Posted: Sun, Sep 8 10:07 AM ET (1407 GMT)
Boeing's CST-100 Starliner landed in New Mexico early Saturday, concluding its Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission but without a crew on board. The spacecraft undocked from the station at 6:04 pm EDT (2204 GMT) Friday and later performed a deorbit burn, landing at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico at 12:01 am EDT (0401 GMT) Saturday. The landing came two weeks after NASA decided to keep astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who flew to the station on Starliner in June, on the ISS out of concerns about the performance of the thrusters on the spacecraft. NASA said after landing that the spacecraft made a "bulls-eye" landing but there were glitches with a couple thrusters and with a navigation computer. NASA and Boeing will now work to fix problems with thrusters as well as helium leaks on the spacecraft, with no timeline yet for a next flight.

Related Links:

•  SpaceNews article
•  CBS News article
•  New York Times article
•  AP article
•  NASA press release

Posted: Sun, Sep 8 10:02 AM ET (1402 GMT)
NASA has confirmed plans to cancel a $2 billion satellite servicing mission. The agency announced Thursday that it will close out the On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing 1 (OSAM-1) project at the end of the month, reaffirming a decision it announced in March. Congress had directed NASA to develop an alternative plan to revise the mission to enable a 2026 launch, but NASA said it concluded that alternative was not feasible. NASA was developing OSAM-1 to refuel the Landsat 7 spacecraft and test on-orbit assembly of an antenna, but the mission has fallen far behind schedule and over budget. NASA still needs congressional approval to cancel OSAM-1, but released later Thursday a request for information seeking concepts to repurpose the hardware developed for the mission.

Related Links:

•  SpaceNews article
•  NASA OSAM-1 statement

Chinese spaceplane completes third flight
Posted: Sun, Sep 8 10:00 AM ET (1400 GMT)
A Chinese robotic spaceplane landed Thursday night after nearly nine months in orbit. The experimental reusable spaceplane likely landed around 9:10 pm EDT (0110...

Falcon 9 launches NRO satellites
Posted: Sun, Sep 8 9:58 AM ET (1358 GMT)
A Falcon 9 launched the third set of satellites for an NRO constellation Thursday night. The Falcon 9 lifted off at 11:20 pm EDT (...

China launches 10 communication satellites
Posted: Sun, Sep 8 9:56 AM ET (1356 GMT)
A Chinese company launched 10 satellites for its own communications constellation. A Long March 6 lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center at 2:...