The April 3 WDR was scrubbed in response to a loss of capability to sufficiently pressurize the Mobile Launch Platform (MLP), upon which the 322-ft. tall, 5.75 million-lb. rocket rests.
Just ahead of a high-profile, privately funded crewed mission for Axiom Space, SpaceX on April 1 launched its fourth rideshare mission, delivering 40 spacecraft into orbit, including a 1-ton hyperspectral imaging satellite for Germany’s space agency, DLR.
Daily space-based imagery and services provider Planet Labs expects full-year revenue this fiscal year to be $170-190 million, practically 30% above last fiscal year, which was 16% above the year before.
Redwire, a newly public in-space manufacturing and services startup, expects to be part of at least eight planned launches this year after notching a dozen in 2021 and growing its backlog of work to almost $272 million.
Despite global tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, NASA and Roscosmos continue to weigh a seat exchange agreement that would ensure every launch to the International Space Station by either agency has at least one astronaut and one cosmonaut on board.
As it awaits its seventh mission via a Falcon 9 launch imminently, Ion Satellite Carrier provider D-Orbit–which is going public via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC)–expects to have 20 space tugs operational by 2023, a top executive says.
Blue Origin conducted its fourth crewed flight on March 31, sending five paying passengers and employee Gary Lai—the lead architect for the New Shepard transportation system—into suborbital space.
Ad Astra Rocket Co., Costa Rica SRL, and Mesoamerica, a Latin American asset manager, are forming a joint venture, ProNova Energy, to develop green hydrogen energy strategies for a global customer base and Latin American prospects
Russia’s Soyuz MS-19 descended under parachute to a safe landing in remote Kazakhstan after departing the International Space Station early March 30 with two cosmonauts and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, whose stay set a new record of 355 days for the longest U.S. human spaceflight.
Eyeing fast-growing demand for small satellite constellations from both defense and commercial customers, Boeing subsidiary Millennium Space Systems is opening a new “high-throughput” small satellite production facility.
NASA is eager to kick off the next major milestone in preparation for the first launch of the Space Launch System and Orion crew capsule—its Wet Dress Rehearsal.
Impulse Space Propulsion, a new in-orbit transfer services company founded by Tom Mueller, a SpaceX co-founder, on March 29 announced a $20 million investment in a seed round led by Founders Fund, the San Francisco-based venture capital firm established by famous technology investor Peter Thiel.
NASA’s spending would continue to rise through the 2020s under the Biden administration’s $25.97 billion fiscal 2023 budget request submitted to Congress March 28.
The Pentagon’s fiscal 2023 budget request released, March 28, is the first time the U.S. Space Force has been able to plan spending as its own independent service, and the result is a big investment in research and development aimed at making key services in orbit more protected from emerging threats.
