With enough money, NASA plans to begin flying its astronauts to the International Space Station before the end of 2017, but nongovernment test pilots may make the trip in one or more of the commercial crew vehicles in development before then. Those private pilots could wind up training their NASA customers to operate the orbital spaceflight vehicles now in development with government backing, as the U.S. space agency moves to hand over post-shuttle access to low Earth orbit to commercial operators.

Sofia is a modified Boeing 747SP with a 100-in.-dia. telescope

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Astronauts on deep-space missions should adhere to healthy sleep/activity patterns

PARIS — Russia’s Yamal 402 telecommunications satellite has successfully passed in-orbit checkout and is ready to begin operational service in its final location at 54.9 deg. E. Long., nearly a month after the premature shutdown of a Briz M upper stage on Dec. 9 left the Ku-band spacecraft in the wrong orbit.

PARIS — European launch services provider Arianespace says it generated sales of €1.3 billion ($1.7 billion) spread across 10 launches in 2012, a 30% increase over 2011 and a record that will see the company break even for the year, with the help of annual price supports financed by the European Space Agency (ESA) to keep the commercial launch consortium from operating at a loss.

BEIJING — China has declared its Beidou satellite navigation system fully operational, although the service remains limited to most of the Asia-Pacific region. The operating office says it is “accelerating” construction of the system, but repeats its longstanding commitment to achieve global coverage by about 2020; no earlier possibility is mentioned.

Final prelaunch tests will begin Jan. 11 for NASA’s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) mission now that Lockheed Martin Space Systems has completed integrating the science instruments with the spacecraft at its Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, Calif.