robot arm rides on) got stuck just after leaving worksite 4, one of the stations on the truss railway. The MT has two CETA carts attached to it, and the brakes on one CETA were accidentally engaged - probably left in the wrong position on an earlier spacewalk. Since a stuck MT is considered a safety issue for dockings, astronauts Kelly and Kopra made a spacewalk on Dec 21 to release the brake. They also completed some left-over cabling tasks. The Quest airlock was depressurized at about 1238 UTC and repressurized at 1601 UTC. Kelly and Kopra used EMU suits 3010 and 3011. The MT was now working fine.

First Progress-MS cargo ship. Progress-MS was similar to previous Progress ships but with improved onboard systems. It docked with the Pirs module at 1027 UTC Dec 23. Progress MS-01 undocked from the Pirs module at 0536 UTC on Jul 1, backed off to 180m, and redocked at 0605 UTC under TORU remote control. During redocking there was an incorrect thruster firing that made the vehicle swing visibly from side to side. The problem was reportedly under investigation but did not affect Progress MS-01's final undocking, which happened at 0348 UTC Jul 3. Progress MS-01 was deorbited and destroyed over the South Pacifc at 0750 UTC Jul 3.

SpaceX launched their first Falcon 9 since the CRS-7 failure. Core F9-021 was also the first 'full thrust' Falcon 9 with improved performance. The primary payload was a cluster of Orbcomm OG2 comm satellites. The 11 OG2s and one non-separating mass simulator were mounted on the circumference of a dispenser consisting of three ESPA rings attached to the second stage. After the satellites were deployed, the second stage was deorbited. The first stage shut down at an altitude of around 80 km and a velocity of 1.65 km/s (Earth-relative), just before stages 1 and 2 separated. The stage reached an apogee of around 200 km before beginning a boostback burn to kill its eastward velocity and send it back towards Florida. Following a third reentry burn the stage landed back at Cape Canaveral's Landing Zone 1 (former pad 13). The fully controlled vertical landing came at 0139 UTC Dec 22.