Astronauts Kopra and Peake made a spacewalk from the Quest airlock in EMU suits 3011 and 3008. They replaced the Sequential Shunt Unit (SSU) electronics box at the base of the 1B solar array on the S6 truss segment. The replacement SSU was launched on STS-96 in 1999 and had been stored since then inside Unity and then PMA-3 until being unpacked in December for the spacewalk. The old SSU failed on Nov 13, shutting down power to the 1B solar array (one of eight on ISS). Full power was now restored. The astronauts also continued cabling work for the IDA docking adapter and relocated a vent on the Tranquility module. The spacewalk was cut short when Kopra's suit developed a small water leak which accumulated in his helmet; this was the same suit that had a more serious leak during Luca Parmitano's spacewalk in Jul 2013. Kopra and Peake depressurized Quest at about 1243 UTC and ventured outside at 1300 UTC, returning with hatch closure at 1727 UTC and repressurization at 1731 UTC. Peake, who was a European Space Agency astronaut sponsored by the UK, made the first UK-flagged spacewalk, and the first spacewalk by a British citizen who was not also a dual-nationality US citizen.

first Belarussian communications satellite. The satellite was a Chinese-built DFH-4 with a mass of 5200 kg, and it rode a Chinese CZ-3B to geotransfer orbit. Belintersat was a state-sponsored private company and will provide services to Belarus and central Europe.

Falcon 9 F9-019 was the last version 1.1 core. It took off soutbound from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg AFB at 1842 UTC, entered a 175 x 1321 km x 66 deg transfer orbit at 1851 UTC, and circularized the orbit at apogee with spacecraft separation at 1938 UTC. The second stage was then deorbited with a burn at around 1945 UTC lowering perigee into the atmosphere, leading to a reentry around 2030 UTC over the northeastern Pacific. Meanwhile the first stage completed a boostback burn and flew down to the center of the target on the ASDS ship "Just Read The Instructions" in the Pacific at about 1852 UTC. However, on landing one of the deployed legs failed to lock in place and the vehicle toppled and was destroyed. Jason-3 was the fourth in a series of French/US satellites carrying the Poseidon altimeter to measure sea surface height across the world, an important parameter in climate change studies. The satellites also carry microwave radiometers. The first Poseidon satellite was the TOPEX/Poseidon research experiment which operated from 1992 to 2006. This was followed on by the progressively more operational Jason series; Jason-1 in 2001-2013, and the still operational Jason-2 launched in 2008. The 550 kg satellite was built by Thales Alenia (Cannes) using the Proteus bus and owned by the French space agency CNES. Lead agencies for the overall Jason-3 program are the US weather agency NOAA and the European weather satellite group EUMETSAT, taking over from CNES and JPL who led the earlier missions.

India launched its 5th navigation satellite. The PSLV-XL delivered it to a subsynchronous transfer orbit. By early February it was in an inclined synchronous orbit at 35697 x 35874 km x 28.1 deg. IRNSS-R1C was in an near-equatorial orbit at 83E; the remainder are in the 28 degree inclined orbits, with R1A and R1B over about 55E and R1D and R1E over about 112E.

Intelsat communications satellite in a low-inclination geotransfer orbit; carried C, Ku and Ka-band communications payload and was the first of Intelsat's new broadband high-throughput 'Epic-NG' series, built by Boeing using the BSS-702MP bus. Launch mass was 6552 kg.

The AggieSat-4 satellite was ejected from the ISS on Jan 29 using the Kibo JRMS arm and the SSIKLOPS deployer. The 55 kg AggieSat-4, developed by students at Texas A&M University, will eject the 3U cubesat Bevo-2 (from students at U. Texas-Austin) and perform formation flying experiments with it. University of Texas BEVO-2 cubesat was apparently prematurely ejected from the TAMU AggieSat-4 payload shortly after the latter was deployed from ISS.

The European communications operator Eutelsat will use the satellite's 66 Ku-band transponders to increase performance at the 9 degrees East location. The satellite also carried a European Space Agency laser communications package, EDRS-A, as part of the European Data Relay System. EDRS will relay data from low-orbiting satellites, converting an optical communications signal from the satellite to a Ka-band radio downlink.

Astronauts Malenchenko and Volkov carried out spacewalk VKD-42 from the Pirs module. The hatch was opened at 1255 UTC and closed at 1740 UTC. They retrieved the EXPOSE-R2 and SKK 2-M2 materials exposure experiments and installed SKK 3-M2 and two Vinoslivost panels. They also jettisoned a small package consisting of a bag of towels attached to a commemorative flash drive with videos about World War II to celebrate the 70th anniversary of 'Victory Day'. The inert package will reenter in a few days or weeks.

North Korea's National Aerospace Development Administration (NADA, Kukga uju gaebalkuk) carried out its second successful satellite launch . The satellite, Kwangmyongsong-4, entered a 500 km polar orbit like the KMS-3-2 satellite launched in 2012. It appears both satellite and launch vehicle are very similar to the 2012 mission. The launch vehicle this time carried the name 'Kwangmyongsong' but appeared to be essentially identical to the Unha-3 launched in 2012. As of Feb 17, hobbyist observers had not picked up any radio signals from it. 0840LT SSO.

