Rob Coppinger: October 2007 Archives

European Space Agency mission specialist Paolo Nespoli (left) and NASA's STS-120 commander Pam Melroy speak to Italian president Giorgio Napolitano from inside the Harmony Node 2, built by Franco-Italian joint venture Thales Alenia Space, that Space Shuttle Discovery delivered to the International Space Station last week.

Nespoli's mission, to aid the installation of Harmony, is called Esperia. While Harmony's installation has been successsful, the re-location of a solar array, another part of STS-120's activities, has had a hitch.

If you can stop an ex-NASA astronaut from giving their forthright views do tell, but for now their comments can make good copy.

Asking former Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan at the Autographica event in London on 12 October about a rumour that he had joined the Constellation programme lunar lander project office I got an answer I wasn't quite expecting.

Watch the video below and discuss it here at the airspace forums

For a whole bunch of other Cernan related videos...

Above: International Space Station commander Peggy Whitson (foreground) and European Space Agency mission specialist Paolo Nespoli assist Space Shuttle Discovery crew member astronaut Doug Wheelock prior to the start of his extra-vehicular activity, STS-120's third spacewalk that would last 7h

On a news-lite morning, NASASpaceflight.com reports about the agency's mission management team extending the duration of STS-120, to allow the astronauts time to fully investigate the problem with the International Space Station's starboard Solar Alpha Rotary Joint

As NASA's best and brightest tackle that the single party state that is the Chinese government is solving its own problem of pesky locals getting in the way of a shiny new spaceport, solution, move them whether they like it or not. Nimbyism is not allowed to exist in China

While Lockheed Martin Orion crew exploration vehicle development team member, and blogger, "T. L. James" talks lunar helium three, fusion and reveals a knowledge of UK life with his reference to our national newspaper for those into left of centre politics, The Guardian, as The Grauniad - because the paper is reknowned for its bad spelling

Chinese state media is reporting all is go for its Chang’e 1 probe, while Japan’s Kaguya/Selene spacecraft is also readying itself for lunar probing

China’s state media is also reporting that seven Chinese citizens have booked flights with Virgin Galactic

Meanwhile astronauts entered the newly attached International Space Station's Italian built Node 2 module over the weekend and discovered mystery metal shavings while moving other bits of the ISS around

In Russia they are more concerned with planetary defence

And finally Space.com is reporting about the US defense department's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's solar thermal propulsion work and NASAWatch.com has video of VAriable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) engine testing

Over the weekend the International Space Station's remote robotic manipulator, Canadarm2, temporarily hands off the P6 truss structure to Space Shuttle Discovery's robotic manipulator system, Canadarm, and below is Rocketplane Global's new design.

Click on the screencap to launch the Quicktime movie of the 1963 NASA film about how the Apollo project will get to the Moon.

Note the land landing at the end that was originally planned for Apollo. Then watch this recent film by NASA for its return to the Moon Constellation programme to see the difference in presentation 44 years can make.

European built International Space Station module Node 2 called Harmony sits in the payload bay of NASA Space Shuttle Discovery in-orbit on flight day two of mission STS-120.

Nevada based-Bigelow Aerospace's first manned orbital complex technology demonstrator Genesis (not its Genesis II spacecraft) images the fires raging across California, and the company provides some helpful annotation.

ESA has released its first few images for the Space Shuttle Discovery STS-120 International Space Station (ISS) mission that is carrying, along with the agency's astronaut Paolo Nespoli, the European built Node 2 "Harmony" module that is to be attached to the ISS.

Watch the launch video here and here and here

Space Politics has a think about the ongoing NASA budget shenanigans

Aviation Week and Space Technology has some info on the next solid rocket test for NASA's Constellation programme and a report here on the impending investigation into the anomalous Soyuz TMA-10 landing

NASAWatch reports on China's imminent lunar mission launch

According to this report the upper stage engine re-ignition test that took place during the actual 5 October launch of the Intelsat 11 and Optus D2 satellites in preparartion for the Ariane 5 ES rocket flight, that will launch the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle, went well - you can find the original ESA report here

And JAXA has another astronaut report here

Rocketplane Kistler has come out fighting after NASA axed it from its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services programme and there are reports on that here, here and here

I would imagine the RpK situation will be much discussed at this year's International Symposium for Personal Spaceflight (ISPS), which Jeff Foust ponders on here

Staying with the commercial spaceflight vein here is a link to an interview with Bigelow Aerospace founder Robert Bigelow

And here is more ISPS stuff

And once again NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery, the oldest remaining orbiter, lifts off from Kennedy Space Center for its next mission, STS-120, to the International Space Station (ISS) to attach the European built Node 2, aka Harmony, to the ISS to enable the station to expand its crew complement to six from three.

