Progress 59 is scheduled to lift off from Baikonur on Tuesday at 3:09 a.m., EDT, initiating a four orbit, six hour sprint to the International Space Station with three tons of supplies

Our roundup of the top stories in aerospace and defense from the last two weeks.

"We definitely look forward to the espresso machine," astronaut Scott Kelly, NASA's ISS marathoner, told Russia Today. "I know a lot of people are interested in it."

India’s second lunar exploration mission – Chandrayaan-2, to be launched during the next two to three years – will be completely indigenous, the country’s top scientist says.

Although investigators appear to be in broad agreement that wear in the bearings of the main engine turbopump is the “most probable” cause of the explosion that destroyed an Orbital ATK Antares launch vehicle on a crew resupply mission to the International Space Station last October, questions remain over what caused the wear in the first place.

SpaceX is thought to be focusing on static friction in an engine throttle valve as the prime suspect for the loss of the Falcon 9 first stage during the third attempt at recovering the booster.

United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno says his choice of planning to reuse only the BE-4 engines – not the entire first stage – of the company’s new Vulcan rocket was driven purely by the economics.

United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno says Aerojet Rocketdyne’s claim of delivering an AR-1 rocket engine capable of operating on the Atlas V or Vulcan vehicles by 2018 is “ridiculous.”