WASHINGTON — With the space shuttle fleet having retired in July, leaving NASA with no independent means to launch astronauts to the international space station, human spaceflight will be the primary focus of the agency’s 2012 procurement activity.

This post is only available to members.

Dan Leone is the NASA reporter for SpaceNews, where he also covers other civilian-run U.S. government space programs and a growing number of entrepreneurial space companies. He joined SpaceNews in 2011.Dan earned a bachelor's degree in public communications...