Space

The Launch Challenge, intended to show “anywhere, anytime” capability to launch smallsats to LEO, ended without the prize money claimed.

"Ames Research Center is temporarily on mandatory telework status with restricted access to the center until further notice,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said March 9.

Thanks to an emerging global geostationary satellite alliance among NASA, ESA and South Korea, experts will be able to obtain hourly measurements of atmospheric pollutants.

SpaceX’s final Dragon 1 capsule reached the International Space Station (ISS) early March 9 to deliver a 4,300-lb. cargo.

Assessments of red romaine lettuce grown aboard the International Space Station suggest astronauts could cultivate and consume their own fresh vegetables.

Norway electrifies; Boom slips; repairing satellites; GoFly unfinished; Joby flies for NASA; fluidic propulsion.

This will be the first Angara launch since 2014, when Russia tested two variants from its Plesetsk military spaceport.

A independent team that analyzed software errors during the debut flight test of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner recommended 61 actions that Boeing and NASA should take before the capsule flies again.

Commercial orbital debris mitigation services are on the horizon, but operators will expect low costs.

Triton production halted; Maxar sees geospatial services growth: FAA certifies training simulator and issues with nuclear modernization.

Ahead of flying its privately owned habitat to the International Space Station, Houston startup Axiom Space has signed a contract with SpaceX to ferry three fare-paying tourists and a professional commander to the station as early as June 2021.

NASA’s Mars 2020 rover was formally named “Perseverance” March 5, the winning entry in a contest that spawned 28,000 entries submitted from students in grades K through 12 from every U.S. state and territory.

As Rocket Lab prepares for its 12th launch from New Zealand, one of its Electron rockets arrived at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, where the

NASA’s Osiris-Rex asteroid sample return spacecraft descended to its lowest altitude yet over the asteroid Bennu earlier this week to gather high-resolution imagery of its primary sample collection site.

The Lunar and Planetary Science Conference scheduled for March 16-20 has been canceled due to concerns over the coronavirus.

SpaceX is testing coatings to cut the reflectivity of its growing broadband satellite constellation.

Northrop Grumman subsidiary SpaceLogistics has signed on as DARPA’s commercial partner for the Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites program.

Satellite communications terminal supplier Isotropic Systems will license components of its optical multi-beamforming antenna technology to aerospace and defense companies to build products “capable of unleashing a new era of inflight connectivity.”

AE Industrial Partners, a private equity investor specializing in aerospace, defense and government services, said it has acquired Adcole Maryland Aerospace, a design, test and manufacturer of satellite parts and smallsats.

With thousands of satellites expected to launch in the next 10 years, the U.S. is trying to prevent orbital mayhem.

Dozens of tech demos and satellites for new networks have been launched into orbit, with hundreds more to come.

S7 Space Corp. has started to relocate the Sea Launch complex from Long Beach, California, to Russia’s Far East.

Though facing a third attempt at cancellation, NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Space Telescope has passed a critical milestone that clears the way for challenging hardware development and testing.

One of the goals of the $2.5 billion Mars 2020 rover mission is to determine how future human explorers could exploit the Martian soil and atmosphere.

With no winner in its Launch Challenge, DARPA is now looking at the possibly of staging the demonstration of a flexible, responsive launch of a small satellite during a major military exercise.