Aerospatiale has delivered the Huygens spacecraft to the European Space Agency for launch with the NASA Cassini Saturn orbiter aboard a Titan 4B booster from Cape Canaveral on 6 October. The Huygens craft is due to land on Saturn's moon, Titan, in 2004.
Source: Flight International
China’s AVIC has secured a contract from the China Manned Space Agency to develop a winged, reusable spacecraft called Haolong.
The UK Space Command’s first owned earth observation microsatellite has been launched, providing the inaugural element of a planned space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) constellation.
Orbital launch pioneer SpaceX is being contracted by the American space agency NASA to develop a so-called “US Deorbit Vehicle” that can safely return the International Space Station to Earth via controlled re-entry.
