A prototype Mars-class reusable spaceship developed by SpaceX took a nearly 500-ft (150 m) hop off a launch stand near Brownsville, Texas, on Aug. 4, marking the company’s first successful Starship test flight in a year.
Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken praised the NASA/SpaceX team behind their test flight and expressed hope the public/private partnership continues to thrive.
As it incorporates lessons learned from the abbreviated debut flight of its LauncherOne small satellite rocket, Virgin Orbit said Aug. 3 it is planning for a second demonstration mission before year’s end, with NASA agreeing to use the launch to put 11 experimental cubesats into orbit.
Bartolomeo, an external platform developed to commercially support scientific research and technology development payloads outside the International Space Station Space (ISS), should be ready to host its first projects by mid-2021, according to developer Airbus Defense and Space.
Triumph Group has announced a significant step forward in shedding some aerostructures businesses, revealing a definitive agreement to sell its composites operations to private equity investor Arlington Capital Partners.
Lockheed Martin has chosen a proposed new variant of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system to compete for the sea-based Regional Glide Phase Weapon prototyping program.
Small satellite launcher ABL Space Systems has disclosed around $90 million in new defense contracts plus investments from Lockheed Martin and venture capitalists, powering the startup through a three-launch demonstration of the RS1 launch vehicle and GS0 deployable launch system early next year, the company said Aug. 3.
Collins Aerospace is on the brink of closing a deal with its first international customer for a next-generation air combat training device that the U.S. Navy and Air Force will use for the F-35.
Deliveries of the Sukhoi S-70 Okhotnik (Hunter) unmanned combat air vehicle to the Russian military will start in 2024, the head of Russia’s United Aircraft Corp., Yury Slyusar, told President Vladimir Putin at an Aug. 3 meeting.
Once a mission prioritized mostly by the U.S. Army and Navy, the U.S. Air Force is now seeking to experiment with low-cost options to intercept cruise missiles, potentially expanding an arsenal that today consists solely of the relatively high-cost and inventory-limited AIM-120C missile
The unit price for a new AttritableONE family of low-cost, unmanned aircraft systems will fall into a gap between “expendable” and “exquisite” categories within the U.S. Air Force inventory.
Japan has begun seeking a single prime contractor for the F-X fighter program, with the end of October reported as the target for concluding a contract.
NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley, flying as test pilots for the SpaceX Demonstration Mission-2 (Demo-2), landed in flat seas and 2 mph winds at 2:48 p.m. EDT, capping NASA’s six-year effort to restore U.S. human orbital flight capability after the space shuttles’ retirement in 2011.
The third and final phase of the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule's two-month test flight will conclude Sunday with an 11-min. de-orbit burn of the capsule's Draco engines, which will be followed by an atmospheric re-entry and a parachute descent into the Gulf waters on Aug. 2.
