BEIJING — China will have the capacity to build six to eight large spacecraft a year, including space station modules and big reconnaissance satellites, at an assembly and test plant due for completion in August 2014.

PARIS — Ankara is planning development of a national satellite launch system capable of delivering military and civil spacecraft to orbit, according to Turkish Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz. Following a Jan. 3 meeting of Turkey’s Defense Industry Executive Committee, Yilmaz said the government will enter negotiations with Turkish weapons builder Roketsan Inc. for the early concept design phase of a new launch system “to ensure that military and civilian satellites can be sent into space,” according to a Jan. 3 statement.

SATELLITE EXPORT: The U.S. Export-Import Bank has authorized an $87.1 million loan guarantee to facilitate the assembly and sale of an Orbital Sciences Corp. Ku-band satellite to Hispasat Canarias, a subsidiary of the Madrid-based Hispasat. The Amazonas-4A satellite is expected to launch in 2014 and occupy Hispasat’s orbital slot over Brazil to provide high-definition television broadcasts to the Americas.

EDWARDS AFB, Calif. — NASA is preparing to flight test a scaled version of a towed-glider air-launch concept that it believes has the potential to “dramatically” reduce the cost of launching payloads into orbit.

ESA brings ISS experience with ATV to critical-path responsibility

HOUSTON — NASA’s Orion project will pursue an aggressive strategy to reduce the mass of the four-person capsule that serves as a centerpiece of U.S. efforts to develop a new human deep space exploration capability, according to participants in the first phase of a long-running integrated systems definition review of the multi-element initiative that kicked off this week.

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Jesco von Puttkamer, a protégé of Wernher von Braun whose NASA career ranged from the Apollo manned lunar landing project to the International Space Station, died Dec. 27 of a flu-like illness. He was 79. At his death he was still active at the U.S. space agency, producing a daily online rundown of activities on the ISS.