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April 6, 2017

/ 10:30 a.m. CT (1530 GMT)


John Glenn laid to rest

: The first American to orbit the Earth, John Glenn was interred at Arlington National Cemetery during a private ceremony on Thursday (April 6). Glenn, who died on Dec. 8 at age 95, was laid to rest on the 74th anniversary of his wedding to his childhood friend and high school sweetheart, Annie Glenn. A military honor guard saluted the Marine, NASA astronaut and Senator, as flags were flown at half-mast by order of the President.


April 8, 2017

/ 3:00 p.m. CT (2000 GMT)


Georgy Grechko (1931-2017)

: A three-time cosmonaut aboard the Soviet Union's Salyut space stations, Georgy Grechko was the first to perform a spacewalk wearing the Russian Orlan spacesuit design still in use today. On Saturday (April 8), Grechko died at a hospital in Moscow at the age of 85. Chosen in 1968 to train for a moon mission that would never launch, he logged more than 134 days on three Soyuz spaceflights between 1975 and 1985.


April 10, 2017

/ 7:25 a.m. CT (1225 GMT)


Soyuz MS-02 lands

: Russia's Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft landed on Earth on Monday (April 10) after 171 days at the International Space Station. Expedition 50 commander R. Shane Kimbrough and crewmates Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrei Borisenko touched down on the Kazakh steppe, leaving the Expedition 51 crew on the station, led by Peggy Whitson, the first woman to command the outpost twice.


April 12, 2017

/ 11:00 a.m. CT (1600 GMT)




On a mission

: Representatives from NASA, the Texas Historical Commission and Space Center Houston will meet soon with National Park Service officials to review the proposed restoration of the historic Mission Operations Control Room at Johnson Space Center's Mission Control Center to how it looked when astronauts first landed on the moon. The project, made possible in part by a $3.5 million gift by the City of Webster in Texas, is set to be complete in time for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 in July 2019.


April 13, 2017

/ 1:00 p.m. CT (1800 GMT)


EFT-1 Orion lands on display

: NASA's first space-flown Orion capsule is now on display at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. Launched on Exploration Flight Test-1 in 2014, the Orion traveled 14 times farther from Earth than the International Space Station. The Orion, built by Lockheed Martin, is on display as a part of "NASA Now," an exhibit devoted to the future of space exploration.


April 14, 2017

/ 2:30 a.m. CT (0730 GMT)


Apollo 11 coin competition

: The U.S. Mint is launching a contest to design the obverse, or front, of the curved coins that will mark 50 years since the first moon landing. The 2019 Apollo 11 50th Anniversary Commemorative Coin Design Competition is set to begin in May. The winner will receive $5,000 and their initials will be inscribed on the coins. The reverse design, as directed by law, will be based on an iconic photo taken on the moon on July 20, 1969.


April 18, 2017

/ 12:00 a.m. CT (0500 GMT)


Cooper's Treasure

: To hear treasure hunter Darrell Miklos tell it, NASA astronaut Gordon Cooper had a secret after he splashed down from his Mercury-Atlas 9 spaceflight in 1963. Cooper, who orbited Earth a record 22 times, returned with a treasure map: coordinates that could be the sites of shipwrecks. Before he died, Cooper gave the list to Miklos, who is now the focus of Discovery Channel's series "Cooper's Treasure" about the resulting ocean expedition.


April 18, 2017

/ 10:35 a.m. CT (1535 GMT)


'John Glenn' returns to orbit

: Spanning 55 years of space history, a capsule lifted off on an Atlas rocket from the Cape Tuesday (April 18), launching 'John Glenn' to orbit. The S.S. John Glenn, an Orbital ATK Cygnus module, launched to bring science and supplies to the International Space Station. The ship was christened in honor of the late Mercury astronaut and carries memorabilia for his family.


April 19, 2017

/ 2:00 p.m. CT (1900 GMT)


Die Astronautin

: A private search to find the first German woman to fly to space now has its two finalists. Die Astronautin (The Female Astronaut) announced Wednesday (April 19) that pilot Nicola Baumann and meteorologist Insa Thiele-Eich, the daughter of astronaut Gerhard Thiele, will train together for a single, privately-financed seat to the International Space Station, aimed to launch by 2020.


April 20, 2017

/ 2:40 a.m. CT (0740 GMT)


'Argo' launches

: NASA's Jack Fischer and Roscosmos' Fyodor Yurchikhin embarked for a five-month stay on the International Space Station on Thursday (April 20), launching on 'Argo,' the name they gave to the Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The launch marked the 50th Russian crewed spacecraft to lift off to the International Space Station. Fischer, a first time flier, is now the 550th person in history to enter Earth orbit.


April 20, 2017

/ 2:15 p.m. CT (1915 GMT)


Exploring together

: The Soyuz MS-04 crew that launched for a five-month stay on board the International Space Station on Thursday (April 20) chose to represent their flight using official and unofficial mission patches directly inspired by historic space flight emblems. Jack Fischer and Fyodor Yurchikhin drew from the iconic designs for a moon landing and a joint U.S. and Russian test project.


April 24, 2017

/ 9:30 a.m. CT (1430 GMT)


534 days and counting

: At 12:27 a.m. CDT (0527 GMT) on Monday (April 24), astronaut Peggy Whitson broke the record for the most time in space by an American. Whitson, who is 158 days into her third mission aboard the International Space Station, surpassed the previous record of 534 days, 2 hours and 48 minutes set by Jeff Williams in September. When she lands, Whitson will have spent more than 665 days in space, ranking her eighth worldwide.


April 25, 2017

/ 3:05 p.m. CT (2005 GMT)


Restoring Mission Control

: NASA's Apollo-era mission control consoles will be restored by the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas. Part of a $3.5 million effort by NASA and the National Park Service to roll back the historic Mission Operations Control Room to its configuration at the time of the moon landings, the consoles will be re-powered such that their buttons and data screens light up again.


April 26, 2017

/ 10:10 p.m. CT (0310 GMT Apr 27)


What goes up

: Proving again an old adage, NASA on Wednesday (April 26) showed that "what goes up, must come down" but can do so in higher definition. The agency produced the first live 4K video stream from space and presented the first ultra-high-def cinema camera to be used aboard the International Space Station to the company that provided it. The higher frame rate and definition of the RED Epic Dragon camera has enabled the capture of more data and helped better convey the experience of being in space.


April 28, 2017

/ 8:00 a.m. CT (1300 GMT)




LEGO to launch Saturn V

: LEGO on Friday (April 28) began counting down to the launch of its new NASA Apollo Saturn V model set, which will go on sale June 1. Based on a fan submission to LEGO Ideas, the 1,969 piece moon rocket stands more than 3 feet tall when assembled and can be separated into its stages. The set also includes microfigures to scale with the Saturn V, a lunar surface and an ocean surface to display liftoff to landing to splashdown.


April 28, 2017

/ 5:30 p.m. CT (2230 GMT)


Last TFNG leaves NASA

: Thirty-nine years after being selected as one of the TFNG (the Thirty Five New Guys), NASA's first class of space shuttle astronauts, Anna Fisher retired from the agency on Friday (April 28). One of the first six U.S. women astronauts and the first mom to fly in space, Fisher flew as a mission specialist on the second flight of the space shuttle Discovery, helping to achieve the first space salvage, the recovery and return of a satellite.



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