NASA has told the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency that the first elements of its hardware for the International Space Station, including a pressurised laboratory, will not be launched until the eighth Space Shuttle mission following STS 121, now scheduled for May, but more likely to take place in June.
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.
