The eldest daughter of Alan Shepard, the first American to venture into space, will fly on the Blue Origin suborbital spacecraft named after her father, the company said on Nov. 23.

Astra Space, a California-based startup staking a claim in the burgeoning small-satellite launch business, completed a successful flight test of its Rocket 3.1 booster on Nov. 20, a mission backed by the U.S. Space Force.

Voyager Space, a private equity-backed holding company of new-space upstarts such as Nanoracks, announced Nov. 22 it has acquired a majority stake in Space Micro, a satellite communications specialist for NASA and the U.S. military.

Northrop Grumman’s 16th NASA-contracted Cygnus resupply mission capsule departed the International Space Station on Nov. 20, ending a stay of just more than three months and setting up an experiment intended to improve the modeling of spacecraft thermal protection systems.

Sierra Space’s expansive goal of developing a space transport and habitation ecosystem has received a major boost with the successful raising of a $1.4 billion Series A capital investment.

SpaceX plans about a dozen flights of its super heavy-lift, reusable Starship launch system in 2022, beginning with an orbital flight test in January or February.

A Rocket Lab Electron rocket deployed a pair of Earth-observation satellites into orbit for BlackSky on Nov. 17, a mission that also tested helicopter operations for future midair booster recoveries.

NASA has selected Intuitive Machines for the integration, delivery and operational oversight of four science payloads to the Moon’s Reiner Gamma in 2024 using the company’s Nova-C lander under a $77.5 million fixed-price contract.