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HOUSTON — U.S. and Russian crewmembers departed the International Space Station late March 10, leaving the six-person orbiting science laboratory with its first Japanese commander in charge. The returning astronauts descended safely to Earth aboard the Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft for a touchdown on the frigid, snow-blown plains of southern Kazakhstan.

JEJU, South Korea — The Korean Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) plans to launch a one-off rocket in 2017 to test its Woorae-1 rocket engine, the key technology of its forthcoming KSLV-II space launcher. The KSLV-II, a largely indigenous successor to the much smaller Russo-Korean KSLV-I launched between 2009 and 2013, is due to make its first flight in 2020.

International Launch Services (ILS) is poised to benefit from new satellite export loan guarantees to be made available through the new Export Insurance Agency of Russia (Exiar), which will operate similarly to France’s Coface, ILS President Phil Slack said March 10.

A NASA-backed team is at work on advanced space-telescope technology that may allow researchers to measure the atmospheric composition of extra solar planets directly, by blocking the instrument-blinding direct light of a target star. NASA and Orbital Sciences Corp. are developing a spacecraft, set for launch in 2017, that is designed to add to the catalogue of exoplanets generated by NASA’s Kepler space telescope and by ground-based instruments.

Airbus Defense and Space and Intelsat have signed a multiyear Ku-band maritime mobile capacity agreement to bridge the satellite fleet operator’s existing service to its new, high-throughput Epic platform slated to enter service in 2016.

NASA, working in partnership with Planetary Resources, Inc., will offer $35,000 in awards as part of an Asteroid Data Hunter competition intended to improve the detection of near Earth objects that could pose an impact threat or provide future space resources.

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