Posted: Sun, Jan 11 5:18 PM ET (2218 GMT)
For the first time in the agency’s history, NASA is ending a crewed mission early because of a medical issue. NASA announced Thursday that the four members of Crew-11 will return to Earth in the “coming days” on their Crew Dragon spacecraft after one of them suffered an unspecified medical issue Wednesday. NASA did not disclose who suffered the issue or other details, but said the person was stable and that the issue was not serious enough to require an immediate emergency evacuation from the station. They added that the medical issue was not related to preparations for a spacewalk that was scheduled for Thursday but called off by the incident. NASA is looking to potentially moving up the Crew-12 mission, currently planned to launch as soon as mid-February. However, the agency expects that for at least a few weeks the ISS will be operated by a three-person crew, including one NASA astronaut, who arrived at the station in November on a Soyuz.

Related Links:

•  SpaceNews article
•  CBS News article
•  AP article
•  Orlando Sentinel article
•  NASA release

Posted: Sun, Jan 11 5:14 PM ET (2214 GMT)
A billionaire-backed philanthropic organization is funding development of a large space telescope. Schmidt Sciences announced Wednesday its plans for Lazuli, a space telescope with a mirror three meters across, larger than Hubble. Lazuli will be equipped with a camera, spectrograph and coronagraph for observing exoplanets. The organization plans to develop Lazuli rapidly, with a launch as soon as 2028, and at a “ridiculously” low price in the hundreds of millions of dollars, a tenth of the cost of NASA flagship astrophysics missions. Schmidt Sciences is also developing three ground-based observatories to operate in conjunction with Lazuli. The organization is funded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife Wendy; Eric Schmidt is also an investor in and CEO of launch company Relativity Space.

Related Links:

•  SpaceNews article
•  New York Times article
•  Scientific American article
•  Space.com article

ULA sets date for next Vulcan launch
Posted: Sun, Jan 11 5:09 PM ET (2209 GMT)
The next Vulcan launch comes as a transitional time for both the rocket and United Launch Alliance. The USSF-87 launch, scheduled for Feb. 2,...

Minibus spending bill provides $24.4 billion for NASA
Posted: Sun, Jan 11 5:07 PM ET (2207 GMT)
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AE Industrial Partners to taker majority stake in L3Harris power and propulsion business
Posted: Sun, Jan 11 5:05 PM ET (2205 GMT)
Private equity firm AE Industrial Partners is buying a controlling stake in the space power and propulsion business of L3Harris. The companies announced a deal...