The duo won firm-fixed price contracts for the Tranche 0 Transport Layer, which consists of 20 satellites that will feed into the U.S.’s missile warning system.
The Airbus Perlan Mission II stratospheric glider project plans to dramatically expand its role in atmospheric and climate research by incorporating new sensors and working collaboratively with other high-altitude investigation agencies, companies, assets and projects.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral AFS on Aug. 30, sending an Argentine remote sensing satellite into a polar orbit, a flightpath from Florida that had not been used since 1969.
Rocket Lab’s Electron small satellite launcher returned to flight on Aug. 30, sending a 220-lb. (100-kg) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite into orbit for Capella Space, a San Francisco-based information services company.
Commercial space tracking startup LeoLabs is using its ground radars to monitor debris generated by a Russian Earth-resources satellite in the early hours of Aug. 27.
Getting NASA’s Space Launch System rocket to the launchpad for a November 2021 debut flight will cost taxpayers $9.1 billion, breaching a 30% budget overrun that mandates congressional notification.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and others are attempting to make it clear that the International Space Station has the potential to light up a high-tech low Earth orbit economy and support humanity’s reach into deep space.
NASA is making progress with potential partner nations on a set of principles known as the Artemis Accords for governing future efforts to establish a sustained human presence on the Moon and then Mars, a NASA official says.
The UK has launched a draft United Nations (U.N.) resolution on the responsible use of space, as concern grows about the potential impacts to national economies if space-based infrastructure is damaged through accidents or misunderstandings between nations.
The International Space Station crewmembers ended their extended weekend isolation in the orbiting lab’s Russian segment on Aug. 25, part of an attempt to track down the source of a persistent pressure leak.
As NASA addresses the hurdles of accelerating a return of humans to the Moon’s surface in 2024 and establishing a sustained presence in this decade, it is also studying how to move on to Mars in the mid-2030s using a nuclear electric propulsion (NEP) option.
The report calls on Congress to “enact, without delay, appropriations and any required authorities" for the Office of Space Commerce "to build this critical capability with requisite personnel, office infrastructure and authorities.”
China has verified operation of a lightweight, low-power technology for inter-satellite laser links, which should be valuable for mass constellations of low-orbit communications satellites.
The rate of the leak has "slightly increased, so the teams are working a plan to isolate identify, and potentially repair the source,” NASA says, stressing that it poses "no immediate danger to the crew or the space station.”
Resources like the vast quantities of water ice believed to reside within shadowed craters at the Moon’s south and north poles promise to reduce the costs of initial exploration substantially.
The combined 40-ft.-plus structure includes the Blue Origin lander and the Lockheed Martin ascent module that is expected to house NASA’s Artemis astronaut crews during their initial, weeklong lunar sorties.
SpaceX is sticking by its lawsuit against the U.S. military for its decision not to award it one of three design and development contracts awarded two years ago, saying the decision has inflicted “substantial harm” on the company.