Click here to find video of Discovery at launch pad 39B before its STS-116 flight in December 2006

Trekking around the World is very much a part of being a Flight journalist and I've drawn together the many travelogue blogs I've accumulated over the last couple of years from going to French Guiana in South America, Kennedy Space Center in Florida, China's capitol Beijing, the US state of New Mexico, New York city, Moscow, Kazakhstan (sort of) and Germany and Italy

Go here to read all about the off course Soyuz capsule landing

ESA updates its Venus Express website

another JAXA Kaguya/Selene update awaits

Hobbyspace.com has a series of entries on;

thoughts about Kistler's rocket designs

the latest on Rocketplane's renewed suborbital focus

the International Symposium for Personal Spaceflight

and the Google Lunar prize and SpaceShipTwo interior design

According to Space Politics the Congressional Ares, Orion hearings have been postponed with no new date set

This Boeing presentation has surfaced and has some interesting points about Ares I crew launch vehicle design considerations including concern that lift off loads may be a significant design issue due to the "direct load path between the SRB and the upper stage".

Flight has also heard that despite previous NASA presentations showing that the Ares I first-stage solid rocket booster casings not changing they are now going to have to because of in-flight forces at points along the lengthof the "stick"

NASAWatch.com has found this video of the proposed Ares V Cargo Launch Vehicle launching a space telescope

Flight has published a number of stories about Ares V design options and alternate missions to the lunar outpost flights, including larger fairings for the CaLV, manned missions to near Earth objects and an asteroid deflection mission

Here is some J-2X news from Alabama care of Hobbyspace.com

And here Lockheed Orion development team member and Mars Blog blogger T. L. James has some harsh words for the Alabama report

Just in case NASA's $16 billion plus, everything and the kitchen sink, approach to space exploration wasn't enough then find some links here to their poorer cousins at ESA, who struggle from year to year with the world's second largest space budget of more or less €3 billion (up to $5 billion, around abouts with today's strong euro). But you might want to watch this Ariane 5 video first...

Spot the truly whacky in this long list of Hobbyspace.com entries that has links to stories about NASA's COTS programme, space diving and proposals for a positron engine, whatever that is.

If that isn't looney enough for you our sister title New Scientist has something about planetary landers moving around like cockroaches.

On a more serious note Hobbyspace.com has a link to details about another space investment summit and even more serious, changing safety procedures at Mojave air and space port following the fatal accident involving Scaled Composites employees

Poor old NASA and its budget woes took various turns for the worse and slightly less worse durIng this week.

It saw the US Senate pass its appropriations bill for the agency and even better (?)the US House of Representatives voted through two celebratory resolutions regarding 50 years of space and NASA's Langley Research Center.

But the week has also seen an attempt to rob NASA of $150 million, not much compared to the agency's $17+ billion budget request but its one more funding threat the embattled agency's leadership doesn't need to worry about.

Fortunately that was stopped. But it still doesn't resolve the fact that the space agency is in a continuing resolution.

To those of you who aren't Americans familiar with their government's budgetary process (or if you're an American who isn't familiar with this process) a continuing resolution comes into force when no budget for the new fiscal year has been approved. And the US government's fiscal years are 1 October to 30 September.

As NASA had no approved budget for 2007 the agency is working with funding at 2006 budget levels - the last budget to be appropriated.

So to cut a long story short NASA is waiting for the House and Senate to get their act together and appropriate the funds, assuming US president George Bush doesn't veto the bill that contains the NASA budget. And he has threatened too.

Watch videos here of three of the five unfunded space act agreement (SAA) companies who could be contenders for the new $174.7 million SAA for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services demonstration programme. A fourth video is of SpaceX's second Falcon 1 launch. It could also bid for the $174.7 million.