Eurockot/Krunichev Rokot's Briz-KM upper stage entered a 153 x 785 km transfer orbit followed by an 802 x 806 km target orbit, deploying the Sentinel-3A satellite. It then lowered perigee to 411 x 744 km to reduce orbital lifetime. ESA's Sentinel-3A was part of the European Union's Copernicus remote sensing program, and carried an ocean color imaging payload and an ocean-topography radar altimeter payload.

ASTRO-H X-ray astronomy observatory rode H2A No. 30 to a low Earth orbit. It carried an array of five X-ray telescopes. Hitomi suffered a major anomaly on Mar 25 while observing the quasar Markarian 205. At 1910 UTC the satellite started tumbling and then at 0140 UTC Mar 26 the spacecraft partly disintegrated. US tracking found eleven debris objects in orbit. During the next scheduled pass at 0740 UTC, JAXA received only a short burst from the radio beacon and nothing more; three more such beacon detections were obtained up to Mar 28, when the spacecraft fell silent. Ground-based optical observations showed that at least two of the debris objects, 2016-012A and 012L, were bright and tumbling several times a minute. 2016-012A was probably the main spacecraft bus. It's possible that 2016-012L was the extensible optical bench with the HXI cameras, or part of the solar panels.

Falcon 9 rocket F9-022 first stage flew to an apogee of around 160 km and descended 660 km downrange to crash on the droneship "Of Course I Still Love You" at about 73.8W 28.3N, in a technology test to develop experience for future landing attempts. The second stage accelerated to reach a 160 x 531 km x 28.5 deg parking orbit at 2344 UTC and then reignited at 0002 UTC Mar 5 to reach a 334 x 40648 km x 28.0 deg transfer orbit. The SES-9 payload separated at 0006 UTC. It was a Boeing 702HP satellite with a mass of about 5270 kg and a Ku-band communications payload for delivery of services to Asia and the Indian Ocean from 108.2E. By Mar 14, SES-9 was in a 28569 x 41649 km x 0.5 deg orbit.

Ariane 5 vehicle L582, mission VA229 to a low inclination geotransfer with Eutelsat do Brasil's 65 West A payload, a Loral 1300 satellite. By Mar 14, 65 West A was in a 35729 x 35759 km x 0.0 deg near-GEO over the Atlantic. Placed in geosynchronous orbit at 44 deg W.

Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System was augmented by launch of the 1F satellite. The initial insertion orbit was 270 x 20649 km x 17.9 deg; an initial perigee burn to raise apogee was followed by several apogee burns towards circular inclined synchronous orbit.

first ESA ExoMars mission. The main spacecraft on this mission was the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), which entered Mars orbit to study its atmosphere. Attached to it was the Schiaparelli EDM lander. The TGO carried a color and stereo camera, IR and UV spectrometers, a neutron detector, and a communications relay package to support future surface missions. The combined spacecraft had a mass of 4332 kg. TGO was built by Thales/Cannes (formerly GTC/Sud Aviation) and EDM by Thales/Torino (formerly Fiat). Proton-M No. 93560 put the stack into a suborbital trajectory. The Briz-M upper stage, S/N 99560, separated at 0941 UTC and fired for 6 minutes to enter a 185 x 185 km x 51.5 deg parking orbit at 0947 UTC. After completing one orbit, a second burn at 1110 UTC raised the orbit to 250 x 5800 km. At the next perigee, at 1324 UTC, the orbit was raised to 696 x 21086 km and the Briz-M additional propellant tank was jettisoned. On completing this orbit, the fourth burn began at 1948 UTC to propel the vehicle to escape velocity. ExoMars TGO/EDM separated from the Briz-M at 2013 UTC in a hyperbolic Earth escape orbit (C3 = 13.78 km**2/s**2). The ExoMars spacecraft entered the Martian gravitational Hill sphere at 0110 UTC Oct 16, and at 1442 UTC Oct 16 split into the separate TGO (Trace Gas Orbiter) and EDM (Entry-Descent-Landing Demonstrator Module) vehicles. TGO made an insertion burn on Oct 19 from 1304 to 1523 UTC, entering a 4-day-period, 346 x 95228 km x 9.7 orbit deg around Mars.

ExoMars-2016 mass breakdown as follows:

  Schiaparelli
    EDM Surface Platform        280 kg
    SP hydrazine                 46 kg
    Front Shield                200 kg?
    Back Cover                   54 kg?
    Parachute system             20 kg?
  -------------------------------------
  EDM total                     600 kg
  TGO spacecraft               1365 kg  (including 41 kg separation assembly)
  TGO propellant               2367 kg
  -------------------------------------
  ExoMars-2016 launch total    4332 kg

