NASA's Rubins launching to International Space Station

A cancer biologist-turned-NASA astronaut is scheduled to launch into space for the first time Wednesday evening, bound for a four-month stay on the International Space Station.

Kate Rubins is scheduled to blast off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 9:36 p.m. EDT with Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin, a veteran of one previous station expedition, and Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi, another rookie.

The crew will be the first to fly upgraded Soyuz spacecraft labeled MS-01, replacing the previous “TMA” designation.

The flight was delayed about two weeks while some control systems were ironed out.

Early Friday, a pair of cosmonauts on the station tested improvements to a manual docking system that could be used for incoming Russian vehicles.  Alexey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka successfully guided an unmanned Progress cargo craft back to the outpost after it had undocked for a short test flight.

The Soyuz crew will take two days to rendezvous with the station and join the three Expedition 48 crew members already on board, also including NASA's Jeff Williams.

NASA says Rubins, 37, who has worked on therapies for the Ebola and Lassa viruses, will perform science research in orbit including sequencing the first genome in microgravity.

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ULA trims ranks

Six Cape Canaveral employees were among 110 let go last week by United Launch Alliance.

The Denver-based company, a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture, accepted another 240 “voluntary layoffs,” or buyouts.

ULA had previously announced plans to cut as many as 875 positions — a quarter of its workforce — this year and next as part of a transformation aimed at cutting costs and staying competitive with SpaceX.

The company is phasing out its Delta IV rocket (except for the heavy-lift version) and designing the new Vulcan launcher to eventually replace the Atlas V.

“We will continue to monitor business needs and skill levels and, if needed, targeted reductions in certain areas may be necessary,” said spokeswoman Jessica Rye. “We appreciate all of our team members’ contributions and understanding the difficulty and stress that workforce reductions place on the impacted employees and their families.”

Facing competition, ULA plans significant job cuts

Five years after STS-135

The commander, pilot and launch director of the final shuttle flight will gather Friday, July 8,  at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to mark the mission’s fifth anniversary.

Chris Ferguson, Doug Hurley and Mike Leinbach will join KSC Director Bob Cabana celebrating the future of the shuttle program and what’s next for NASA in human spaceflight.

The group will be sign autographs at noon and at 2 p.m. participate in a presentation at the retired shuttle Atlantis.

Atlantis blasted off from KSC’s pad 39A with four crew members at 11:29 a.m. July 8, 2011. The orbiter rolled to a stop on the shuttle runway July 21, ending the 30-year program’s 135th and final flight.

No astronaut has launched from U.S. soil since. Boeing and SpaceX are developing commercial crew capsules expected to fly from Florida by 2018.

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Rocket factory revealed

Blue Origin last week released renderings providing a glimpse of what the company’s new rocket factory will look like at Kennedy Space Center’s Exploration Park.

The 475,000 square foot main manufacturing building, to be completed by late next year or early 2018, looks like a giant blue hangar with shorter, white buildings branching from the sides. Plans show the building will measure 725 feet long, 345 feet wide and up to 82 feet tall.

A large, windowed entrance area fronting a parking lot includes the company’s name and feather logo.

One image shows several rocket stages on transporters moving in or out of the main high bay.

Blue Origin plans to build boosters and upper stages for an orbital rocket that could launch by the end of the decade from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The company is investing more than $200 million in local infrastructure and plans to employ more than 300 people.

Crews recently broke ground on the property and have cleared roughly 70 acres south and west of Space Commerce Way, outside KSC’s south security gate.

Plans reserve space for additional manufacturing and processing facilities totaling another 200,000 square feet.

Blue Origin clearing land for massive rocket factory

Falcon failure reviewed

The cost of a SpaceX rocket failure a year ago was detailed a bit further in a report by NASA internal auditors.

When the Falcon 9 broke apart just over two minutes after launching from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, a Dragon capsule carrying International Space Station cargo was lost.

The cargo’s value: $118 million, according to NASA’s Office of Inspector General.

The report said SpaceX’s accident investigation was “transparent” but not independent, with SpaceX employees making up 11 of 12 voting members.

NASA and SpaceX said those members’ expertise was needed to perform the investigation, and NASA conducted a separate review.

Read the full report here: https://oig.nasa.gov/audits/reports/FY16/IG-16-025.pdf.

SpaceX has launched seven times since the failure, including an April launch of ISS supplies. Another batch is targeting liftoff from Cape Canaveral at 12:45 a.m. July 18.

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Thanks, mom

Therrin Protze, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex's chief operating officer since 2014, on Tuesday received NASA’s Distinguished Public Service Medal.

“I am humbled by the medal I received,” Protze said Thursday at the Visitor Complex, during an event celebrating the “topping off” of the new Heroes & Legends attraction. “Being in that group of individuals was just absolutely amazing.”

The award's four other recipients included Alan Stern, former head of NASA's science missions and the lead scientist for the New Horizons mission that flew by Pluto a year ago.

The ceremony was held at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, within two hours of where Protze’s parents live, so his mother was able to join him.

“And after reading all the bios and seeing the group that I was in, she just looks over at me and says, ‘How’d you get this again?’” Protze joked. “Always love your mothers, really giving you a bunch of confidence. But it was a special moment to spend with her.”

KSC Visitor Complex tops off Heroes & Legends attraction

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com.And follow on Twitter at @flatoday_jdean and on Facebook at facebook.com/jamesdeanspace.