Teams led by Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX will receive nearly $1 billion in NASA funding to hone designs and development plans for lunar landing systems to carry a pair of U.S. astronauts to the Moon’s surface in 2024, a time frame the agency is sticking with despite economic and social upheavals caused by the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.
Already cost and schedule challenged across a broad range of space initiatives, NASA faces more stress on both fronts as it surges to achieve an accelerated return to the Moon’s surface with humans in 2024, the U.S. Government Accountability Office says.
Two companies have joined forces to spark a pair of competitions for teams of 9th- through 12th-grade students to design and assemble race cars for the Moon.
Manufacturers of high-altitude pseudo-satellites (HAPS)–stratospheric balloons and unmanned aircraft–are touting a multibillion-dollar market opportunity in telecommunications, Earth observation and weather prediction.
The U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has awarded Maxar Technologies $20 million in contracts for land-cover classification and change-detection services.
At 30 years old, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) remains vibrant thanks to its far-reaching discoveries and their implications for people living on Earth as well as those eager to explore beyond our planet.
Russia’s MS-14 Progress resupply capsule successfully docked to the International Space Station’s (ISS) Russian segment early April 25, less than 3 1/2 hr. after lifting off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Getting the spacecraft and technicians to the Tanegashima Space Center for launch preparations was extra challenging due to travel quarantines, workplace shutdowns and health issues stemming from COVID-19.
Encouraged by progress in the Commercial Crew program, NASA should nonetheless expand planning for staffing the International Space Station long-term to provide options, NASA’s safety oversight panel said on April 23.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A on April 22 to deliver a seventh batch of the company’s Starlink communications satellites into low Earth orbit.
Senior U.S. defense officials raised alarms on April 22 about a two-day-old decision by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to grant Ligado Networks a slice of the spectrum adjacent to the military-operated GPS network.
The premature shutdown of one of nine Merlin engines that powered a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket into orbit last month was caused by cleaning fluid trapped inside a sensor and igniting, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on April 22.