The Schiaparelli EDM was the EDL Demonstrator Module, where EDL was "Entry, Descent and Landing". EDM consisted of an aeroshell containing the EDM Surface Platform (ESP, a triply-nested three-letter-acronym proving that ESA can compete with NASA in the TLA race). EDM attempted o land on the surface as a technology demonstration, and carried a small meteorology payload. The EDM separated from TGO three days before Mars arrival and entered the Martian atmosphere on a hyperbolic trajectory towards a landing site at 6.1W 1.9S in Meridiani Planum. After entry a parachute slowed the vehicle, the back cover and forward shield were jettisoned, and thrusters slowed the ESP further. The ESP underside consisted of a crushable structure to absorb impact with the surface. In the event, Schiaparelli approached on a 62 x -13982 km x 8.2 deg hyperbola and entered the Martian atmosphere at 1442 UTC at a speed of 5.86 km/s and an angle of -11.9 degrees. During descent, data was relayed to Mars orbiting spacecraft for later retransmission as well as sent on a live link picked up by the GMRT radio telescope near Pune, India.Schiaparelli survived the entry and deployed its parachute 4 minutes later at an altitude of 11 km. The heatshield was jettisoned 30 seconds later, and at 1447 UTC the parachute and attached backshell were separated at an altitude of 1.3 km over the Meridiani Planum landing site at 6.11W 2.07S. It appeared that the parachute / backshell separated 15 seconds earlier than expected. The thrusters fired for only 3 seconds, and the lander transitioned to landing mode while still well above the surface. A free fall of 19 seconds ensued, followed by a high speed (hundreds of km/hr) impact. At this point communications from the lander ceased. MRO imaged the EDM lander's impact scar at 6.11W 2.07S. The parachute was 0.16 km E 0.91km S of the lander.

Soyuz TMA-20M was launched carrying Alexey Ovchinin, Oleg Skripochka and Jeff Williams. This was the last of the 11F732A47 Soyuz TMA-M series, which were replaced by the improved Soyuz-MS variant. On Sep 6 at 2151 UTC Soyuz TMA-20M undocked from the Poisk module with Ovchinin, Skripochka and Williams. The spacecraft laded in Kazakhstan at 0113 UTC on Sep 7.

Cygnus cargo ship OA-6, "SS Rick Husband", was launched aboard Atlas V flight AV-064. A mixture ratio problem on the Atlas caused an 5-seconds-early first stage cutoff, which required a full extra minute's burn on the Centaur upper stage to make the correct orbit. After deploying Cygnus, the Centaur's second burn was intended to deorbit the stage south of Australia, but because of insufficient remaining propellant the engine cutoff early, and reentry occurred downrange south of New Zealand. SS Rick Husband arrived at the ISS on schedule, and was grappled by the Canadarm-2 at 1051 UTC Mar 26. On Jun 14 the Canadarm-2 unberthed Cygnus OA-6 from the Unity module at 1143 UTC and released it into orbit at 1330 UTC. Cygnus then performed the SAFIRE-1 experiment igniting a significant fire inside an experiment chamber in the Cygnus pressurized PCM module. Mounted on the Cygnus service module was the first NRCSD-E external cubesat deployer carrying 5 Lemur-2 satellites. On Jun 21 two pairs of Lemur-2 cubesats were ejected. A third deployer silo with a single Lemur-2 failed to open, and the cubesat remained inside when then following day Cygnus made its deorbit burn and reentered over the South Pacific at 1329 UTC Jun 22.

SJ-10 microgravity experiment satellite launched into low orbit. SJ-10 was based on the old FSW recoverable film-based spy satellites. The main experiment section separated and returned to Earth at the end of the mission. Shi Jian-10 microgravity satellite's reentry vehicle separated from the service module on Apr 18 at 0815 UTC and landed in China at 0830 UTC. The service module remains in a 253 x 269 km orbit, recataloged as a new object. It adjusted its orbit on Apr 22 but as of May 18 had not made further maneuvers.

Falcon 9 F9-023 launched a Dragon with the Bigelow BEAM inflatable module experiment in its trunk. CRS-8 was scheduled to arrive at ISS on Apr 10. The F9-023 first stage performed boostback and reentry burns to successfully land on the ship "Of Course I Still Love You" at 78.50W 30.50N in the Atlantic. This was the second succesful reentry and landing of a Falcon 9 first stage, following the Dec 2015 landing of F9-021 at Cape Canaveral. Dragon CRS-8 arrived at the capture point 10m from the Harmony module at 1115 UTC Apr 10. The Canadarm-2 grappled it at 1123 UTC and berthed it on Harmony's nadir CBM port at 1357 UTC. At about 0600 UTC on Apr 16 the BEAM module was extracted from Dragon's trunk; BEAM was installed on the Tranquility module's aft port at 0937 UTC Apr 16. CRS-8 was unberthed at 1102 UTC May 11 and released into space at 1319 UTC. After a deorbit burn at 1801 UTC it splashed down around 120.1W 31.4N, off the coast of California, at 1851 UTC. The CRS-8 Dragon brought back to Earth the EMU 3011 spacesuit implicated in the Parmitano and Kopra water leaks. EMU 3011 was launched into space on mission STS-132 in 2010. Also brought back aboard CRS-8 were the Flock-2b 11 and 12 cubesats which failed to deploy from the ISS last October. Nanoracks deployers NRCSD-5 and NRCSD-6 were also returned to Earth on CRS-8. The Bigelow Expansion Activity Module (BEAM) remains attached to Node 3. On May 28 the module expansion was successfuly carried out; the process of expanding and pressurizing the module took from 1305 to 2044 UTC. The diameter of the module was 3.2metres; its length was increased by 1.8m to about 3.7m.

