The first of eight planned Space Shuttle missions in 1996, the STS72/Endeavour was launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida on 11 January on a planned nine-day flight. A six man crew, including, the first Japanese NASA mission specialist Kiochi Wakata, were scheduled to deploy a Spartan research satellite and retrieve it from orbit.
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.
