HOUSTON — Russia’s express crew mission to the International Space Station succeeded late March 28, as the Soyuz TMA-08M capsule carrying two cosmonauts and a U.S. astronaut docked to the orbiting science lab within 6 hr. of liftoff. A second Soyuz crew will attempt to duplicate the fast-track transit in May, as the ISS partnership assesses the merits and challenges of routinely expediting what is normally a 34-orbit journey over two days for ISS astronauts in the close confines of the venerable Russian capsules.

U.S. and Russian astronauts, strapped in Russia’s Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft, lifted off late March 28 on the first “expedited” rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station, a four-orbit, 6-hr. transit that mission managers will evaluate as a replacement for the standard two-day voyage.

NASA’s fiscal 2014 budget request will include $100 million for a new mission to find a small asteroid, capture it with a robotic spacecraft and bring it into range of human explorers somewhere in the vicinity of the Moon.

An International Launch Systems Proton rocket orbited Satmex 8 in a 9-hr., 13-min. mission flying from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan late March 26, putting the big Russian rocket back in business after a Dec. 8 anomaly left a Russian telecom satellite in a low orbit. Liftoff of the Proton/Briz M stack came at 3:07 p.m. EDT, and the upper stage placed the Space Systems/Loral bird in a geostationary transfer orbit after its standard five-burn flight profile.

XCOR plans to conduct full-scale, extended-duration, hot-fire test

HOUSTON — SpaceX retrieval crews began recovery of the company’s Dragon CRS-2 resupply craft from Pacific waters off the coast of Baja, Calif., on March 26, following its departure from the International Space Station and a successful plunge through the Earth’s atmosphere. Slowed by three parachutes, the unpiloted capsule splashed down 200 mi. west of Baja at 12:34 p.m. EDT, with a nearly 2,700-lb. cargo of research gear and equipment for distribution to scientists, refurbishment or disposal.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) closed the hatches on the SpaceX Dragon CRS-2 supply capsule March 25, after preparing a near 2,700-lb. cargo for a weather-delayed splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja, Calif. The splashdown under parachute is scheduled for March 26 at 12:34 p.m. EDT. Over the weekend, a forecast for rough seas in the recovery zone 200 to 300 mi. offshore prompted NASA and Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX to call for a one-day postponement in the unpiloted capsule’s ISS departure and descent.

Have agreed to cooperate on future missions to the Moon and Mars