Space

By Michael Bruno
Venturi Astrolab, the bespoke European car company’s space startup comprising NASA and SpaceX alumni in Hawthorne, California, has unveiled its Flex rover family for manned Moon and Mars missions.
Space

By Mark Carreau
NASA has reached an “inflection point” as it looks to transition its human-spaceflight focus from low-Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars, according to the chair of the NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel.
Space

By Graham Warwick
Finland’s Aurora Propulsion Technologies and U.S. space traffic-management startup Kayhan Space have partnered to develop a system to autonomously identify collision threats and automate avoidance maneuvers in low Earth orbit.
Space

By Garrett Reim
Slingshot Aerospace has developed a web portal and mobile app, Slingshot Beacon, that allows satellite operators to communicate and avoid satellite collisions in orbit.
Commercial Space

By Irene Klotz
The first Moon-class rocket in 50 years is set to roll out to Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39B on March 17 for a dress rehearsal and fueling test ahead of launch.
Space

By Mark Carreau
As it plans its Artemis lunar-exploration program, NASA is engaging the planetary-science community in ways not possible during the Apollo 11-17 missions that landed a dozen men trained primarily as test pilots on the lunar surface to gather samples for researchers on Earth.
Space

By Graham Warwick
A NASA program to demonstrate on-orbit servicing, assembly and manufacturing has passed its mission-critical design review putting it on track for launch in 2025 at the earliest.
Space

By Irene Klotz
An omnibus spending bill approved by U.S. House and Senate appropriations committees on March 9 allocates $24 billion to NASA for fiscal 2022, a $770 million increase over its 2021 budget, but $760 million short of the Biden administration’s request for the year that began Oct. 1, 2021.
Space

By Irene Klotz
A U.S. Space Force (USSF) mission slated to launch aboard United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) next Atlas V has been delayed at the customer’s request, the company said on March 9.
Space

By Irene Klotz
SpaceX on March 9 completed its 10th orbital launch in as many weeks, an unprecedented cadence the company intends to maintain throughout the year.
Space

By Mark Carreau
Developed initially for a handful of test flights at its Gale Crater landing site on Mars, NASA’s small solar-powered Ingenuity drone helicopter has logged 20 flights as it graduated to become a reconnaissance asset for the Perseverance rover.
Space

By Graham Warwick
A robotic applique that could turn a wide range of satellites into servicing spacecraft is to be flight-demonstrated under a contract awarded to Motiv Space Systems by the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit.
Space

By Graham Warwick
Dubbed “the USB for space,” a robotic connector enabling modular hardware to be attached to spacecraft has been delivered to the International Space Station (ISS) for spaceflight qualification.
Space

By Garrett Reim
SpaceX has delivered Starlink terminals to Ukraine, worked to bypass jamming of the devices and is contemplating future space projects in the country.
Space

By Irene Klotz
The payload fairing separation problem that scuttled Astra’s first commercial mission has been traced to an error in an engineering drawing that led to the fairing’s five separation mechanisms firing out of order.
Space

By Garrett Reim
Maxar has generated a 3D video of a 40-mi.-long Russian military convoy stalled on a road north of Kyiv using its WorldView-3 satellite.
Space

By Mark Carreau
Artemis I, NASA’s approaching test flight of the Space Launch System rocket and uncrewed Orion capsule around the Moon and back to Earth, could be paving the way for more than human deep-space exploration.
Space

By Mark Carreau
Artemis I, NASA’s approaching test flight of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and uncrewed Orion capsule around the Moon and back to Earth, could be paving the way for more than human deep-space exploration if the world’s most powerful rocket lives up to expectations that include launching more than astronauts.
Space

By Garrett Reim
The U.S. Space Force’s plan to replace its Space Based Infrared System of satellites took another step forward as prime contractors Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman selected payload providers for their next-generation satellites on March 1.
Space

By Thierry Dubois
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is forcing the French ministry of armed forces to rethink some plans, from a satellite launch to the use of large military transports.
Space

By Maxim Pyadushkin, Irene Klotz
Russia will stop supplying RD-181 engines, which are used on Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket, to the U.S. in retaliation for economic sanctions imposed in response to the conflict in Ukraine.
Space

By Mark Carreau
NASA is partnering with HeroX crowdsources to seek proposals for implementing various aspects of the overall challenge of recycling and disposing of waste during deep-space missions.
Space

By Maxim Pyadushkin, Irene Klotz
OneWeb board members voted on March 3 to suspend launches of its broadband satellite constellation from the Russian-leased Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Space

By Guy Norris
Boeing has confirmed that recent composite cryogenic tank tests that pave the way for future liquid-hydrogen-fueled aircraft used a reusable tank shell originally built as flight hardware for DARPA’s former Experimental Spaceplane Program.
Emerging Technologies

By Irene Klotz
The 15-nation partnership faces its strongest challenge amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Space