Neither the House nor the Senate ever specifically gave the green light to using a Delta rocket for the planned test mission.
In the Trafalgar test mission, mission planning and targeting data was provided via satellite communications from the Royal Navy's operational headquarters at Northwood, north west London.
BBC: cruise launch as seen through HMS Trafalgar's periscope
Not only will the mission test how commercial, off-the-shelf tech can survive in the vacuum and conduct experiments, but it'll squeeze in some fun courtesy of apps developed by winners of a competition held last year.
Next year, NASA is to launch a demonstration mission to test optical laser communications in conjunction with the LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer) mission to the moon.
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And an optical mission to test laser relay capabilities from earth geosynchronous (GEO) orbit will soon follow.
FORBES: Future Of NASA's Aging Deep Space Network Lies In X-Rays And Lasers
Rice said the advance mission is an important test of whether Syria will permit the effective operation of a larger monitoring system.
That risk cannot be totally eliminated, but it can be sharply reduced by conducting a series of test launches prior to the main mission.
My fingers are crossed for a successful test on the 16th and a successful docking mission on the 30th.
The successful November 21 test was a giant leap forward in this mission.
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The technology is very similar to DeepSpace-1, the mission that was successfully sent to test emerging space technologies in 1999.
For now, all such suggestions are theoretical, although the European Space Agency is planning a mission, named Don Quijote, to test the ramming tactic in 2011.
If a glitch arises during the mission and the hookup is called off, another test flight would have to be scheduled.
Its mission was redefined several times, and it was finally seen as a way to test the use of computers in military combat information systems.
Although spacecraft instruments are set to return photographs and compositional data, the encounter primarily is a test of Deep Space 1's autonomous navigation system, the last of 12 technologies the mission was designed to pioneer.
It's not the miniature robotic space shuttle that NASA's planning to send into orbit this month, but another of the space agency's unmanned vehicles has edged closer to its beginning its mission, with the "nearly autonomous" Global Hawk aircraft having completed a key test flight bright and early on April 2nd.
ENGADGET: NASA's unmanned Global Hawk completes key test flight
The Passion Test by Janet Attwood and Chris Attwood is also a valuable classic in the field of finding your mission.
If Mr Arias's American-backed mission to mediate succeeds, Barack Obama's administration may yet emerge from its first big test in Latin America with its prestige enhanced.
This flight will shortly be followed by another test run to ensure that everything checks out, after which it will begin its first long-duration mission sometime later this month.
ENGADGET: NASA's unmanned Global Hawk completes key test flight
Our second goal is to develop and test a new space craft, the crew exploration vehicle, by 2008, and to conduct the first manned mission no later than 2014.
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The inflatable test facility, known as a Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, will launch aboard a SpaceX cargo resupply mission to the ISS in 2015.
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