Hobbyspace.com has this link to a USA Today article about the US laws for personal spaceflight

Holloman AFB has created its website about the X Prize Cup event it is hosting

Meanwhile NASA has given the go-ahead for the 23 October launch of Space Shuttle Discovery for its STS-120 mission to the International Space Station

Space Politics has news that senior government personnel are to testify before Congress about the development of the US space agency's Ares rockets and Orion crew exploration vehicle manned capsule.

The two officials potentially in harm's way are, Dr. Richard Gilbrech, the new associate administrator for the exploration systems mission directorate, replacing former astronaut Scott Horowitz, and Cristina Chaplain, director of acquisition and sourcing management at the US Government Accountability Office.

Check out this NASA promotional video for its Constellation return to the Moon programme;

Hobbyspace.com has another set of great links to exploration related technology development and some other interesting news bites.

Space.com has got China fever with two stories about the world's most populous nation's intentions in space.

A government official has apparently expressed hopes it can join the International Space Station as a partner. I think some US members of Congress will have something to say about that and it won't be positive.

Meanwhile the aspiring superpower has set a date for the launch of its lunar orbiter Chang'e 1 mission

In the mean time read about China's robotic Moon mission and human spaceflight plans in this Flightgobal article that has an exclusive video from that nation's spaceflight industrial giants

Space Politics has a blog post about the UK's moves towards manned spaceflight with links to my articles on flightglobal.com and some interesting comment

Meanwhile Nevada based-Bigelow Aerospace is promoting its space based bingo game. Its leaders may not know this but bingo is a popular game amongst the UK's older members of its working class. But don't let European class differences stop you from indulging in some fun!

Sadly for New Mexico legislators there is no money to be won by Bigelow's bingo game as the southern US state finds itself hindered in collecting taxes by its own rules. As a Briton I will decline to comment on tax collection in North America...

While you can read here at Space.com about NASA's senior managers deciding today whether to launch Space Shuttle Discovery on its latest mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on 23 October, you can find here the US space agency's announcement for a press conference for the current ISS crew.

If you remember ISS had some computer problems a while back and in this article ex-NASA engineer and author Jim Oberg explains why.

Then if you're interested NASASpaceflight.com has a thing about Space Shuttle software upgrades

And following yesterday's posting of Flight's interview with Apollo 12 lunar module pilot Al Bean, now we have posted our second of four NASA astronaut videos, this time its Apollo 15 command module pilot Al Worden

On Friday 12 October fellow Flight team member Kelley Malcher and I went to a hotel near Heathrow airport to attend the drinks reception for the Autographica event and interviewed four NASA astronauts, Alan Bean, Gene Cernan and Al Worden of the Apollo programme and original Mercury Seven member Scott Carpenter. See Al Bean's video here;

With recent announcements it does, incredibly, seem that by October 2008 the UK government could have decided to fund UK astronauts, a reversal of a policy that has existed since the start of the space age.

With a yes decision in 2008 the next decade could see a Briton or Britons training with NASA or the European Space Agency for missions to the International Space Station, before 2016, or to the Moon, after 2020.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has lots of info on its Kaguya/Selene lunar orbiter mission here at its mission webpage and a specific update on its "baby satellite" deployments from the probe can be seen here

A somewhat more delayed project is Russia's Khrunichev Space Center designed Angara family of rockets, which according to RIA Novosti, qouting the country's first deputy prime minister, will now start test flights in 2011.

But IMHO it will probably be for the common core booster Angara 1.1. It has the smallest payload capability of the family but you can read more about it and its development at Flight's article here

Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule developer SpaceX has been shaking up the neighbourhood with its engine testing apparently

One launcher that does do its job already with fantastic reliability is the Samarra Space Center built Soyuz, which launched Rocket and Space Corporation Energia's Soyuz TMA-11 manned spacecraft to the ISS on 10 October and NASA.gov is now reporting its successfull docking to the ISS.

While the state owned Chinese Xinhua news agency is reporting that the head of China’s civil space programme is talking about spacewalks "by the end of the decade" rather than the previous plan that called for the next manned mission that included a spacewalk next year...

While NASA is selecting the Space Shuttle crew for its STS-126 mission, according to Space.com, the US space agency's flight readiness review for its upcoming 23 October launch for mission STS-120 is apparently making its way onto the internet care of NASASpaceflight.com.

