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Editorial Team

Space Travel Editorial Team

Editorial Team

The Space Travel Editorial Team produces Space Travel's coverage of human spaceflight and access to space. We report on launch, crewed missions and space tourism, and the propulsion, vehicles and human factors of getting people to space. Articles reflect our team's collective editorial process, source verification, drafting, technical review, and editing, rather than a single writer's work. Space Travel takes editorial responsibility for content under this byline. For more on how we work, see our editorial policy.

Another Russian Automated Space Truck Docks At Space Station

Moscow, Russia (SPX) May 16, 2007 - Cargo transport spacecraft Progress M-60 which was launched from the Baikonur launch site on May 12, 2007, after three days of free flight in a low Earth orbit, has docked with the International Space Station. The spacecraft rendezvous with ISS, its fly-around, station-keeping and docking were performed in automatic mode. The spacecraft approached the docking port on the Zvezda Service Module of the ISS Russian Segment. The initial contact with the space station docking port took place at 09:10 Moscow Time.

May 16, 2007

Russia And ESA Sign Contract For Four Soyuz Launches From Kourou

Moscow (RIA Novosti) May 16, 2007 - Samara-based design bureau Progress plans to sign a contract with the European Space Agency at Le Bourget air show for the launch of four Soyuz-ST carrier rockets from the Kourou space center in French Guiana. Progress spokesman Alexander Kirilin said the first contract will be signed in mid-June. The company has already built the first two Soyuz-ST rockets to be shipped to French Guiana by sea.

May 16, 2007

Leading Medical Institutes To Develop Collaborative Space Medicine Program

El Segundo CA (SPX) May 16, 2007 - A comprehensive space medicine resource for the entire civilian spaceflight industry is the focus of a memorandum of understanding that has been signed between Mayo Clinic in Arizona, the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) and Wyle Laboratories.

May 16, 2007

Industry Leaders Call On Congress To Boost NASA Budget

Washington DC (SPX) May 16, 2007 - An unprecedented coalition of nearly two dozen U.S. aerospace corporations told the Congress on Friday, May 11, that NASA is in urgent need of a boost to its fiscal year 2008 budget or America's space leadership could be lost for a generation.

May 16, 2007

Conference Highlights Space Safety As A Global Concern

Paris, France (SPX) May 15, 2007 - This week, ESA is cosponsoring an international conference on environmental, human and technical space safety, including related legal and regulatory issues. ESA's space safety interests are growing as the Agency's own near-Earth missions increase and as space tourism and commercial flights worldwide take off.

May 15, 2007

Cudady And Glendale Schools Join Unique Partnership With NASA

Glendale CA (SPX) May 15, 2007 - NASA has announced that Theodore Roosevelt Middle School, Glendale, Calif.; and Ellen Ochoa Learning Center, Cudahy, Calif., have been selected to begin a special three-year partnership with the space agency as NASA Explorer Schools. The school teams are among 25 schools around the nation named as new NASA Explorer Schools.

May 15, 2007

Preventing Sick Spaceships From Killing Spaceman

Washington DC (SPX) May 15, 2007 - Picture this: You're one of several astronauts homeward bound after a three-year mission to Mars. Halfway back from the Red Planet, your spacecraft starts suffering intermittent electrical outages. So you remove a little-used service panel to check some wiring.

May 15, 2007

Atlantis Is Go For Rollout

Cape Canaveral FL (SPX) May 15, 2007 - Good progress was made on the final repairs on Atlantis' external tank over the weekend. Space Program managers have decided to rollout the vehicle to Launch Pad 39A on Tuesday morning, with first motion scheduled for 4:00 a.m. EDT. After last week's rollout review meeting, NASA officials announced that repairs on the external tank on Space Shuttle Atlantis have been completed.

May 15, 2007

US Shuttle Atlantis Back On Launch Pad

Washington (AFP) May 15, 2007 - The US shuttle Atlantis was back on its launch pad Tuesday preparing to blast off in June to the International Space Station after damage to a fuel tank delayed its launch, space agency NASA said. The shuttle had been due to lift off from the Kennedy Space Center in the southeastern state of Florida in March, but was put back in its hangar after a freak hail storm damaged the outer fuel tank that powers its launch.

May 15, 2007

China Approves Five-Year Space Development plan

Beijing (Xinhua) May 14, 2007 - China's State Council, or the cabinet, approved the country's 11th five-year plan on space development, in principle, at a conference on Thursday last week. Addressing the conference, Chinese Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan stressed that the 11th five-year period (2006-2010) is key to China's space development.

May 14, 2007

ISS Crew Size Could Be Doubled By 2009

Moscow (RIA Novosti) May 14, 2007 - Crews on the International Space Station will be increased from the current number of three up to six people by 2009, a senior official with the Russian Space Agency said Friday. ISS crews will be increased to six people by 2009 and the station will go into full operation, Alexei Krasnov, the head of the agency's department for manned flights, said at the welcome ceremony for the 14th ISS crew.

May 14, 2007

Raytheon To Pursue Avionics Contract For NASA Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle

Tucson, AZ (SPX) May 14, 2007 - Raytheon will submit a proposal as the prime contractor to partner with NASA on the development and manufacture of the Instrument Unit Avionics on NASA's Ares I, the Crew Launch Vehicle that will carry future space pioneers into orbit when the Space Shuttle is retired in 2010.

May 14, 2007

Shuttle Atlantis To Hit Launchpad Next Week

Washington (AFP) May 11, 2007 - The US space agency said Friday it would roll the space shuttle Atlantis to its launchpad on May 16, after a March launch was delayed by hail damage to the orbiter's external fuel tank. With repairs to the damage incurred during a severe Florida storm finally complete, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration will hold a flight readiness review on May 30-31, and the shuttle could launch as early as June 8.

May 11, 2007

Kazakh Cosmonauts To Complete Training By Year End As Another Progress Rolls Out

Astana, Kazakhstan (RIA Novosti) May 11, 2007 - Two Kazakh cosmonauts will complete a training course before the year end, but a date for their flight to the International Space Station has not been fixed, the head of Russia's space agency said Thursday. Anatoly Perminov, the general director of the Federal Space Agency who is accompanying President Vladimir Putin on a visit to the Central Asian state dominated by crucial energy projects, said: The training of the Kazakh cosmonauts, which is being conducted free of charge, will be completed this year.

May 11, 2007

Students Test Space Postal Service During Foton Mission

Paris, France (ESA) May 11, 2007 - How do you deliver a parcel down to Earth from space without using a rocket engine and fuel? The answer is YES2, a student experiment that was built and tested at ESA's research and technology centre, ESTEC, in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. Today, YES2 will be transported to Russia.

May 11, 2007

More Progress At Space Station Soon

Baikonur, Kazakhstan (SPX) May 10, 2007 - A new Progress freighter is scheduled to launch to the International Space Station at 11:25 p.m. EDT Friday, May 11, with more than 2.5 tons of fuel, air, water and other supplies and equipment aboard. The station's 25th Progress unpiloted cargo carrier will bring to the orbiting laboratory more than 1,050 pounds of propellant, almost 100 pounds of air, more than 925 pounds of water and 3,042 pounds of dry cargo - a total of 5,125 pounds.

May 10, 2007