The Air Force said that 1st Lt. Sarah Small, 25, of Herndon, Va., was killed in a motor vehicle accident Sept. 19 while she was participating in Bright Star 2005 in Egypt. Two noncommissioned officers also in the vehicle were injured and taken to a hospital, where they were listed in stable condition. Small was a public affairs officer, assigned to the Air and Space Expeditionary Force Center, Langley AFB, Va. She had been on active duty since 2002.
NASA, SpaceX, and United Launch Alliance are all preparing to launch their next-gen rockets from Florida’s Space Coast, two of them before the year is out. One is expected to liberate the U.S. launch enterprise from its reliance on Russian-made RD-180 engines, while all three rockets could eventually carry astronaut crews.