While NASA organises itself for more International Space Station related missions, US president George W. Bush is allegedly giving the go-ahead for more space situational awareness, which I think means ways of spying on satellites and spacecraft already in orbit, but double check that with Aviation Week and Space Technology's article about it all here.

Finally, Boeing is currently carrying out an in-orbit checkout for one of the US military's newest toys, the Wideband Global [Satellite Communications] SATCOM spacecraft

Hobbyspace.com has a series of links to X-15 related material, including an X-15 remote control model project and a link to some Chuck Yeager stuff, as it was the 60th anniversary of his supersonic flight today.

Space.com has a report about the Personal Spaceflight symposium taking place in New Mexico on 24-25 October. I was there last year for the symposium, and my blog on that is here

Hobbyspace has a link to an update on the Lunar Lander Challenge taking place at the 26-28 October X Prize Cup and a link to this April 2008 space colonisation conference in Princeton

Watch this video of Lunar Lander Challenge competitor Armadillo Aerospace's hover test flight

NASA is apparently interested in renewing its suborbital microgravity research work, which historically used expendable rockets but enquiries by Flight to Virgin Galactic on the possible future involvement of its SpaceShipTwo vehicle drew only a "no comment without prior NASA approval" response

But for orbital flights NASA has a press conference about the next flight for Space Shuttle Discovery for its STS-120 mission that is expected to launch 23 October but may be delayed due to thermal protection tile issues - however Flight is hearing that the decision will be to go for launch

Meanwhile NASASpaceflight.com claims to have information on the planning for the rescue mission that would have to be undertaken if the Space Shuttle Atlantis, which is going to repair the Hubble space telescope on mission STS-125 in August next year, finds it has TPS damage after its ascent

The US space agency has announced that its placed a series of technology contracts with small businesses

Finally NASA has chosen a Lockheed Martin Atlas V to launch its Juno mission probe to Jupiter in August 2011

Sir Richard Branson talks about Virgin Galactic via this link and some comment on the likely in-service date for the suborbital service plus a report that Branson has renamed the first White Knight II (WK2), "The spirit of Steve Fossett", can be found here

Branson was going to name the first WK2 after his mother, Eve.

A report about the viability of space based solar power can be found here

RIA Novosti has a report about the launch this week of the International Space Station's first female commander and Malayasia's first astronaut

NASAspaceflight.com tells all about the latest United Launch Alliance Atlas V lofting a new military satellite into orbit

Read about the thermal protection system tile issues that might delay the launch of Space Shutttle Discovery here and here

That delay could see the launch of the European Space Agency's Columbus laboratory for the International Space Station pushed back from 6 December to next year. Here ESA has released new images of the lab module

And here NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has released images of what might be landing sites for future manned Mars missions

Hobbyspace has some news about Japanese involvement in the upcoming Personal Spaceflight symposium

It also has more stuff on space based solar power - where's the Bond-esque industrialist villain I ask?

Selenian Boondocks has a welcome few thoughts about engineering and reliability re: project constellation

More Kaguya lunar probe updates from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

NASASpaceflight.com is reporting that Space Shuttle Discovery might have to be rolled back from launch pad 39A to the vehicle assembly building because of issues with reinforced carbon-carbon tiles, potentially delaying the launch for mission STS-120 for weeks. It was scheduled for a 23 October launch

Meanwhile according to Space.com United launch Alliance is working towards its latest Atlas V launch four months after a failure by an upper stage engine valve placing payloads in the wrong orbit

Spaceref.com has a copy of an email from NASA's Constellation manager Jeff Hanley about how he feels about being part of the return to the Moon programme. All gooey apparently

The Space Review (no you're not a journal) has a series of entries by various guest writers dealing with subjects like the alleged weaponisation of space and the European satellite navigation project Galileo

Check out this photo report at S. P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia's website about Soyuz TMA-11, the next manned launch to the International Space Station

Hobbyspace has a link to the 17th annual symposium of the Japan-US Science, Technology & Space Applications Programme to be held 11-15 November in Hawaii and include sessions on the development of space-based solar power systems

