Arqit, a four-year-old British startup aiming to provide quantum encryption for communications, announced May 12 it will become a publicly traded company after a two-step merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).
Rocket Lab is poised to conduct the first of two additional tests of Electron launch vehicles specially modified for reusability which, if successful, could pave the way for the first mid-air recovery of a booster for re-use as early as next year.
Virgin Galactic said electromagnetic interference (EMI) issues which stalled sub-orbital tests of its SpaceShipTwo Unity have been resolved but added that the spaceplane’s return to flight could be further delayed by a newly discovered maintenance issue on Eve, the company’s WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft.
Voyager Space Holdings, the rapidly expanding umbrella startup for new-space companies, has acquired the majority stake in X.O. Markets and its major subsidiary Nanoracks, which recently launched the commercial Bishop airlock to the International Space Station (ISS).
Boeing and NASA plan to conduct an uncrewed Orbital Flight Test-2 of the Starliner CST-100 crew capsule at 2:53 p.m. EDT on July 30, pending range approval, the company said May 6.
Blue Origin plans to send human crewmembers to suborbital space for the first time on July 20 on its New Shepard rocket, the company said in a May 5 statement.
Launch vehicle developer Firefly Aerospace has raised $75 million in a Series A venture capital round, the Los Angeles startup announced May 4, while seed investor Noosphere Ventures sold $100 million of its holdings to investors on the sideline.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center May 4 on its 26th mission delivering small Starlink internet connectivity satellites in low Earth orbit.
Startup Eta Space is to demonstrate technologies for propellant depots in space under a NASA contract to build a test payload for launch into low Earth orbit in late 2023 on a Rocket Lab Photon satellite.
Sierra Nevada Corp.’s (SNC) commercial space enterprise plans to land, service, and launch the company’s winged reusable Dream Chaser from Cape Canaveral on cargo missions to the International Space Station.
The manufacturer spent January through April and $3 million trying to recover SXM-7 to no avail, and now warns it could push out the timeline for its key Worldview Legion satellite program due to supplier issues.
Satellite inspection service provider HEO Robotics has partnered with Australian in-space transportation startup Space Machines to launch an on-orbit inspection camera in 2022.
A Chinese startup plans to capture an object in orbit using a net as part of a small-satellite mission to demonstrate technology for space resource utilization.
Virgin Orbit has awarded the UK division of Spanish-based space system supplier AVS a contract to build the portable ground operating system to support satellite launches from Spaceport Cornwall starting in 2022.
Four NASA and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronauts made a weather-delayed return to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) on May 2.
NASA will stop work on the Human Landing System flight demonstration while the Government Accountability Office considers two protests of the space agency’s recent $2.9 billion contract award to SpaceX.
NASA and SpaceX late April 29 delayed for a second time the planned undocking and splashdown of the four Crew-1 Dragon astronauts from the International Space Station due to high winds.
After a brief pause to send the SpaceX Crew-2 astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA last week, SpaceX on April 28 resumed launching its Starlink broadband constellation into low Earth orbit.
German satellite launcher firms Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) and ISAR Aerospace have signed agreements to launch from a new orbital launch site planned for Andoya, Norway.
