Writer, director and actor Harold Ramis dies after several years of battling vascular disease. An SCTV comedy veteran who went on to co-write Stripes, Animal House and Caddyshack, Ramis gained genre fame in 1984 for co-writing Ghostbusters, and starring in it as Dr. Egon Spengler, the brains of the ghostbusting operation. He did both again for the less successful Ghostbusters II in 1989, but went on to write and direct such films as Groundhog Day and Analyze This. Ramis was 69.

The 37th episode of Arrow, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ Green Arrow superhero starring Stephen Amell, airs on the CW. Caity Lotz (Mad Men, Legends Of Tomorrow) and Alex Kingston (Doctor Who) guest star.
Part of the 39th full-time crew of the International Space Station lifts off from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard Soyuz TMA-12M. Aleksandr Skvortsov, Oleg Artemyev and Steven Swanson take up residence on the ISS for 169 days, becoming part of the Expedition 39 and 40 crews. This crew returns to Earth in September 2014 aboard the same vehicle.
The third SpaceX Dragon unmanned resupply mission to the International Space Station lifts off, testing a new version of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster rocket which incorporates landing legs and an attitude control system designed to return the booster’s first stage safely to Earth for possible reuse. The attitude control system succeeds in cancelling out the booster’s roll and brings the first stage down for a controlled splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean. The Dragon capsule goes on to dock with the ISS two days later.
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The 122nd Soyuz vehicle launched, Soyuz TMA-13M, lifts off from Russia to the International Space Station, carrying the station’s 40th crew to its stay in orbit. Aboard are flight engineers Maksim Surayev, Greg Wiseman and Alexander Gerst; of the three, only Surayev has previous spaceflight experience, and he will become the ISS Commander upon the departure of Expedition 39. Expedition 40’s stay aboard the ISS is slated to last six months, and Soyuz TMA-13M will be used as a return vehicle by the crew of Expedition 41 later in 2014. Though Soyuz TMA-13M was intended to use the recently developed six-hour fast-track launch trajectory to reach the station the same day it launched, technical glitches delayed its arrival at the ISS until May 28th.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk unveils the Dragon V2 manned spacecraft, an evolution of the unmanned Dragon capsules that have been ferrying cargo to the International Space Station. With room for seven astronauts and 3-D printed engines that can output 16,000 pounds of thrust, Dragon V2 is said to be fully reusable and should be capable of landing propulsively on land rather than splashing down in a body of water. While many of the vehicles impressive specifications are revealed, no announcements are made of when NASA might permit a manned test flight to the ISS, or how far along Dragon V2 is in meeting NASA’s exacting standards for manned spacecraft.
One of the last remaining prototypes of the Soviet-era Buran space shuttle is transported over land (and in pieces) from Gorky Park to an exhibition center in the center of Moscow to become part of an exhibit of Russian technological accomplishments. The unfinished Buran spaceframe had served numerous uses during its 30+ stay in Gorky Park, ranging from an impressive display piece to a diner (!).
Orbital Sciences and NASA launch the second Cygnus unmanned cargo freighter to the International Space Station. Named after a recently deceased Shuttle astronaut, the S.S. Janice Voss carries over 3,000 pounds of new equipment and supplies to the station, where it remains docked for a month.
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