Arianespace flight VS14. The Fregat stage first burn reached an initial orbit of 695 x 700 km and deployed the Sentinel-1B radar imaging satellite for ESA. It then made a burn to 442 x 690 km and deployed three 1U cubesats. The ASAP-S adapter was ejected into the same orbit. Next, the Fregat stage made two more burns to reach 711 x 714 km and released the Microscope satellite. Finally, at 0118 UTC, Fregat made a deorbit burn and reentered over the S Atlantic. 1800LT SSO.

Ionosphere mission. Impacted in S China Sea. The Hainan sounding rocket station was a small facility at 109 07E 19 31 N, on the other side of Hainan from the new Wenchang Space Center. The TY-3F sounding rocket had a booster stage added to the earlier single-stage Tianying design, to increase its apogee

Lomonosov (Mikhailo-Lomonosov-300) science satellite was orbited from the new Vostochniy spaceport. The old GIK-2 (2nd State Test Cosmodrome) at Svobodniy was shut down in 2007; its reopening as Vostochniy marks a planned shift away from the Kazakhstan launch site of Baikonur. Lomonosov's main experiment, TUS, was an ultraviolet camera to observe the flashes from cosmic rays hitting the Earth's upper atmosphere. 2314LT SSO.

Placed in geosynchronous orbit at 176 deg E. SSL-1300 comms platform built by SSL-MDA, launched by into geotransfer orbit. The Falcon 9 first stage landed downrange on the SpaceX droneship Of Course I Still Love You. Each of the JCSAT series satellites has two names - essentially, a name that identifies the physical satellite and a name that marks the service it was providing at a specific orbital slot.

The Nanoracks NRCSD-7 cubesat deploys were completed on May 18 with the release of four Lemur-2 satellites from Spire Global. The Lemur system carried AIS and GPS radio occultation meteorology payloads. The distortion of the radio signal from a GPS satellite as it passes through the Earth's atmosphere and out again to the STRATOS detector on Lemur-2 depends on the temperature, pressure and humidity of the region of the atmosphere the signal was passing through - so STRATOS can infer the weather. Lemur's SENSE payload contributes to the network of automatic identification of shipping (AIS), relaying position and identification data from ships at sea. The four satellites, built in Glasgow, are named Theresacondor, Kane, Nick-Allain and Jeff after Spire employees. (Theresa Condor was VP Corp.Development for Spire. Nick Allain was their director of brand. Kane was probably named after Megan Kane, a Spire manager, and Jeff was possibly Spire satellite engineer Jeff Kuehne.) The two Nanoracks Cubesat Dispensers launched on OA-4 (Dec 2015, NRCSD-7) and OA-6 (Mar 2016, NRCSD-8) were stored on ISS until May and repacked to allow the high priority Dove 0D-class and Spire Global Lemur satellites to be deployed sooner

Small 37 kg imaging satellites for Satellogic of Argentina; ÑUSAT-1 and -2 (not to be confused with the 1985 Nusat satellite from Weber State Univ.); also called Fresco and Batata (cheese and sweet potato, a popular Argentine dessert pairing). 1024LT SSO.

Satellite with the DirecTV Latin America 2 (DLA-2) Ku-band payload was launched into a supersynchronous transfer orbit. The Proton second stage suffered an early shutdown of one of its 4 engines, leaving the vehicle 28m/s slow at stage 3 separation. Fortunately the Briz-M stage was able to correct the problem by adjusting its burn times and delivered the satellite to the correct orbit.

The NROL-37 mission was a large signals intelligence (SIGINT) satellite, placed in geosynchronous orbit at 103 deg E over the Indian Ocean. Possibly the second Orion/Sharp model. There were two main lineages of GEO SIGINT satellites operated by the US National Reconnaissance Office: MERCURY (originally CANYON); and RHYOLITE (later AQUACADE), which was replaced in the 1980s by ORION (whose other rumoured codenames include MAGNUM and MENTOR). Launches of the MERCURY series ended in 1998, at which time it was rumoured that its capabilites would be merged into the ORION series. A number of observers suggested that the 2014 GEO SIGINT launch of USA 250 on an Atlas V was a one-off mission not part of the ORION series, and that with an increase in mass ORION had moved to using the RS-68A-powered Delta 4 Heavy rockets. It was further been suggested that the 2014 launch might be the NEMESIS 2 satellite mentioned in leaked FY2013 budget documents; however a close reading of those documents showed that funding for the latter project was cut off after FY2011, which implies that it was either launched by then or cancelled (more likely given the sudden drop from half-billion-dollar-level funding to zero). The documents also mention SHARP, the SIGINT High Altitude Replenishment Program, funded at a high level in FY2011-2013 and reportedly also since. It's possible the 2012 and 2016 launches may represent a new ORION/SHARP series, or that they are beefed up ORION and the 2014 launch was a SHARP prototype. The shorter fairing used for the 2014 launch suggests that it was not in fact an ORION.

The Falcon 9 vehicle 26 second stage made two burns to deliver a pair of Boeing BSS-702SP satellites to supersynchronous transfer orbits. This was the second matched pair of all-electric-propulsion payloads, which use ion engines to complete the trip to GEO. ABS-2A will supplement Asia Broadcast Satellite's ABS-2

In January 2017 it was reported that on this date a Trident missile launched from HMS Vengeance on the Atlantic Missile Range failed. The missile was said to have veered toward Florida before being destroyed by range safety. The government was said to have covered up the failure.

