Commercial Space

Rocket Lab looks for up to a dozen payload launches a year, while the spaceport is in talks to bring in more launch providers.

U.S. House and Senate appropriations committees have agreed on a 2020 fiscal year budget package that includes $22.6 billion for NASA.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off Dec. 16 to deliver a 15,000-lb., Boeing-built communications satellite into orbit.

D-Orbit, an Italian startup aiming to provide orbital transportation and satellite decommissioning, claimed a new round of funding Dec. 16.

The ESA has released details on the active debris removal mission it has commissioned for 2025 after having selected ClearSpace, a Swiss startup company.

Airbus Ventures, the corporate venture capital investment wing of the European aerospace and defense giant, said it co-led a $17 million Series A round of investment in Munich-based Isar Aerospace.

More new space launch providers could make the Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia, their home.

Small-sat launcher Rocket Lab will look to bring its expected first-stage booster recycling system to its new Launch Complex 2 at Wallops Island, Virginia.

Northrop Grumman, one of four companies vying for a pair of national security space launch service contracts, has signed an agreement with Delaware

A NASA-led group is addressing the threat posed by space junk to a growing, more diverse space economy.

CEO Dan Jablonsky confirmed the company is exploring a wide range of possibilities.

S7 Space Corp. will relocate its Sea Launch complex to Russia.

A Blue Origin reusable suborbital rocket sent a capsule for its sixth ride beyond the atmosphere Dec. 11.

S7 Space Corp. will relocate its Sea Launch complex to Russia.

Recently revived Stratolaunch has expanded its workforce sevenfold since October when it changed owners, and has announced plans to become a high-speed testbed provider.

Centauri, a provider of bespoke space, intel, directed energy and cyber services to government agencies, has acquired The Design Knowledge Co. and PreTalen.

The global defense sector will remain robust in 2020, with global defense budgets expected to grow at least 3-4% and bring total spending up to almost $2 trillion, Deloitte predicts in a new report.

SpaceX called off a planned cargo run to the International Space Station for NASA on Dec. 4.

AeroVironment has added to its high-altitude pseudo satellite (HAPS) revenue, executives said Dec. 3, bringing the UAV pioneer’s total to $149 million related to HAPS Mobile, a joint venture with Japanese investor SoftBank.

The Pentagon is “not concerned” with how the U.S. Air Force structured its launch services competition, even though the Government Accountability Office (GAO) partially sustained a protest by Blue Origin.

House leaders urge the FAA to step up progress on a system to better segregate space launches from other air traffic.

Space tourists could lift off from a spaceport in the United Arab Emirates under an agreement between the pioneering commercial space operator and the UAE.

Insitu has developed a ScanEagle unmanned aircraft system with a satellite communications antenna for beyond-line-of-sight operations, the Boeing subsidiary says.

The next trend in sats is multiuse constellations, typically combining telecoms and Earth observation, says Guy Perez, sat manufacturer OHB chief tech officer and head of telecoms sats.

Canada’s Stratodynamics Aviation, which in September set a record by releasing an unmanned glider from a stratospheric balloon at 11,434 ft., is to conduct research flights for NASA under a contract awarded to the University of Kentucky.