NRO A GO: United Launch Alliance and the U.S. Air Force are preparing to launch the National Reconnaissance Office’s classified NROL-38 satellite at 8:28 a.m. EDT June 20 from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Launch was set for June 18 but was pushed back to allow the replacement of an environmental control system duct, which required the Atlas V rocket to be rolled back from the pad. Forecasters showed a 70% chance of favorable weather conditions for launch.

Upcoming U.S. commercial human spaceflights will be licensed by FAA for launch and reentry, but until private companies start sending their own crews and paying customers into orbit, NASA will decide if their vehicles are safe enough for astronauts. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and acting FAA Administrator Michael Huerta announced an agreement between their agencies June 18, outlining roles and responsibilities as NASA advances its plans to buy transportation for U.S., Canadian, European and Japanese astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

LOS ANGELES — The U.S. Air Force’s second X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-2) has landed after 469 days in space, more than double the time clocked by the OTV-1. As with the first OTV flight, the Air Force remains secretive about the mission, saying only that the Boeing-built X-37B conducted “on-orbit experiments.” In a short statement, it says the vehicle provides “return capability” that allows the Air Force to test new technologies without the same risk faced by other programs.

Chinese astronauts plan to execute their country’s first manual space docking maneuver on June 24

Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Virgin Galactic are working under U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) contracts to design air-launch systems that can orbit sub-100-lb. payloads for $1 million, including range costs. “Previous attempts at air launch did not focus enough on the rocket side,” says Mitchell Burnside Clapp, Darpa’s Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (Alasa) program manager. “They over-invested in an aircraft that could only do one thing—support the launch.”

NASA plans to launch an exterior Earth-observation platform to the International Space Station under a cooperative agreement with Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc., which builds the flight releasable attachment mechanism (FRAM) manufactured by the Huntsville, Ala.-based subsidiary of Teledyne Technologies Inc.

NASA’s Mars Planning Program Group is now preparing to send its recommendations forward.

PARIS — The European Space Agency (ESA) will negotiate a late 2013 launch window for the first Sentinel Earth observation satellite and continue funding the joint Euro-Russian ExoMars program through the end of this year, according to ESA officials. During a June 13-14 meeting of the ESA ruling council here, the 19-member agency was told it could secure a three-month launch window for the Sentinel 1A satellite beginning in October 2013, despite uncertainty over funding for the spacecraft’s operations.