HOUSTON — A three-man, U.S. and Russian crew departed the International Space Station (ISS) early April 27, descending to Earth aboard their 28 Soyuz spacecraft for a safe ending to a 165-day mission that was marked by major hard- and software upgrades to the orbiting laboratory’s command and control functions as well as a rigorous research agenda.

Blue Origin is at work on separate vehicles for two different flight profiles.

Language differences in the House and Senate versions of the appropriations bills funding NASA in fiscal 2013 contain language differences.

NEW DELHI — India launched into orbit its first indigenous reconnaissance satellite Risat-1 on April 26, thereby joining a select group of nations that have access to microwave radar imaging from orbit. The 1,858-kg (4,100-lb.) satellite was put into a polar circular orbit at an altitude of 480 km (300 mi.) and an orbital inclination of 97.552 deg. early in the day by India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle C19 (PSLV-C19) from Sriharikota spaceport in south India.

Boeing is turning to the Mission Operations Directorate at NASA’s Johnson Space Center to support the training for and early flight operations of the company’s seven-person CST-100 entrant in NASA’s Commercial Crew Development initiative.

Platinum and other valuables — including water — are driving space prospectors vying for the $20 million Google Lunar X Prize to design their vehicles to search the Moon’s surface for resources that could be sold in space or on Earth. Moon Express, a Lunar X Prize team spearheaded by Internet entrepreneurs Naveen Jain and Barney Pell, is working with NASA’s Ames Research Center on ways to seek and retrieve valuables like platinum, building on the California field center’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (Ladee).

SpaceX and NASA have agreed to delay the launch the first U.S. commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station by one week from its original target of April 30, providing the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program participant more time to complete and follow up on hardware-in-the-loop software testing.

LOS ANGELES — Unexpectedly severe degradation of the protective aeroshell at speeds of up to Mach 20 most likely caused the loss last August of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (Darpa) second Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV-2), according to a report produced by an independent engineering review board.