PARIS — Turkey advanced plans for developing a new launch vehicle July 11, signing an agreement with national missile-maker Roketsan for the pre-conceptual design phase of the new launcher, according to Turkey’s defense ministry.

Click here to view the pdf

In a sign that NASA’s Texas footprint is still changing two years after the shuttle program’s retirement, Johnson Space Center Deputy Director Steve Altemus will retire this month to lead Houston-based startup Intuitive Machines, which will offer NASA-honed engineering expertise to the global energy and health care sectors as well as commercial aerospace.

Managers hope to begin instrument procurement this fall

Republicans shot down Democratic proposal to boost NASA spending

NASA and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (Casis) must strive harder to make full use of the International Space Station (ISS) if taxpayers are to recoup returns on its substantial assembly and annual operating costs, according to NASA Inspector General Paul Martin.

PARIS — The European Space Agency (ESA) has settled on the basic design of the Ariane 6, the next-generation launch vehicle that will succeed Europe’s heavy-lift Ariane 5. Known as the “Multi P Linear” concept, the launch vehicle will comprise four solid-fueled boosters that make up the rocket’s first and second stages, topped by a cryogenic third stage based on the Vinci engine, which is being developed by the Snecma motors division of France’s Safran as part of a midlife upgrade to the current Ariane 5, known as Ariane 5ME.

HOUSTON — Astronauts Chris Cassidy and Luca Parmitano extended power cabling across the outside of the International Space Station’s U.S. segment for a future Russian lab, pre-staged utility lines and hardware to deal with potential cooling and power system failures and retrieved external science experiments during a NASA-sponsored July 9 spacewalk.