Mounted on the Cygnus service module, the first NRCSD-E external cubesat deployer carried 5 Lemur-2 satellites. On Jun 21 two pairs of Lemur-2 cubesats were ejected. A third deployer silo with a single Lemur-2 failed to open, and the cubesat remained inside when then following day Cygnus made its deorbit burn

US Navy Multiple User Object System's Space Vehicle 3 was launched as MUOS 5. The Atlas 5 rocket made three burns to 167 x 659 km x 28 deg, 191 x 32930 x 26 deg and then 3802 x 35786 km x 19 deg, and deployed MUOS which will use its Japanese BT-4 thruster to reach GEO over the Indian Ocean as an in-orbit spare for the system, whose 4 operational satellites were over the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Americas. MUOS 5 had problems with its propulsion system and was parked in a 15242 x 35703 km x 9.8 deg intermediate geotransfer orbit.

China inaugurated the Wenchang spaceport on Hainan Island on Jun 25 with the launch of the first Chang Zheng 7 rocket. The CZ-7 entered orbit with a YZ-1A upper stage, which made several burns to deploy small satellites and then was deorbited along with a subscale spacecraft reentry cabin to qualify systems for the next generation of Chinese human spaceflight missions. Four small satellites were ejected from the YZ-1A. Attached to the YZ-1A as a non-separable payload was the 'zai guijia zhu shiyan zhuangzhi', the In-Orbit Refeulling Experimental Device. The YZ-1A was deorbited over the Pacific after the experiment was completed; the stage had a design operation life of 48 hours. US tracking indicates the stage was deorbited on Jun 27 as expected. The primary payload was the DFFC (Duoyongtu Feichuan Fanhui Cang, multipurpose subscale spacecraft return capsule) flight test mission, which was to be recovered in China. There was also a ballast frame (pei zhong zhijia) which may be a dummy service module for the capsule. The capsule was deorbited on Jun 26 and landed in China at 0741 UTC. It was possible that the YZ-1A stage performed the deorbit and then separated to fire again immediately, regain orbit and continue operations for another day, but the details of what actually happened are not clear.

Launched on into a 181 x 239 km orbit; docked with the ISS Rassvet module at 0406 UTC Jul 9. The Soyuz MS was a new variant of the ferry ship with upgraded onboard systems. Crew was Anatoliy Ivanishin (Roscosmos), Takuya Onishi (JAXA) and Kate Rubins (NASA). On Oct 30 at 0035 UTC Ivanishin, Onishi and Rubins undocked from Rassvet in Soyuz MS-01; they landed in Kazakhstan at 0358 UTC.

Progress MS-03 cargo ship docked with the Pirs module at 0020 UTC Jul 19. It carried 2405 kg of cargo (including 705 kg of ISS propellant) as well as 880 kg of its own onboard propellant. Undocked at 1425 UTC and was deorbited at 1734 UTC with impact in the South Pacific at 1824 UTC.

SpaceX's Dragon CRS-9 cargo ship carried the IDA-2 docking adapter and spacesuit EMU 3006. The Falcon 9 first stage returned to Cape Canaveral for a landing at Landing Complex 1. The second stage was deorbited south of Australia. CRS-9 arrived at the ISS on Jul 20; it was grappled by the SSRMS at 1056 UTC and berthed at Harmony nadir at 1403 UTC. The IDA-2 docking adapter will be installed on the end of the old PMA-2 Shuttle docking port to conver On Aug 25 at about 2100 UTC the SSRMS (Canadarm-2) unberthed Dragon CRS-9 from the Harmony module. At 1011 UTC the Dragon was released into orbit; at 1456 UTC Dragon fired its Draco thrusters in a deorbit burn which sent it plunging into the atmosphere at about 1520 UTC. The empty trunk was jettisoned at 1513 UTC. Dragon splashed down off the coast of Baja at 1547 UTC. Spacesuit EMU 3005 was returned to Earth aboard CRS-9.

NROL-61 mission was launched on Atlas AV-065 into a geostationary transfer orbit. The satellite was thought to be an NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) data relay communications satellite in the QUASAR series, although there was a chance that it instead had a signals intelligence payload. The payload made orbital maneuvers to raise its perigee, and hobbyists tracked the satellite in geostationary orbit at 92 deg E, over the Indian Ocean.

JCSAT-16 satellite for Sky Perfect JSAT, a Japanese satellite broadcasting company. The second stage put JCSAT-16 in geostationary transfer orbit, while the first stage completed a ballistic trajectory and landed on the droneship 'Of Course I Still Love You' in the Atlantic. After its first orbit raising burn, JCSAT-16 was in a 5581 x 35905 km x 10.8 deg orbit. The Falcon 9 second stage was in an 82 x 34111 km geotransfer orbit, ensuring quick orbital decay.

The QUESS (Quantum Experiment Scientific Satellite, liangzi kexue shiyan weixing) was named 'Mozi hao' after the Chinese philosopher Mo Zi (470-390BC), who was credited with the first mention of a camera obscura. The Mozi satellite performed communications experiments using quantum entanglement; developed by the Shanghai Engineering Center for Microsatellites.

