Latest International Space Station program Stories

Russia is making preparations to separate its components of the International Space Station (ISS) and fly them away when the rest of the station de-orbits. A BBC News report cited Russian officials who said they plan to keep their ISS modules in orbit for another ten years.Although ISS partner nations are hopeful they will be able to extend funding for the project beyond the current deadline of 2015, observers agree that most of the ISS will have to be cancelled by 2020.Russia's plans call...

Russian news agencies reported on Wednesday that the country will charge U.S. astronauts $51 million per return trip to the International Space Station (ISS) from 2012 and will resume selling seats to space tourists, Reuters reported.Much like NASA's own shuttle fleet, Russia's Soyuz capsule will soon be retired after nearly 3 decades in service.However, a replacement for its space shuttle is not due until at least 2014.Interfax quoted Anatoly Perminov head of Russian space agency Roskosmos...

The U.S. space agency says it has awarded a nearly three-year, $206.5 million spaceflight support contract to United Space Alliance of Houston. The contract requires the company to provide mission and flight crew support operations for the International Space Station and human space exploration activities after the space shuttle is retired. The operations include spaceflight capability development and execution, mission planning and preparation, crew and flight controller training and...

NASA officials have begun talks with Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to purchase units of a cargo transfer spacecraft to be the successor to the U.S. space shuttle. According to Yomiuri, a Japanese newspaper, the sale would be the largest contract deal in the 50-year history of the Japanese space agency.The 14 billion yen ($131 million) H-2 Transfer Vehicle is being developed by JAXA, and domestic corporations including Mitsubishi Electric, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.  The...

WASHINGTON, July 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Over the last 6 months, representatives from NASA and the European Space Agency, or ESA, have been engaged in a detailed assessment of potential programs and technologies that when conducted cooperatively could one day support a human outpost on the moon. Findings from the study included a significant mutual interest in the potential development of lunar cargo landing systems, communication and navigation systems, lunar orbital infrastructures,...

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA is considering shutting down all the research programs it conducts aboard the International Space Station for at least a year to fill a projected budget shortfall of up to $100 million, a top station manager said on Thursday. Space station research was already slashed to just over $200 million last year to help the U.S. space agency pay for Hurricane Katrina losses and cost overruns in the space shuttle program. Less than $100...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate early on Thursday approved legislation shaping U.S. space policy, continuing the shuttle and international space station programs and giving a boost to President George W. Bush's vision of a new era of ambitious space exploration. Bush has called for a "Vision for Space Exploration" and a an eventual bid to return humans to the moon and while the bill focuses on the next two years, it also lays out policy elements to support a move toward a...

By Sonia OxleyMOSCOW (Reuters) - The $100-billion International Space Station could end up on the scrap heap if NASA's shuttle flights do not return to normal soon, scientists say.NASA said on Thursday its next shuttle flight would not be until March, six months later than planned."The knock-on effects to the International Space Station are quite dramatic ... (long delays) could potentially be a show-stopper for the whole thing," Andrew Coates from UCL's Mullard Space Science...

MOSCOW -- Russia welcomed Wednesday the return of the U.S. shuttle to space, saying it would bring financial relief to Moscow after a lone, two-year fight to keep humans in orbit."We regard this extremely positively," Konstantin Kredenko, spokesman of the Roskosmos space agency, said after the shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral.Since the shuttles were grounded in February 2003 after one disintegrated on re-entry, killing seven astronauts, only Russia has sent people...

By Jim Loney MIAMI (Reuters) - The space shuttle's return to flight will restore luster to NASA's tarnished space program but the spaceship's 2010 retirement is just as important to the new U.S. target of traveling to the moon and Mars, experts say. As the U.S. space agency counts down the days until it flies the shuttle again after a hiatus of more than two years following the 2003 Columbia disaster, aerospace experts and enthusiasts question whether the aging shuttle fleet is worth the...