A Japanese H-IIA launcher lifts off Feb. 27 with the Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) Earth-science spacecraft onboard, setting up unprecedented coverage of rain and snowfall from a slot in the sun-synchronous “A-train” satellite constellation. Liftoff of the GPM “core observatory” came at 1:37 p.m. EST (3:37 a.m. Feb. 28 local time) from the launch site on Tanegashima Island in southeastern Japan, and the big rocket performed nominally.

Why OEMs are flocking to the U.S., Mexico and Singapore

Despite reduced funding, France is still investing in the future

Valery Kubasov, the flight engineer on Soyuz 19, which docked with an Apollo spacecraft in Earth orbit in July 1975, died Feb. 19 in Moscow. He was 79. His death was announced on RSC Energia's website, which called him a “high-spirited instructor test cosmonaut.” No cause of death was given.

After first ISS mission, Orbital Sciences plans for growth

In the fraught atmosphere that wracked NASA and the spacefaring world after the Columbia accident in 2003, perhaps the sharpest condemnation stemmed from an off-the-cuff remark by the U.S. space agency's space shuttle program manager. Ron Dittemore said he did not seek imagery from classified reconnaissance satellites that might have revealed the extent of the launch-debris damage to the orbiter's left wing because nothing could have been done anyway. Sean O'Keefe, then the agency administrator, begged to differ.

An irony is playing out here over the U.S. government's fiscal 2015 budget: Not since the last recession ended has there been such widespread acknowledgement in Washington of where federal spending is headed, thanks to the so-called Ryan-Murray budget deal in December and 2014 appropriations, which became law Jan. 17. But Congress increasingly will be unable to do anything about it as 2014 continues.

Milsatcom system raises bar for European space cooperation