Lixing-1 (Drag Star 1, also referred to as Qibo Daqi Kexue Shiyan Weixing or Upper atmosphere scientific experimental satellite), which was to study atmospheric density after lowering its orbit to 100 to 150 km; developed by the Shanghai Engineering Center for Microsatellites. The Lixing-1 upper atmosphere study satellite lowered its orbit on Aug 16 from 488 x 504 km to only 124 x 140 km, the lowest ever orbit for an active spacecraft. It reentered on Aug 19.

EVA to fit the IDA-2 docking unit over the old Shuttle docking port, PMA-2. This would allow PMA-2 to be used for Dragon and other future resupply vehicles. At 1016 UTC SPDM moved IDA-2 inward until it was just touching PMA-2. Jeff Williams and Kate Rubins, in spacesuits EMU 3003 and 3008, entered the Quest airlock for US EVA-36. Quest was depressurized by 1158 UTC and its hatch was open at 1203 UTC. Williams and Rubins attached tethers to IDA-2 and connected it loosely to PMA-2; at 1316 UTC the SPDM released IDA-2, which was firmly mated to PMA-2 by 1440 UTC. After removing a soft cover and carrying out some cabling work, the astronauts were ready for other tasks when at 1731 UTC further work was cancelled due to a communications problem in Williams' suit. The astronauts returned to Quest, closed the hatch at 1757 UTC and repressurized the airlock at 1802 UTC.

Second Epic high throughput broadband satellite, a Boeing BSS-702MP model. Suffered suffered a failure of its main Leros apogee thruster in geotransfer orbit. Orbit raising was delayed until late September; by Oct 18 the satellite was in a 31428 x 35927 km x 0.1 deg orbit.

On Sep 1 Williams and Rubins made a second spacewalk, US EVA-37. The trailing thermal control radiator (TTCR) on the P6 truss segment, held in reserve as a spare, was retracted to protect it from space debris. A new high definition camera was installed at camera position CP9 on the P1 truss. The Quest airlock was depressurized at 1146 UTC and repressurized at 1841 UTC.

Fourth GSLV Mk II rocket, carrying the Insat-3DR weather satellite. The cryogenic upper stage, serial CUS-07, performed nominally. The satellite made its first orbit raising burn on Sep 9. As well as weather sensors and data relay payloads, Insat-3DR carried a transponder to support search and rescue (SARSAT).

Asteroid sample return mission launched by a ULA Atlas V. The model 411 vehicle, serial AV-067, injected O-REx on a hyperbolic trajectory; the probe entered a 0.77 x 1.17 AU heliocentric orbit on Sep 12. OSIRIS-REx had a mass of 834 kg, and carried 1230 kg of propellant and a 46 kg sample return capsule identical to the one used by the Stardust mission. OSIRIS-REx was to make an Earth flyby in Sep 2017 to change its orbit to 0.90 x 1.35 AU x 6.4 deg, allowing it to rendezvous with asteroid (101955) Bennu in Aug 2018. The spacecraft was to sample the asteroid and return to Earth in 2023.

On Sep 14 the Nanoracks NRCSD-9 deployer was pulled from the Kibo airlock by the Japanese RMS arm, and at 1525 UTC two Flock 2E Prime satellites were ejected into space, with six more to come from the same deployer. These satellites have been aboard ISS since their delivery aboard Cygnus OA-6 in March.

China's second space laboratory was launched on Sep 15. Tiangong 2 had a mass of 8600 kg and was launched into a low perigee orbit by a CZ-2F rocket. On Sep 16 at about 0904 UTC the lab raised its orbit from an initial 197 x 373 km to 369 x 378 km x 42.8 deg; on Sep 26 the lab moved to a 381 x 389 km orbit.

Arianespace's Vega rocket made its 7th flight from Kourou. The AVUM upper stage made two burns to deploy TerraBella's SkySat 4 to 7 in a 500 km orbit at 0224 UTC, and then two further burns to put PeruSAT-1 in a 677 km orbit at 0326 UTC. The AVUM made a final burn to deorbit itself in the Indian Ocean west of Sumatra.

India's PSLV-C35 vehicle was launched on Sep 26 with a cluster of small satellites. For the first time, the PS4 final stage made multiple burns to deliver payloads to different orbits. Its first burn reached a 718 x 732 km orbit at 0358 UTC, and ISRO's SCATSAT ocean wind speed scatterometer mission was deployed at 0359. At 0504 and 0554 UTC two more burns reached a 661 x 704 km orbit and the DLA dual launch adapter was ejected, followed by deployment of the remaining payloads. PRATHAM from IIT Bombay, with an ionospheric science instrument 0930LT SSO

Blue Origin flew the New Shepard rocket vehicle from the West Texas launch site to an apogee of 93.7 km and landed it nearby 7min29s after launch. On this mission the New Shepard crew capsule, which normally separates at apogee, instead fired its pusher abort motors 45 seconds after launch at an altitude of 4.9 km, reaching an apogee of 7.0 km and landing 4min16s after launch. Before launch it was expected that the in-flight abort separation of the capsule would destroy the booster rocket but in the event the rocket's flight did not appear to be affected. This was the 5th flight of New Shepard rocket vehicle 2, and possibly the 6th flight of the first Crew Capsule.

