The Russian government has cleared state-owned Roscosmos to sign a long-delayed agreement with NASA for cosmonauts to fly on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsules in exchange for astronauts joining Russian Soyuz crews. 

Startup propulsion company Ursa Major announced June 2 that it is offering a 200,000 lb. thrust liquid oxygen and methane staged-combustion rocket engine called Arroway.

The U.S. Navy has signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with Kleos Space to provide radio frequency geolocation data as part of an experiment.

Sierra Space and Spirit AeroSystems have signed a strategic partnership to improve production efficiency and assembly of Sierra Space’s Shooting Star cargo module. The letter of intent covers the development and production of future Shooting Star cargo modules. Sierra Space and Spirit AeroSystems will also work together to find ways to speed up the time it takes to bring Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser family of spaceplanes to market, the companies said on May 31.

Astroscale will build its Elsa-M satellite servicer for European customers and perhaps others with the goal of a late-2024 launch after a €14.8 million ($15.9 million) infusion via a European Space Agency and OneWeb alliance.

Space Systems Command on May 26 ordered eight launches from United Launch Alliance and SpaceX under the National Security Space Launch Phase 2 procurement program.

LeoLabs argues that government space situational awareness capabilities cannot keep track of the growing number of objects in space.

SpaceX continued its weekly launch pace with liftoff of a Falcon 9 rocket on May 25 carrying 59 small satellites and hosted payloads, marking the company’s fifth rideshare mission.  Following launch at 2:35 p.m. from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the rocket’s first stage returned to the launch site while the upper stage fired to place the Transporter-5 payloads into a preliminary polar orbit.