The Pizza Hut company will place a 10m (30ft)-wide logo on the side of the Proton booster that will launch the Zvezda module to the International Space Station (ISS), providing the Russian space programme with much needed funds. The Russian Space Agency, which has sold experiment time on its segment of the ISS to NASA for $60 million, is offering a similar service to the European Space Agency and Japan to help fund building of later ISS elements.
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.