China launched Shenhzou 11 with astronauts Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong; two days later, at 1924 UTC Oct 18, it docked with Tiangong-2 to begin a month-long mission. The Chinese astronauts Jing and Chen completed work aboard the Tiangong-2 spacelab on Nov 17 and undocked in Shenzhou-11 at 0441 UTC. Shenzhou 11 landed near Zhurihezen in Inner Mongolia province at 0559 UTC.

Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo ship, the SS Alan Poindexter, was launched on mission OA-5. The launch was the first flight of the Antares 230 rocket, featuring a first stage with two Energomash RD-181 engines replacing the Kuznetsov/Aerojet AJ-26 engines used on earlier Antares missions (which were implicated in the Oct 2014 Antares 130 failure), and a second stage with the Castor 30XL solid motor. The Castor 30XL was on the previous Antares launch but didn't get a chance to fire because of the first stage failure, so this was its first real test. In the event the rocket performed above specification and the mission reached a higher-than-planned 209 x 351 km orbit. OA-5 reached the ISS on Oct 23; it was grappled by the SSRMS at 1128 UTC and berthed to the nadir port of the Unity module at 1453 UTC. Cygnus OA-5 carried 2345 kg of pressurized cargo, and the external Nanoracks deployer with four Spire Global Lemur-2 cubesats.Cygnus cargo vehicle SS Alan Poindexter (OA-5) was unberthed from the Unity module at about 1125 UTC Nov 21 and released into space at 1322 UTC. It raised its orbit on Nov 25 to 495 x 504 km and released two pairs of Spire Global cubesats in the Lemur-2 series. Cygnus was deorbited on Nov 27, reentering over the S Pacific at 2336 UTC.

Soyuz MS-02 with astronauts Sergey Ryzhikov, Andrey Borisenko and Shane Kimbrough. They docked with the Poisk module at 0952 UTC Oct 21. On Apr 10, Soyuz MS-02 undocked from Poisk at 0757 UTC and landed in Kazakhstan at 1120 UTC, returing Ryzhikov, Borisenko and Kimbrough to Earth. Peggy Whitson became ISS commander of Expedition 51.

First launch from Wenchang Space Centre in Hainan. The CZ-5 configuration used four large liquid strapon boosters around a central 5 metre diameter core stage, with a second stage consisting of a stepped cylinder similar in configuration to the Delta 4/H-2A second stages. On this mission a Yuanzheng-2 third stage was also installed. The payload was Shi Jian 17, an experimental communications technology satellite with a secondary experiment to observe orbital debris. After launch at 1243 UTC the CZ-5 second stage achieved a 170 km parking orbit at 1257 UTC. At 1307 UTC the second stage made a six-minute-long second burn to 178 x 29127 km x 19.5 deg. The YZ-2 separated at 1313 UTC and shortly afterwards made a burn to 212 x 35802 km x 19.5 deg. YZ-2 then coasted to apogee and restarted at 1836 UTC to place itself in near geosynchronous orbit. The SJ-17 payload separated at about 1855 UTC into a 35886 x 38811 km x 0.8 deg orbit and drifted around the GEO arc. On Nov 12 it entered a 35771 x 35804 km geostationary orbit over 162.9E.

Second launch of the small solid-fuel CZ-11 launch vehicle from Jiuquan. It carried the 240 kg Maichong Xing Shiyan Weixing (Pulse Star Experimental Satellite) which will test the concept of navigation using the signals from X-ray millisecond pulsars. These compact stars spin hundreds of times a second and the X-ray flashes from their magnetic poles swishing past us at that high rate can be used as a very accurate clock, the key component of a GPS-like navigation system. The concept was developed some years ago by the NRL team and it was hoped to use it in future US space systems. The launch also carried four cubesat-class payloads.

United Launch Alliance Atlas V, serial AV-062, placed the DigitalGlobe WorldView-4 commercial imaging satellite in orbit. WV-4 was originaly GeoEye-2 before the GeoEye/DG merger, and has a resolution of only 0.25 metres. AV-062 reached a 600 km orbit at 1846 UTC and deployed WV-4 at 1849 UTC. AV-062 also carried four cubesat deployers on its Aft Bulkhead Carrier. At 2120 UTC AV-062 made its second burn, accelerating to escape velocity to avoid it contributing to LEO space junk. The stage departed the Earth's gravitational sphere of influence on Nov 15 to enter a solar orbit of 0.93 x 1.57 AU x 3.4 deg.

Four more European navigation satellites in the Galileo system were launched. An Ariane 5ES rocket was used; the restartable EPS upper stage placed the satellites (FM07, FM12, FM13 and FM14, redesignated GalileoSat 15 to 18 after launch) in orbit. The 5ES model was previously used for ATV cargo ship launches.

Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite R, which became GOES 16 when operational, was the first in a new series of Lockheed-Martin-built GOES weather satellites for NOAA. The satellite mass was 2857 kg dry, 5192 kg when full of propellant. GOES-R carried the Advanced Baseline Imager, a new camera similar in capabilities to those on the Japanese Himawari 8/9 series. Also aboard were the Geostationary Lightning Mapper, a Space Environment suite, a Solar Ultraviolet Imager, an EUV/X-Ray Irradiance Sensor, a Search and Rescue comm payload, and comm payloads to relay weather data.

