COLORADO SPRINGS — The senior officer overseeing U.S. Air Force Space Command says he refuses to lose sight of looking toward a future of more resilient architectures for spacecraft and launchers, though the near-term focus is on slicing $508 million from its operations and maintenance budget through the end of September.

COLORADO SPRINGS — Next year’s flight test of the Orion multipurpose crew vehicle will include an operational practice session for NASA flight controllers, as well as data collection needed to refine the heat shield and other design elements. When the Delta IV Heavy carrying the Orion clears the launch tower at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., control of the flight will shift to Mission Control Center-Houston, just as it did during shuttle-era human launches.

COLORADO SPRINGS — Lockheed Martin will begin anechoic tests this week of the GPS non-flight satellite testbed (GNST), an engineering, manufacturing and development pathfinder for the future GPS III constellation.

A total of 216 U.S. small businesses will be able to negotiate for $38.7 million worth of NASA contracts under the latest round of Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program bidding.

Boeing is set to begin detailed wind tunnel tests of its Crew Space Transportation (CST-100) spacecraft following a successful preliminary design review of the launch vehicle adapter structure. The CST-100 is designed to carry crews to the International Space Station as well as take space tourists to the Bigelow Aerospace orbital space complex, and could make its first test flight as early as 2016.

LOS ANGELES — Scaled Composites is in the final run-up to the first powered flight of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (SS2) suborbital vehicle, following the completion of a “feather” braking maneuver during a drop test with the rocket installed. The 9-min. glide flight, which took place over Mojave, Calif., on April 3, included the first flight test with a nitrous vent. This was located in the pylon attaching the SS2 to the WhiteKnightTwo mothership that carried the vehicle aloft to its air-launch altitude.

COLORADO SPRINGS — Boeing is developing a family of three small satellites ranging from 4 to 1,000 kg (9 to 2,200 lb.) in size to whet the growing appetite of commercial and government customers interested in pursuing lower-cost space platforms.

HOUSTON — An eight-year, $120 million overhaul of the world’s largest cryogenically controlled thermal vacuum chamber will soon be completed to support NASA’s $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).