William Pickering, NASA's former director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1954 to 1976 - the year of the of Viking Mars soft landings - died on 15 March, aged 93. Pickering led the successful effort to place the USA's first satellite, Explorer 1, in orbit in 1958 and was involved in all the US planetary missions, including the first Venus and Mars explorers, Mariners 2 and 4 in 1962 and 1965, respectively.
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.
