NASA/Boeing collaboration will demonstrate 41 advanced technologies for reusable launch vehicles NASA and Boeing's recent signing of a four-year agreement to build and fly a single X-37 reusable vehicle in orbit clears the way for demonstrating a wide range of technologies that eventually could cut the cost of accessing space from $10,000 to $1,000/lb.

The Paris-based Economic and Social Council plans to issue a report to the French government calling for closer integration of French and European space activities and in particular the creation of a new high-level European body to define common space strategy. The council is an independent organization that serves as a forum for discussion of public policy and a source of recommendations to the French government.

The appointment of a former U.S. Air Force chief of staff as board chairman of Pioneer RocketPlane Corp. is expected to accelerate financing and elevate the credibility of the start-up company's air-refuelable space launch vehicle program.

The launch of an advanced version of the KH-11 imaging reconnaissance satellite on a Titan 4 from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., Dec. 20, completes a new three-spacecraft constellation that uses an uprated model of the optical spacecraft operated by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

The Russian Mars 96 mission with an orbiter, four landers and participants from more than 20 countries is scheduled to be en route to Mars this week after a tortuous eight-year development that spanned the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The launch of MGS is the first step toward establishing an international robotic infrastructure at Mars.