Commercial Space

Leonardo is talking to Airbus and Thales about linking their satellite manufacturing businesses, officials say—which could help the companies to deal with slow demand.

ABL uses a deployable ground system that can be set up on a flat concrete pad.

The 100-day mission was designed to hunt for water ice near the lunar south pole.

Airbus is starting to make changes to its satellite plans, including becoming more conservative on potentially high-risk programs, after a series of earnings hits.

Space Infrastructure Ventures on July 12 agreed to provide up to $2.3 million via a convertible note until Sept. 1.

The take-private deal marks a near-complete reversal from the $2.6 billion valuation that the startup sported when it became a publicly traded company.

The revolving door to the office of Firefly Aerospace CEO is turning again following the sudden departure of Bill Weber on July 17.

A test to see if spacecraft can fly in very low Earth orbit will come in 2027. The orbit has intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance advantages.

The U.S. Space Force does not yet anticipate any delays to its upcoming launch manifest because of the investigation into the July 11 failure of a Falcon 9.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk plans to move the company’s headquarters from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas.

Chinese privately funded launch company iSpace has suffered its fourth failure in seven launch attempts.

The newly expanded consortium will also explore opportunities for the Dream Chaser in Japan and across the Asian continent.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket broke apart in the final stage of flight, leaving some Starlink satellites in lower-than-intended orbits and sidelining the vehicle.

Two new spaceports in Scotland are preparing to service rockets heading to LEO and polar orbit, positioning the UK as a new player in the small launch market.

New Zealand’s Dawn Aerospace has been certified to fly its Mk. 2 Aurora reusable suborbital spaceplane demonstrator at unlimited speed up to 80,000 ft.

Guillaume Faury is looking to bring more work in-house in order to deal with supplier issues.

Matching NASA’s needs with the ideal contracting mechanism is a challenge.

Launch service provider Arianespace’s order backlog totals 29 missions, with the next being planned for December.

The Series B will bolster the Albuquerque, New Mexico, startup’s expansion plans for a new solid rocket motor factory in Luling, Texas.

Italian space logistics company D-Orbit has established a U.S.-based joint venture focused on satellite bus design, manufacturing and sales.

Ovzon says its Ovzon 3 small geostationary orbit communications satellite is ready to start commercial service.

Photonic navigation sensors; Airbus and quantum computing; in-space refueling; alternatives to GPS for PNT.

A group of recently launched startups are bucking the strategy.

Germany has awarded Airbus a €2.1 billion ($2.3 billion) contract to build the new SatcomBW 3 constellation due to be deployed before the end of the decade.

Orbit Fab has successfully demonstrated the automated docking of its in-space refueling technology.