Commercial Space

Fleet Space Technologies has raised an about $33 million round of Series C funding to further finance its satellite connected geological survey business.

ULA canceled the planned May 25 static hot fire of its first Vulcan-Centaur rocket to review an issue with the booster engine ignition system.

After a nearly two-year hiatus, Virgin Galactic returned its SpaceShipTwo passenger vehicle into suborbital space on May 25.

Five years after Jeff Bezos began wooing NASA to buy Blue Origin lunar landing services, the U.S. space agency said “yes.”

Tokyo-based Gitai, a startup developing several space robots, has raised about ¥4 billion ($29 million) in funding as part of a Series B extension round.

Virgin Orbit will close after its assets were bought by four bankruptcy bidders including Rocket Lab and Stratolaunch.

NASA’s LROC has captured what appears to be images of debris scattered on the Moon at the planned landing site of ispace’s lunar lander, which crashed in April.

The company has a $2.5 billion backlog but also fast-shrinking cash reserves.

ULA returned its first Vulcan rocket to the launchpad on May 22 in preparation for a static test firing of the booster’s dual BE-4 main engines.

SWISSto12 has received a contract to build three small geostationary communications satellites for Inmarsat.

Our roundup of the main aerospace and defense stories making the news this week.

A hydrogen leak during qualification testing of a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket upper stage was not due to a problem with the test stand.

Cybersecurity startup Arqit Quantum said May 17 it will sell its satellite business once touted as a new-space partnership with now-bankrupt Virgin Orbit.

A second Great Observatory catches the eye of the fledgling in-space services industry.

NASA plans to announce a second industry partner to provide astronaut ferry flights between lunar orbit and the Moon’s surface on Friday, May 19.

Viasat’s KA-SAT satellite in Europe is still under attack more than a year after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.

Space Forge has unveiled additional details about its unfolding, “origami” heat shield for its ForgeStar re-entry vehicle.

Hypersonic test developer Stratolaunch successfully completed a key separation test of its Talon vehicle from the Roc carrier aircraft May 13.

The team aims to do an end run around rival commercial space stations.

A ULA Vulcan-Centaur rocket was rolled out to its launchpad on May 11 for a final series of tests ahead of its debut launch, targeted for this summer.

Vast and SpaceX plan to launch a commercial space station, named Haven-1, as soon as August 2025.

Astroscale U.S. and Momentus have submitted a joint bid to boost NASA’s Hubble space telescope to a higher orbit using a robotic spacecraft.

The prospect is based on still-maturing research underway aboard the ISS and Earth-based research and technology labs.

Bids are due in U.S. bankruptcy court later this month.

Small-satellite manufacturer has been teasing its capacity for more than a year.