PROGRESS DOCKED: Russia’s Progress 54 re-supply capsule carried out a successful docking with the six-person International Space Station late Feb. 5, following a liftoff earlier in the day atop a Soyuz carrier rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The automated rendezvous with the ISS Russian segment Pirs module unfolded as planned, leading to a link up at 5:22 p.m. EST, as anticipated. The space freighter lifted off at 11:23 a.m. EST, or in darkness at 10:23 p.m. local time, in subfreezing temperatures. After reaching a preliminary orbit 9 min.

Operating the International Space Station until 2024 will broaden the “planning horizon” for commercial companies to use the facility, adding 45% to the research and crew time available for industrial research and technology development for deep-space exploration, according to the NASA official responsible for human spaceflight. William Gerstenmaier told the FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference in Washington Feb. 5 that the service life extension for the ISS “changes the way commercial providers think about this.”

LOS ANGELES — SpaceIL, the Israel-based team competing for the Google Lunar X-Prize, is optimistic about winning the pole position in the race to land a privately developed unmanned vehicle on the Moon following the award of a contract with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) for the propulsion system.

NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (Ladee) mission will spend an extra 28 days circling the Moon at low altitude to extend observations of the tenuous atmosphere for an additional light/dark lunar cycle. The extension will postpone Ladee’s anticipated impact with the surface until about April 21.

HOUSTON — Russia’s trash-laden Progress 52 capsule departed the International Space Station Feb. 3, opening a berthing port for the country’s first resupply mission of 2014. Progress 54 is scheduled to lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Feb. 5 at 11:23 a.m. EST, or 10:23 p.m. local time, initiating a four-orbit, 6-hr. automated rendezvous and docking at the ISS Pirs docking compartment. Progress 54 is scheduled to deliver 2.8 tons of fuel, research gear and other provisions to the six-person orbiting science laboratory.

NASA should have enough money in its fiscal 2014 appropriation to support development of at least two competing commercial crew vehicles, and the Senate panel that funds the U.S. space agency will try to keep that going in fiscal 2015, according to Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who chairs it.

HOUSTON — NASA’s 2013 Asteroid Initiative Idea Synthesis Workshop produced nearly 30 recommendations for refining strategies to identify, capture and maneuver a seven- to 10-meter near-Earth object into lunar orbit for a visit by astronauts. The proposed undertaking has emerged from its first U.S. budget cycle, but is still in search of significant U.S. Congressional and international backing.

PARIS — France and Britain have signed a framework agreement on space cooperation in the areas of Earth observation, telecommunications, space-based weather forecasting and technology. The agreement, signed during a Franco-British defense summit held at RAF Brize Norton in southern England Jan. 31, includes an initial U.K. investment of £15 million ($25 million) for key instruments being developed for the next generation of European weather satellites.