Dry cargo for the European Space Agency's expendable Automated Transfer Vehicle is being prepared as we speak. The first of five or six ATV flights to the International Space Station is expected early next year

Malayasia is about to join the long list of nations that have had an astronaut flown on Russian rockets

The UK's Surrey Satellite Technology company has signed up for Russian Dnepr launches

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has more updates on its Kaguya lunar probe

A bit of space tourism history and some X Prize Cup preview info, again at Hobbyspace

Space.com has a lengthy article going back over the history of Rocketplane Kistler following the resignation of its president Randy Brinkley. Hyperbola confirmed Brinkley's departure last week

Arianespace's Ariane 5 GS rocket successfully launched two satellites into orbit

More stuff as always from hobbyspace.com

The head of India's space agency worries about the fact that Google Earth has the capability to get images that show things governments would rather people could not see. Well personally I would be very happy to have an independent civilian organisation monitor what is going on, who trusts governments, elected or otherwise, anyway?

Hobbyspace in this blog entry links to this article about how three years after SpaceShipOne there is no obvous sign of major progress. And we can expect more articles like this, not just because the wider media's journalists know nothing about aerospace development but also because the personal spaceflight industry itself has got to do better or investment interest will evaporate.

Space Politics has more on NASA's budget woes

The UK's 164-year old current affairs magazine The Economist is so sure Hillary Rodham Clinton will become the 44th president of the United States in the 6 October issue it describes the presidency as hers "to lose".

So NASA administrator Michael Griffin, and maybe a few more of you out there, might be interested in Jeff Foust's Space Politics blog post about Hillary's intentions regarding the return to the Moon Constellation programme.

Quoting a New York Times article it turns out that Hillary clarifed her Moon position after her Sputnik anniversary science policy speech and made it clear aeronautics and climate change related science would win out over Constellation.

Why I am now not surprised? Read my blog from February this year when I sort of predicted this.

NASASpaceflight.com apparently has some detail about NASA's Lunar Lander progress. Flight reported on the Lander's project office's plans back in July with an expected first design analysis cycle to be completed by August.

Russia is to provide instruments for Moon and Mars missions according to this report

The US Senate has passed an amendment to the appropriations bill that includes NASA's budget to give the US space agency an extra $1 billion. But its not obviously good news, the US House of Representatives has passed its version of the relevant appropriations bill but I am not aware of any extra billion from them. And under US law the Senate and House have to come together to agree a final appropriations bill, and so this amendment could be a very temporary. At the moment NASA is being funded for its 2008 fiscal year that started on 1 October under what is called a continuing resolution, which is what NASA was funded by for its last fiscal year. That resolution is essentially the appropriated 2006 budget.

Cosmiclog podners the next 50 years of spaceflight

Leonard David has a look at what people can expect to see at the forthcoming X Prize Cup

Hobbyspace.com's spacetransportnews.com has plenty of links for everything from the LA Times debate about space with transterrestrial musing's Rand Simberg to the North Dakota student rocket initiative.

Aviation Week and Space Technology has reported that the US Senate has killed plans from the Missle Defense Agency to develop a space based test bed, which means anti-ICBM missiles in space, I think.

MSNBC reports on Russian celebrations of Sputnik. And if you're still hungry for Sputnik stuff then there is this clutch of links from spacetransportnewws.com or you can see ex-NASA engineer and author Jim Oberg's writings on the subject here and here or you could even checkout Flight's Sputnik stuff here.

Rocketplane Kistler (RpK) chairman and chief executive George French III has confirmed to Flight NASAWatch.com's report that the company's president Randy Brinkley, a former Boeing Satellite Systems president, has left RpK. French has told Flight that Brinkley has been replaced by a member of the company's board of directors William Byrd.

So 50 years after Sputnik the British seem to be finally joining the rest of the developed world and funding its own astronaut programme.

It wasn't the lead story I was expecting for this anniversary but after five decades of speak no astronaut, hear no astronaut and see no astronaut, this is quite a seismic shift for the UK even if other natoins are wondering, "what took you so long?"

It reminds me of a story one of my German university friends told me about the German philosopher who was asked by his students, if it was the end of the world what would you do? The philospher said, "Go to England." Bewildered his students asked, "why?" The philospher answered, "because everything there happens 100 years later."

