Portal:Spaceflight/Spaceflight news/2016 archive

The most recent items from the archive are transcluded into the news section to avoid the need to update multiple pages. When adding new items, place them at the top of the list, and move the onlyinclude tags so that no more than seven items are transcluded.

• 30 September: The Rosetta mission ends when the bus probe lands on Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
• 27 September: SpaceX unveils plans for the Interplanetary Transport System, including the ITS launch vehicle and manned spacecraft.
• 26 September: Scientists believe the Hubble Space Telescope has detected evidence of cryovolcanism on Europa.
• 20 September: Wildfires around Vandenberg Air Force Base has delayed several launches from the facility.
• 12 September: Blue Origin reveals technical specifications for their New Glenn orbital rocket, which they hope to begin launching from SLC-36, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, by the end of the 2010s.
• 8 September: OSIRIS-REx is launched to retrieve samples from the near-Earth asteroid 101955 Bennu.
• 7 September: The final Soyuz TMA-M spacecraft completes its mission when Soyuz TMA-20M lands in Kazakhstan.

• 1 September: The Israeli Amos-6 satellite is lost when a Falcon 9 Full Thrust rocket explodes during fueling for its readiness firing at SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
• 1 September: A Chinese Long March 4C rocket failed to launch a Gaofen remote sensing satellite.
• 30 August: SES World Skies announces that the SES-10 communications satellite will be the first payload launched by a re-used SpaceX Falcon 9 Full Thrust rocket.
• 24 August: Scientists announce the discovery of Proxima Centauri b, an Earth-like planet orbiting Proxima Centauri that may potentially be habitable.
• 23 August: NASA has re-established contact with the STEREO-B solar probe after two years.
• 19 August: NASA astronauts attach the IDA-2 docking port to the International Space Station at the Harmony forward port.
• 12 August: NASA chooses six companies to study construction of space habitats for deep-space missions using the Space Launch System.
• 4 August: China's Yutu lunar rover ends its mission.
• 29 July: NASA offers Deep Space Network support for a SpaceX Red Dragon mission to Mars as soon as 2018.
• 27 July: NASA announces plans for commercially developed missions to Mars in the 2020s.
• 9 July: The Soyuz MS spacecraft makes its maiden flight with the Soyuz MS-01 mission to the International Space Station.
• 5 July: Juno achieves a polar orbit around Jupiter.
• 6 June: Astronaut Jeffrey Williams is the first to board the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module at the International Space Station.
• 28 May: NASA completes inflation of the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module at the International Space Station.
• 27 May: A launch of a National Reconnaissance Office satellite on a Delta IV Heavy rocket is delayed due to an unspecified payload issue.
• 23 May: ISRO tests a scale model of their Reusable Launch Vehicle in a sounding rocket launch from Satish Dhawan Space Centre.
• 28 April: The first launch from Vostochny Cosmodrome, a Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying the Mikhailo Lomonosov X-ray astronomy satellite, is completed.
• 27 April: SpaceX announces plans to launch a Red Dragon spacecraft to Mars as soon as the 2018 launch window.
• 18 April: JAXA now believes Hitomi has been destroyed after achieving a high spin rate due to an attitude control issue.
• 15 April: The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module is removed from SpaceX CRS-8 and installed on the International Space Station at the Tranquility aft port.
• 11 April: NASA's Kepler space telescope stabilizes after entering emergency mode five days before.
• 11 April: The United Launch Alliance and Bigelow Aerospace announce a plan to build commercial space stations using Bigelow's BA 330 inflatable space modules.
• 10 April: For the first time, both spacecraft of NASA's Commercial Resupply Services are docked to the International Space Station, with SpaceX CRS-8 joining Cygnus CRS OA-6.
• 8 April: After launching SpaceX CRS-8, the first stage of a Falcon 9 Full Thrust rocket lands successfully on an autonomous spaceport drone ship, Marmac 304 Of Course I Still Love You, in the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Canaveral, Florida.
• 5 April: John M. Grunsfeld, NASA astronaut and associate administrator of their Science Mission Directorate, announces his resignation from the organization.
• 28 March: The Japanese Hitomi telescope has malfunctioned, and is believed to be tumbling. JAXA is attempting to recover it.
• 24 March: The United States Air Force ceases efforts to recover the failed DMSP-19 meteorological satellite, ending its mission prematurely after two years.
• 16 March: NASA announces Project Saffire, a plan to ignite a fire aboard Cygnus CRS OA-6 after it has un-docked from the International Space Station to study the behavior of fire in microgravity.
• 2 March: The Year in Space mission to the International Space Station is completed when Soyuz TMA-18M lands with Scott Kelly and Mikhail Korniyenko.
• 16 February: A team led by University College London announces that the atmosphere of exoplanet 55 Cancri e "Janssen" is composed of hydrogen and helium, and lacks water vapor. It is the first announced detection of the composition of the atmosphere of a Super-Earth.
• 13 February: The launch of Cygnus CRS OA-6 is delayed after it is discovered its payload is contaminated with mold.
• 12 February: The European Space Agency officially ends the Philae lander mission.
• 5 February: American astronaut and Apollo 14 moonwalker Edgar Mitchell passes away, aged 85.
• 3 February: NASA opens its Planetary Defense Coordination Office to search for near-Earth objects which might be a threat to Earth.
• 21 January: Juno becomes the most distant spacecraft powered by solar power.
• 20 January: The California Institute of Technology publishes evidence that supports the existence of a true ninth planet of the Solar System, believed to exist in an orbit twenty times further from the Sun than Neptune.
• 15 January: Timothy Peake becomes the first British astronaut to engage in extravehicular activity, with a spacewalk at the International Space Station.
• 14 January: NASA awards contracts to SpaceX, Orbital ATK, and Sierra Nevada Corporation for the second round of the Commercial Resupply Services, to begin launches in 2019.
• 13 January: The United States Air Force awards contracts to SpaceX and Orbital ATK for rocket engine development.
• 7 January: The U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has resumed production of plutonium-238 for use in radioisotope thermoelectric generators in spacecraft.
• 5 January: NASA orders additional RS-25 rocket engines from Aerojet Rocketdyne for the Space Launch System.