Will test high-speed broadband satellite in the Indian Ocean

Once NASA begins delivering its astronauts to the International Space Station with commercial crew vehicles, it may also be possible for industrial or academic researchers to spend time there without being selected as astronauts, according to the top space station manager at agency headquarters.

GRoK Technologies LCC, a Houston startup, plans to develop alternatives to the animal-based testing of new human medications, cosmetics and environmental toxins, as well as noninvasive medical therapies, through licensing agreements reached with NASA’s Technology Transfer Program. The accords will be backed by patented technologies in 3-D human tissue growth using rotating wall vessels (RWV), or bioreactors, and time-varying electromagnetic fields.

After its most ambitious Florida test flight to date, NASA’s Morpheus prototype planetary lander will undergo a significant guidance system upgrade at Kennedy Space Center for the installation of Autonomous Landing Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT) sensors, to evaluate the unpiloted vehicle’s ability to steer around boulders or steep crater slopes while in flight to achieve a safe touchdown.

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who served as principal investigator for the “Spheres” satellite-software testbed on the International Space Station will advise Administrator Charles Bolden as the agency’s next chief technologist, NASA announced March 13. David Miller, an MIT professor of aeronautics and astronautics who also directs the institute’s Space Systems Laboratory, will succeed Cornell University professor Mason Peck, who has returned to his teaching post.

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HOUSTON — NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, home to Mission Control for the International Space Station and lead installation for development of the Orion/Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, would be the highest funded agency field center in 2015 and second ranked in number of civil servants, according to additional information on the agency’s budget request released this week. The rankings in both categories fall in line with previous spending and employment trends.

Astronomers are finding that rocky planets in the same size range as Earth are extremely common in the Universe, and a better understanding of what it takes for a planet to be habitable suggests more of them may be able to support life than previously thought, at least in theory. Work is ongoing to develop spacecraft able to test that theory, but for now it remains to be seen whether extraterrestrial life exists and can be detected by humans.