Commercial Space

Momentus’ Vigoride-5 space tug has raised its orbit using its microwave electrothermal thruster, a propulsion system that uses distilled water as a propellant.

While much of NASA’s future human exploration focus falls toward deep space, the agency is not turning its back on low Earth orbit.

Virgin Galactic plans to return to space later this month with a fully crewed test flight of the refurbished SpaceShipTwo spaceplane VSS Unity.

The rocket-engine-maker mulls next-gen propulsion plans as certification tests of the new-build RS-25 reach the halfway point.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon switched ISS docking ports May 6 to make room for Axiom Space’s second private astronaut mission and a later a SpaceX cargo mission.

Lockheed Martin Space will reorganize itself around 3 focus areas: commercial civil space, national security space and strategic and missile defense systems.

Test and development of smaller Bantam engines has been underway for around a decade.

Satellite launch startup Orbex has begun construction of its spaceport on the north coast of mainland Scotland.

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

Europe’s space and telecommunication heavyweights have formed a consortium to bid for the European Union’s IRIS² satellite constellation.

Thai satellite service provider and operator Thaicom has entered a partnership with Japan’s Synspective to provide synthetic aperture radar satellite services.

The Airbus Perlan 2 stratospheric glider is en route to South America.

Lulav Space’s engineers gained experience with lunar guidance, navigation and control via prior work on the Beresheet 1 lunar lander mission in 2019.

Twenty-seven seconds into the flight an “energetic event” caused a communications breakdown with another engine, No. 19.

The effort is using the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), located about 50 mi. west of Socorro, New Mexico.

ViaSat-3 Americas, the first terabit-class communications satellite, reached orbit on May 1.

Startup fails in attempt to be the first private company to land on the Moon.

Japanese startup ALE plans to launch another Sky Canvas satellite in 2024 that will dispense artificial meteorites.

Virgin Galactic completed the first glide flight of the updated SpaceShipTwo spaceplane VSS Unity from Spaceport America in New Mexico on April 26.

Aviation Week editors talk about the aftermath of the Starship test and the future of commercial and military space launches.

Rolls is leveraging its 60-plus years of submarine reactor work to develop and test components of a micro-reactor nuclear power system for space applications.

Turkish trainer flies; a look at two U.S. Space Force programs; Rocket Lab’s hypersonic test and Biden picks new Army chief.

Ispace’s attempted landing of its Hakuto-R spacecraft on the Moon appears to have failed.

Contenders take different approaches to challenges of lunar rover design as NASA contest nears new stage.

HawkEye recently launched its seventh cluster of three satellites on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.