Axiom Space, the space station startup, on Dec. 22 announced plans to create a 14-acre headquarters campus at Houston Spaceport to train private astronauts and begin production of its Axiom Station.
The latest challenge from Raytheon again risks delaying the schedule for fielding the first tranche of the SDA’s Tracking Layer of missile-warning satellites in low Earth orbit, but agency officials say the program remains on track.
The Space Launch System’s Exploration Upper Stage that is to support NASA’s Artemis initiative goal of establishing a permanent human presence at the Moon has cleared the Critical Design Review phase of its development.
NASA and prime contractor Boeing are probing the premature shutdown of a simulated countdown sequence during the Dec. 20 Wet Dress Rehearsal for the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket.
Nanoracks’ commercial airlock, which was launched to the International Space Station (ISS) earlier this month aboard the first launch of SpaceX’s upgraded cargo version of the Dragon capsule, has been successfully removed from the freighter’s unpressurized trunk and berthed to the port side of the orbital outpost’s U.S. segment Tranquility module.
The agreement on the all-cash transaction includes a $5 per share, pre-closing special dividends to Aerojet’s shareholders, reducing the post-dividend value of the deal to $4.6 billion.
Arianespace and the European Space Agency (ESA) have confirmed the root cause of the Vega launcher failure on Nov. 16 lay in the assembly process, as opposed to being a design flaw.
Cost sharing for the third phase of National Security Space Launch contracts will likely require more investment from the government than industry, according to United Launch Alliance Chief Executive Officer Tory Bruno.
The council of the European Space Agency has appointed Josef Aschbacher—currently ESA’s director of Earth observation programs—as the next director general, replacing Jan Woerner in 2021.
NASA and the Canadian Space Agency have finalized an agreement for Canada’s participation in the development of a lunar-orbiting, human-tended Gateway.
Germany’s ambitions for a smallsat launch capability from the North Sea has prompted the formation of a consortium to develop a ship-launch capability.
The Amazon executive overseeing the Kuiper satellite constellation and connectivity service has said that the internet business behemoth will look to multiple rocket launch providers for access to space, even though launch provider Blue Origin is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
The return capsule of China’s Chang’e 5 lunar mission landed early on Dec. 17, Chinese time, bringing back the first samples from the Moon in 44 years.
The Commercial Space Operations Center, now known as Comspoc, has formally split off as a standalone company from Analytical Graphics now that the latter has been acquired by Ansys.
President Trump issued his administration’s sixth Space Policy Directive on Dec. 16, promoting the development of space nuclear power and propulsion technologies to support a permanent human presence on the Moon by the end of the 2020s and the human exploration of Mars in the decade that follows.
Persistent lapses in NASA’s oversight of key Artemis elements continue to jeopardize upcoming test flight launch schedules and plans for hardware upgrades after the agency returns to the Moon’s surface with human explorers, a U.S. Government Accountability Office audit says.
Redwire, the private equity-backed space rollup, said Dec. 15 it bought LoadPath, a developer of payload adapters, deployable structures and thermal products for the space industry.
The U.S. Space Force may establish its acquisition and sustainment arm, Space Systems Command, earlier than planned, the chief of space operations says.
