Commercial Space

By Michael Bruno
Major consultancy Accenture on April 6 said it made an unspecified investment in Titan Space Technologies, which is proffering software in support of in-orbit experiments and demonstrations, starting with adaptive immune response, carbon capture and biomedical applications.
Space Symposium

By Michael Bruno
SpinLaunch, which conducted its first test flight from its Suborbital Accelerator at Spaceport America last October, has signed a Space Act agreement with NASA to demonstrate its lofting system this year.
Space Symposium

By Garrett Reim
Startup space companies raised $15.4 billion in total financing in 2021, double the amount raised in 2020.
Space Symposium

By Guy Norris
The Blue Origin and Sierra Space-led consortium developing the Orbital Reef commercial space station says it is on track to conduct the preliminary design review of the low Earth orbit outpost in 2023 following completion of the systems requirements review.
Space Symposium

By Garrett Reim
Astranis Space Technologies plans to launch four of its MicroGEO communication satellites into orbit at once aboard a dedicated SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in 2023.
Space Symposium

By Michael Bruno
The funds will be siphoned into development of the three critical technologies underlying its business case: a new rocket engine, the aircraft shape and leading-edge cooling.
Space Symposium

By Brian Everstine
As Russian forces began to substantially build up on the border with Ukraine, the U.S. intelligence community went to commercial satellite imagery providers with a favor to ask.
Space Symposium

Rocket Lab will attempt its first midair capture of a returning Electron booster later this month, a key step in the company’s quest to turn what was an expendable small satellite launcher into a partly reusable booster.
Space Symposium

By Brian Everstine
The Space Development Agency wants to ensure that all bidders will have an equal shot at awards under the upcoming Tranche 1 Tracking Layer decision, though another recent SDA award has shown the “optics” of incumbents getting a leg up.
Space Symposium

By Irene Klotz
The largest commercial procurement of launch vehicles in history has seen Amazon sign contracts for a fleet of up to 83 heavy-lift launchers to send its Kuiper constellation into orbit.
Space Symposium

By Michael Bruno
Employment in the core U.S. space industry workforce is at a 10-year high, climbing past 2011’s last peak of 149,818 to reach 151,797, according to preliminary 2021 U.S. data cited by the Space Foundation on April 4.
Space Symposium

By Garrett Reim
Lockheed Martin on April 4 released online an open-source interface standard for on-orbit satellite docking.
Space Symposium

By Michael Bruno
Astra Space, a small rocket startup that became a publicly traded company last year via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) but which has struggled with successful missions, plans to add turnkey satellite busses to its offering in 2023.
Space Symposium

By Jen DiMascio
Predictions about an increase in attacks on space capabilities made over the last five years are proving true, say a pair of new reports issued by Washington, D.C.-based think tanks April 4.
Space Symposium

By Irene Klotz
Launch of the privately funded Axiom Space-1 mission to the International Space Station was delayed to no earlier than April 8, leaving little margin for Axiom’s planned 10-day excursion before NASA puts priority on launching the next resident station crew.
Space Symposium

By Garrett Reim
HawkEye 360 and Kleos Space, operators of space-based radio frequency monitoring services, launched on April 1 two new batches of satellites into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that took off from Cape Canaveral.
Space Symposium

By Irene Klotz
Just ahead of a high-profile, privately funded crewed mission for Axiom Space, SpaceX on April 1 launched its fourth rideshare mission, delivering 40 spacecraft into orbit, including a 1-ton hyperspectral imaging satellite for Germany’s space agency, DLR.
Space Symposium

By Michael Bruno
Daily space-based imagery and services provider Planet Labs expects full-year revenue this fiscal year to be $170-190 million, practically 30% above last fiscal year, which was 16% above the year before.
Space Symposium

By Michael Bruno
AST SpaceMobile, a newly public startup aiming to provide space-based cellular broadband connectivity, remains on track to launch its experimental BlueWalker 3 satellite this summer, managers said late March 31.
Commercial Space

By Michael Bruno
Redwire, a newly public in-space manufacturing and services startup, expects to be part of at least eight planned launches this year after notching a dozen in 2021 and growing its backlog of work to almost $272 million.
Space Symposium

By Irene Klotz
Welcome to commercial space: Who pays if the toilet breaks?
Space Symposium

By Graham Warwick
Our roundup of the main aerospace and defense stories making the news this week.
Aerospace

By Garrett Reim
Hadrian Automation has raised $90 million in Series A and A-Prime rounds to build a second highly automated machine shop.
Commercial Space

By Michael Bruno
As it awaits its seventh mission via a Falcon 9 launch imminently, Ion Satellite Carrier provider D-Orbit–which is going public via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC)–expects to have 20 space tugs operational by 2023, a top executive says.
Space Symposium

By Irene Klotz
Blue Origin conducted its fourth crewed flight on March 31, sending five paying passengers and employee Gary Lai—the lead architect for the New Shepard transportation system—into suborbital space.
Space Symposium