Blue Origin has completed acceptance flight tests of its cryogenic BE-3 deep-throttle engine, and plans to begin autonomous flight tests with the reusable New Shepard suborbital human spacecraft it will power later this year.

NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Directorate has agreed to address a dozen corrective recommendations raised by the agency’s Inspector General with regard to upgrade needs and increased security for the Deep Space Network, a 52-year-old global assembly of transmitters and receivers for communications with and navigation of distant planetary spacecraft.

"He will do great," predicted NASA astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore, who returned to Earth after 5 1/2 months on the ISS earlier this month. Wilmore watched Scott Kelly's lift off from NASA's Mission Control in Houston.

USAF and SpaceX are modifying the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement signed two years ago to outline what has become the contentious process to certify the Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket for use in launching national security payloads.

"We are discovering all kinds of exotic planets, worlds that have oceans of molten rock, worlds that have not one but two stars rising in the East and setting in the West," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler mission scientist.

During a March 17 luncheon Shotwell touched on developments underway at the Hawthorne, California-based company.

After eyeing a low-cost launch opportunity on a Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) rocket, Airbus Defense and Space has selected an Ariane 5 to lift its second European Data Relay System (EDRS) spacecraft to geostationary orbit in the first quarter of 2017.

"What's especially surprising about the aurora we saw is how deep in the atmosphere it occurs," said Arnaud Stiepen, a University of Colorado researcher.