Well its fifty years in this case but you get the idea. You can find my own theories about why there has been this sudden change here.

Anyway, on to more important things, what is out there in the blogosphere on this auspicious day?

The European Space Agency has its own take on Sputnik's birthday

NASA took has its own Sputnik special

Sadly the English language section of the Russian Federal Space Agency's website has nothing on Sputnik and neither does the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's English web pages.

In a bizarre twist China has apparently announced that for 800 Yuan tourists can go and watch satellite launches

Hobbyspace.com's spacetransportnews.com has more excellent links as always

MSNBC reports NASA administrator Michael Griffin's comments that China will likely beat the US back to the Moon with a manned mission. Such comments don't instill a huge amount of confidence in NASA's current efforts or maybe it is a scare tactic to get Congress to give them some more money as the agency's budget is now stuck back in a continuing resolution with only 2006 funding levels.

And just to make us feel as though we're back in the good old bad old years of the Cold War MSNBC has another report about some belligerant commenst by a Russian general about orbital weapons.

But then again you could always place your trust in the Force and help this team out with their 6.4m (21ft) long rocket powered model of the X-wing fighter from the Star wars movies.

With one day to go before the 50th anniversary of Sputnik's launch here is my pick of the newsy stuff from around the web...

As usual Hobbyspace.com has a plethora of links to various this, that and bits and bobs

NASASpaceflight.com has interesting details about Rocketplane Kistler and some alleged detail about changes to NASA's Orion crew exploration vehicle

Chair Force Engineer considers this detail and I agree with some of what Chair Force says but take issue with other claims by Nasaspaceflight - more on that in a later post

ATK has put out a press release about a parachute test for Orion

JPL has a feature on Sputnik

Space.com is reporting on MIT developing a tether for astronauts to walk on asteroid

Spacedev has won a DARPA solar thermal propulsion contract

Find a photo report by Energia about preparations for the next manned Soyuz launch here.

Catch them while they're in your orbital plane

The LA Times has got an author and blogger Rand Simberg debating NASA for what its worth

If you have any bright ideas NASA would like to hear them about its future space suits

Spaceref.com is reporting that NASA has placed an order for its Orion launch abort system test launch pad

Aviation Week and Space Technology is reporting that China plans to have a lunar sample return mission. What? You mean like this one Flight has exclusive video of?

Just as SpaceX is presently the clear leader in the development of new orbital transportation systems, Virgin Galactic is now the only obvious candidate for the nascent suborbital market in the next few years. Unless Jeff Bezos’ ultra secret Blue Origin team spring a surprise on everyone. Click here for part one

Low Earth orbit tourism and NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) demonstration programme are not obviously linked but the intentions of one of COTS participants, California based-Space Exploration Technologies, could see commercial human spaceflight actually emerge from a government programme sometime in the next decade.

Meanwhile the privately funded efforts of Virgin Galactic appear to make head way with offers of suborbital flights earlier than anything conceived by SpaceX, yet can it become another route to realising low cost mass access to LEO and beyond? In this marathon race who is the hare and who is the tortoise?

While you're mulling over the first 50 years of spaceflight since Sputnik, chew on these morsels

Japan's Kaguya probe has taken a high definition quality pictrue of the Earth, check it out here

Aviation Week and Space Technology looks at the growing coordination between space faring nations

Another section of US society beyond Congress starts to worry about the rise of Asia's space programmes

MSNBC tries to claim that Sputnik wasn't a shock, something a video interview Flight has in the works, with a journalist who worked for the BBC back in 1957 would strongly disagree with

Hobbyspace.com has some video links to New Space craziness; some other links to other whacky issues; news about Operationally Responsive Space; an interview with Franklin Chang Diaz; more Sputnik related bobbins and super-dooper propulsion here.

Space Politics takes issue with a speech by NASA chief Mike Griffin

Space.com hears private space station developer Bigelow Aerospace's concerns about the ability of the transportation industry to get its potential clients to its LEO outposts

NASA is also catching Sputnik fever

CNN.com has news of a TPS tile test to be carried out on the next Shuttle mission

European Space Agency has a couple of things to report, it has successfuly tested the software for its International Space Station supplying Automated Transfer Vehicle and has got the got ahead by its member states to go to stage two of the GMES project's segement one, whatever that means?