Q&A with Keith Gendreau, principal investigator of the first X-ray space communications experiment (members only)

Last week’s successful launch of a Vega rocket with a European re-entry technology demonstrator marked the first of at least 11 flights planned this year by Arianespace to put communications satellites, Earth observatories and research probes into space.

NASA has a builder to construct a five-ton spacecraft to catch up with the aging Landsat 7 Earth observation satellite and refuel it in 2020, employing robotic tools mastered in years of rehearsals on the International Space Station.

NASA’s four Magnetospheric Multiscale mission spacecraft were encapsulated Feb. 23 in the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket’s nose cone at the commercial Astrotech processing campus in Titusville. Delivery of the payload to the Atlas 5 assembly building for mating occurred on Friday, Feb. 27.