Space Industry Analysis
Sep 17, 2012
An article on Neil Armstrong in the Sept. 3/10 issue (page 32) misstated the date of the Jan. 27, 1967, Apollo 1 fire and referred to alarms on the Apollo 11 lunar module, Eagle, with the command module's name, Columbia. Also, details of Gemini 8's early return to Earth were omitted. After the pilots disengaged the primary maneuvering system and used the reentry system to regain control of the spacecraft, flight rules dictated that they deorbit.
Sep 17, 2012
France wants to cooperate on next-gen milsatcom with Italy and U.K.
Sep 17, 2012
It wasn't easy to kill Lockheed Martin's F-22, but resurrecting the Raptor could be just as difficult. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney put the issue in play during a Sept. 8 interview with a Virginia television station near the Air Combat Command at Langley AFB, saying if he were elected president, he would add more of the fifth-generation fighters. But it's not clear whether the pledge aimed squarely at the local audience would fly even if Romney wins in November.
Sep 17, 2012
Deputy NASA Administrator Lori Garver raised some eyebrows last week with a provocative sound bite: “We're going back to the Moon.” A prime mover in the Obama administration decision to kill the “Moon, Mars and Beyond” Constellation program, Garver explained that she was talking about cislunar space, with a mission as early as 2017. That would be the planned first flight of the Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle atop the planned heavy-lift Space Launch System.
Sep 17, 2012
A prototype vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) suborbital launch vehicle under development by Masten Space Systems crashed Sept. 11 during a flight test at Mojave, Calif. Masten Business Development Director Colin Ake says the Xaero rocket was preparing to make a vertical landing and was around two-thirds of the way through its mission when the accident took place.
Sep 17, 2012
Trumped by election fever, NASA does what it can
May 20, 2020
NASA has renamed its struggling Wide Field Infrared Space Telescope in honor of the late Nancy Grace Roman, a longtime pioneering woman astronomer sometimes referred to as the “Mother of Hubble.”
May 20, 2020
Boeing, which was shut out of nearly $1 billion of NASA funding to develop human-class lunar landers, said it does not plan to protest the awards, which went to teams led by Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX.
May 20, 2020
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s ninth resupply mission was on course to reach the three-person International Space Station (ISS) early May 25 following a May 20 liftoff from the Tanegashima Space Center.
May 20, 2020
The U.S. Commerce Department on May 19 released a long-awaited new rule for the export of remote sensing services.
May 20, 2020
The concept of planetary protection—the prevention of life forms on other planets from infecting Earth and preventing terrestrial life forms from contaminating other worlds—has a long history.
May 19, 2020
Two days before he was to chair the Flight Readiness Review for the SpaceX Demo-2 mission, marking the return of U.S. human orbital flight capability, NASA Associate Administrator Douglas Loverro is leaving the agency.
May 18, 2020
NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility began a reopening May 18 for some mission-critical activities due to a decrease in COVID-19 illness reported in the New Orleans area.
May 18, 2020
Citing concerns about Tropical Storm Arthur, which was passing off the coast of North Carolina on May 18, SpaceX is standing down from its planned May 19 launch of a Falcon 9 rocket to build out its Starlink network, putting the long-awaited flight test of a crewed Dragon spacecraft next on the launch schedule.