NASA's Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer was launched into a 3,150 x 4,180km, 83¡, orbit by an Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL booster on 21 August. It was the third successful flight (out of five attempts) of the air-launched XL booster. The original Pegasus booster had eight flights, with six fully successful missions.
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.
