GeoMetWatch, a startup that is building on its engineers’ experience developing an unflown government hyperspectral weather sounder to produce commercial weather hosted payloads, has entered a Space Act Agreement (SAA) with NASA to exchange data from orbit for surplus hardware and calibration services.

NASA has offered its expertise and test facilities to potential lunar-lander partners

HOUSTON — International Space Station astronauts Chris Cassidy of NASA and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency plan to further prepare the six-person orbiting laboratory for the arrival of Russia’s Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module (MLM) during a pair of July spacewalks that will include external alterations to ready the outpost for possible power and cooling system failures.

STANDING DOWN: Jason-1, a Franco-U.S. ocean-topography spacecraft in operation since Dec. 7, 2001, has gone offline after its sole remaining transmitter failed on June 21. NASA and the French space agency CNES decommissioned the Earth-science bird after 11.5 years of service continuing the data set started in 1992 by Topex/Poseidon and continuing today with the Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2. Built by Thales Alenia Space, the 500-kg.

OHB System AG of Germany has signed an €816 million ($1.06 billion) contract with Germany’s defense procurement agency to develop the SARah satellite-based radar reconnaissance system. SARah aims to provide an enhanced follow-on to Germany’s five-satellite SAR-Lupe constellation, which became fully operational in 2008. Built by OHB System AG, SAR-Lupe, which utilizes one ground station, is slated to retire after November 2017.

PARIS — A Proton M/Block DM-03 rocket carrying three Russian Glonass navigation satellites veered wildly off course shortly after liftoff July 2, exploding into a fiery ball before crashing 2.5 km from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

NASA has cleared Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) through two more of its Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) milestones, paving the way for the company’s modified Dragon cargo carrier to begin pad-abort testing as early as this year. The U.S. space agency accepted the SpaceX human certification plan, which outlines everything the company plans to do to get ready for human spaceflight. That includes tests, demonstration, analyses, inspections, verifications and training events, NASA said.

NEW DELHI — India on July 1 lofted its first navigation and timing satellite meant to provide accurate position information services to both civilians and the military. IRNSS-1A, the first satellite of the seven-spacecraft Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), was launched on a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C22) from the spaceport at Sriharikota off the coast of the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, says an official at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).