Former International Space Station commander and three-time shuttle astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria is heading back to orbit, this time as on-site personnel for Axiom Space’s first private mission to the ISS.

After 14 launches from New Zealand, Rocket Lab is close to staging its first Electron mission from U.S. soil, with the completion of a wet dress rehearsal at its new Wallops Island launch site, one of the final preflight milestones. 

NASA is removing a planned secondary payload from the August 2022 launch of its Psyche asteroid probe, leaving a pair of small satellites without a piggyback ride to Mars. 

The FAA’s plan to amend the collision-avoidance methodology it uses in licensing commercial space launches will support safer operations with more flexible launch windows as space at low Earth orbit becomes increasingly congested, the agency says.

Working with Nanoracks, LLC, NASA is about to mark a milestone in its push to transition oversight of human scientific research and tech development in low Earth orbit to the private sector as it sets its sights on the Moon and Mars.

Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, the FAA is busier than it has ever been licensing commercial space launches, officials said Sept. 14.

After repeated attempts to sell a solid-propellant, heavy-lift space launcher to the U.S. national security community, Northrop Grumman is discontinuing work on its Omega rocket, the company said Sept. 10.

The air navigation service provider of Hong Kong will introduce satellite-based surveillance of aircraft in its flight information region beginning early next year, data provider Aireon announced Sept. 9.