Now that Orbital Sciences Corp. has launched its Antares/Cygnus combo off to the International Space Station, NASA soon will have two routes to the orbiting laboratory. That will come in handy as the U.S. agency works to use the $100 billion engineering marvel as much as possible. Building the ISS was an accomplishment without precedent, but keeping it supplied with experiments and food is not that easy either.

A U.S. and Russian Soyuz crew docked with the International Space Station late Sept. 25, completing a third consecutive “express” four-orbit launch-to-rendezvous transit to restore the orbiting science lab to a crew of six. The Soyuz TMA-10M rocket lifted Expedition 37 Soyuz commander Oleg Kotov, NASA flight engineer Michael Hopkins and Russian flight engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy. The crew launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Sept. 25 at 4:58 p.m. EDT (Sept. 26 at 2:58 a.m., local time).

China aims for Moon launcher more powerful than Saturn V

After ISS, a mix of human outposts

When the nearest hardware store is 350 mi. straight down, tool control takes on a whole new dimension. Take away gravity, and air, and it gets even harder. Just ask Jill McGuire, a private pilot who was also the engineer in charge of crew aids and tools for the last servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope in May 2009. “You have to take everything with you,” she says. “You don't get a chance to run to Home Depot.”

Milestones line up for Commercial Crew contenders as tests continue

Boeing satellite engineers continue preparing the first Inmarsat-5 mobile broadband satellite for launch on a Russian Proton before the end of the year, after the spacecraft made it through thermal-vacuum testing without a hitch. The 702HP-based satellite and two more are designed for Inmarsat's Global Xpress network of broadband links for mobile users on land, sea and in the air.

Controllers are preparing another Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF-3) spacecraft for operation after an early morning launch Sept. 18 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V flying from Cape Canaveral. Liftoff came at 4:10 a.m. EDT; Lockheed Martin Space Systems—builder of the satellite—acquired its signal 51 min. later.