COLORADO SPRINGS — Moog Inc. is quadrupling the size of its Colorado space vehicle production capacity as the New York-based company long known as a spacecraft component supplier expands its role as a space vehicle integrator.

“It’s a proud moment for our company,” Maureen Athoe, Moog Space and Defense Group president, told SpaceNews. “This step takes us to the mission level. We’re going to hear from our customers about what they need not just with components, but with the actual mission.”

This year, Moog is scheduled to integrate nine space vehicles in its new 8,800-square-meter facility in Arvada, Colorado, and its existing 3,000-square-meter plant nearby.

April 9 (Reuters) — The first all-private team of astronauts ever launched to the International Space Station (ISS) were welcomed aboard the orbiting research platform on Saturday to begin a weeklong science mission hailed as a milestone in commercial spaceflight.

Their arrival came about 21 hours after the four-man team representing Houston-based startup company Axiom Space Inc lifted off on Friday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, riding atop a SpaceX-launched Falcon 9 rocket.

The Crew Dragon capsule lofted into orbit by the rocket docked with the ISS at about 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT) on Saturday as the two space vehicles were flying roughly 250 miles (420 km) above the central Atlantic Ocean, a live webcast of the coupling from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration showed.

Interesting vehicle.

New Zealand and U.S.-based aerospace company Rocket Lab announced that during its next Electron launch, a commercial rideshare mission currently scheduled for later this month, the company will attempt a mid-air helicopter capture of the Electron launch vehicle for the first time. This will further the company’s program to make Electron the first reusable orbital small launch vehicle.

Rocket Lab’s 26th Electron launch, the “There and Back Again” mission, has a 14-day launch window scheduled to commence on April 19, 2022. Electron will lift off from Pad A at Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Māhia Peninsula and will carry 34 payloads from different commercial operators to Earth’s low orbit.

When the Electron’s first stage returns from space after launch, a customized Sikorsky S-92 twin-engine helicopter will be ready to catch it. Around an hour before lift-off, Rocket Lab’s Sikorsky S-92 helicopter will move into position in the capture zone, approximately 150 nautical miles (278 km) off New Zealand’s coast.