Commercial Space

The spacecraft originally were to fly on separate missions on startup ABL Space Systems’ RS1.

Benchmark Space Systems, a propulsion systems manufacturer, has raised a $33 million Series B round.

Space tourism company makes room for experiments and prototypes.

Lockheed Martin has opened a 20,000-ft.2 small satellite assembly facility at its Waterton campus in Littleton, Colorado.

Amazon plans to take advantage of an earlier opportunity to fly a pair of test satellites for its Kuiper broadband constellation.

Redesigning and testing part of the parachute system on the Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft will delay a long-awaited crew flight test (CFT) until March 2024 at the earliest.

Pale Blue has won a contract to provide its Resitojet water-vapor based propulsion system for a pair of 6U cubesats.

SpaceX has hot fired the engines of its next Super Heavy booster as it prepared for a second flight test of an integrated Starship-Super Heavy vehicle.

Northrop Grumman plans to increase the cargo capacity of its Cygnus cargo spacecraft from 3,750 kg to 5,000 kg.

The material will be carried by a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft as part of a commercial resupply service mission to the ISS.

Europe’s Airbus Defense and Space is upping its stake in the Voyager Space-led Starlab project.

NASA has moved the planned launch of the SpaceX Crew-7 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) from Aug. 17 to Aug. 21.

Virgin Galactic's spaceplane VSS Unity’s cockpit and structure were enhanced for higher-tempo operations and were tested in June on its first commercial flight.

Gallton will also be in charge of establishing the firm’s Washington regional office.

Impulse Space plans two follow-on missions in 2024 after its inaugural LEO Express 1 mission before year’s end.

Seven missions have been set aside for the third-place winner.

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

Axiom, SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic have all flown privately paying passengers into orbital and suborbital space from the U.S.

Kleos Space, a startup that sought to make and offer a satellite constellation for radio frequency monitoring, is filing for bankruptcy.

Editors discuss the meaning of exponential smallsat growth, new technologies for flying satellites in formation and U.S. national security space needs.

Final trials before the inaugural flight of the Ariane 6 launcher saw ESA engineers perform an extensive assessment with the combined test model.

The startup asserts that its radio-­frequency electric propulsion unit is easier to manufacture.

The startup plans to develop its largest space vehicle, the Helios.

Amazon is preparing to launch prototype satellites for its Kuiper constellation this year before full deployment begins in 2024.

Swarming paths could be useful for deep-space scientific missions.