The fourth in China's Tianlian-1 series of data relay satellites was launched into an elliptical geotransfer orbit. On Nov 23 at about 1000 UTC it raised its orbit with a burn over the Indian Ocean. It wa expected to replace Tianlian-1 01 at the 80E location. On Dec 1 Tianlian 1-04 was tracked on station at 76.9E, a few degrees from Tianlian 1-01.

The launch vehicle failed during third stage burn and its debris fell in the Tuva Republic. Lost with the rest of the cargo was the first Orlan-MKS spacesuit. Reports suggested the Progress separated from the rocket third stage prematurely and the accelerating stage then crashed into the Progress.

8th Boeing 702-class Wideband Global Satcom payload for the US Dept. of Defense carried an improved 'channelizer' that increases the capacity of the satellite. The second stage was reportedly deorbited, and the extra propellant required to do this necessitated a lower apogee transfer orbit than for previous WGS missions. By Dec 25 WGS-8 had reached a 26728 x 44588 km x 0.2 deg orbit.

16-tonne Japanese HTV-6 (Kounotori-6) cargo ship. The pressurized module contains 600 kg of water and 2152 kg of dry cargo. This included two JAXA J-SSOD and one Nanoracks NRCSD-10 cubesat deployers; these were to be transferred to the Kibo module. The HTV also has an Exposed Pallet, which on this mission (using the enhanced capacity EP6B+) carried a set of replacement batteries for the ISS truss, with a total cargo mass of 1367 kg. The S4, S6, P4 and P6 truss segments each contain an Integrated Electronics Assembly (IEA), with 12 Ni-H2 batteries apiece in separate ORUs (Orbital Replacement Units). On this mission the S4 batteries are to be replaced. Six new 197 kg Li-ion battery ORUs were to be installed and six of the 166 kg Ni-H2 battery ORUs were to be transferred to the HTV EP for disposal on reentry. The remaining six Ni-H2 ORUs remained on S4, but they were taken off line and new 29 kg Adapter Plate ORUs were to be installed between them and the truss. On Dec 14 the Exposed Pallet was grappled by the Canadarm-2, pulled out of HTV-6 and attached to the Mobile Base System on the ISS truss. On Dec 15-16 the J-SSOD #5 was moved to the Kibo module's airlock. On Dec 19 the Japanese RMS arm took the MPEP platform, with J-SSOD attached, out of the airlock and the STARS-C cubesat was ejected from it at 0855 UTC. On Dec 27 J-SSOD #6 was installed in the airlock with its sats to be deployed in January. Japan's HTV 6 cargo ship separated from ISS on Jan 27 at 1546 UTC. However, its KITE tether experiment failed to deploy when commanded to do so on Jan 28. HTV 6 was deorbited on Feb 5 at 1442 UTC and entered the atmosphere over the South Pacific at 1506 UTC.

First satellite in the FY-4 series, placed in a geotransfer orbit. China's FY-1 and newer FY-3 series were polar orbiting weather satellites comparable to the NOAA polar series, while the FY-2 constellation, to be superseded by the FY-4 system, consistd of geostationary satellites like NOAA's GOES. FY-4 No. 1 carried a 0.5 km resolution imager, a 913-channel IR sounder, a lightning mapping imager, and a space environment package.

Second Epsilon rocket launched the 350 kg ERG geospace science satellite into elliptical orbit. ERG carried experiments to study energetic particles, waves and fields in the magnetosphere. After launch, ERG was renamed 'Arase' (rough water, a metaphor for the dynamic magnetic storms of geospace). The second Epsilon uses a new second stage, the M-35. The first flight in 2013 used a derivative of the M-34 from the old M-V rocket. The M-35, with a mass of 17200 kg, was a growth version sized to match the 2.6m diameter of the larger Epsilon first stage. The third stage was the KM-V2c, with minor improvements compared to the previous mission's KM-V2b. The PBS liquid post-boost 4th stage was not included on this flight.

China's Tan Weixing (Carbon Satellite or TanSat) carried a high resolution grating spectrometer to measure CO2 and O2 distribution and a wide field of view cloud/aerosol imager. The 620 kg satellite was to map global CO2 sources and sinks with a precision of 1 percent. Three smaller payloads from the Shanghai microsatellite center were also carried. 0138LT SSO.

Placed in geosynchronous orbit at 135 deg E. Ariane vehicle L587, mission VA234, placed two comm satellites in orbit. JCSAT 15, for Sky Perfect JSAT of Japan, was to become JCSAT-110A operational at 110E to replace JCSAT-110R. Loral 1300 class satellites built in MDA/Loral's Palo Alto factory.

The first time the CZ-2D booster was flown from their southern launch site. However, the rocket appeared to have run into problems and achieved orbit with an underspeed of 100 m/s, making a 212 x 520 km orbit instead of a circular 500 km one. The main payloads were Gaojing 1 and 2, two commercial high resolution (0.5m) imaging satellites also called SuperView 1 and 2. The satellites were owned by Beijing Aerospace World View Information Technology Co., Ltd (also called Beijing Space View Tech Co.Ltd.); the US company DigitalGlobe was a major investor. 1030LT SSO