California-based Astra, a startup vying to get into the small-satellite launch business, conducted a flight test of its Rocket 3.1 booster, but the mission ended prematurely when the vehicle started to head off course due to a guidance system problem.
Work stoppages due to Hurricane Laura, the Category 4 storm that came ashore in Louisiana last month, will delay the long-awaited static test fire of the Space Launch System (SLS) core stage at NASA’s Stennis Space Center until late October or November.
A British-led research effort has caught a possible low probability hint of biological activity in the high altitude cloud layers of neighboring Venus.
NASA on Sept. 10 released a solicitation to buy 50-500 grams of lunar regolith, at a price of $15,000-25,000, a mission not for science but to set the legal precedent for owning resources extracted from the Moon and other bodies in the Solar System.
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.
Charles Bolden, a retired U.S. Marine Corps major general, former NASA administrator and four-time shuttle astronaut, has been selected to receive the National Aeronautic Association’s (NAA) 2020 Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy.
SIREN appears to share similar objectives with the National Security Space Architecture launched by the Space Development Agency (SDA), except the AFRL initiative is limited to potential demonstrations and experiments.
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.
NASA is turning to its Commercial Lunar Payload Services providers to bid on the delivery of 10 science investigations and technology demonstrations to a nonpolar region of the Moon in 2022.
While NASA strives through the Artemis Accords to promote peaceful efforts to explore the Moon, the Vienna-based Moon Village Association is assessing how to achieve a similar outcome through its Best Practices for Sustainable Lunar Activity.
The launch of the spacecraft on the 14th mission of the Long March 2F rocket from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China adds to the country’s growing portfolio of space capabilities.
The Electron rocket’s kick stage that dispatched a small satellite into orbit for on Aug. 31 has become a free-flying demonstration of Rocket Lab’s Photon satellite platform, the company disclosed Sept. 3.
The launch was shared among 21 customers. Applications for the spacecraft range from Earth observation to telecommunications to science, technology and education.
SpaceX sent a batch of 60 Starlink satellites into orbit on Sept. 3 as the company looks toward public beta rollout of high-speed internet service this year.
The latest version of the Northrop Grumman solid rocket motor assigned to NASA’s Space Launch System Moon rocket roared to life Sept. 2 for a full-duration, 2-min. ground test firing at company facilities in Promontory, Utah.
Three Mars mission launches in July kicked off a promising and challenging decade for the exploration of the red planet, one potentially setting the stage for a global human exploration campaign in the 2030s.
The U.S. Air Force wants Congress to create a “global fight” account in the budget to pay for efforts like International Space Pitch Day in which the U.S. and UK intend to invest $1 million for cutting-edge space innovations.
