Commercial Space

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

After repeated attempts to sell a solid-propellant, heavy-lift space launcher to the U.S. national security community, Northrop Grumman is discontinuing work on its Omega rocket, the company said Sept. 10.

Arianespace enters smallsat ride-share service while Rocket Lab debuts Photon satellite.

The air navigation service provider of Hong Kong will introduce satellite-based surveillance of aircraft in its flight information region beginning early next year, data provider Aireon announced Sept. 9.

NASA is turning to its Commercial Lunar Payload Services providers to bid on the delivery of 10 science investigations and technology demonstrations to a nonpolar region of the Moon in 2022.

While NASA strives through the Artemis Accords to promote peaceful efforts to explore the Moon, the Vienna-based Moon Village Association is assessing how to achieve a similar outcome through its Best Practices for Sustainable Lunar Activity.

Europe to fly hybrids; eVTOL cargo UAV; Flying-V takes flight; Lasers for air data; Drag sail deorbiter; High-rate UAM manufacture

The Electron rocket’s kick stage that dispatched a small satellite into orbit for on Aug. 31 has become a free-flying demonstration of Rocket Lab’s Photon satellite platform, the company disclosed Sept. 3.

The launch was shared among 21 customers. Applications for the spacecraft range from Earth observation to telecommunications to science, technology and education.

SpaceX sent a batch of 60 Starlink satellites into orbit on Sept. 3 as the company looks toward public beta rollout of high-speed internet service this year.

Embattled aircraft connectivity provider Gogo will sell its commercial aviation unit to bankrupt satellite services provider Intelsat for $400 million in a deal that might help the latter return to a viable business while the former tries to avoid liquidation.

Arianespace is to operate its first rideshare mission for nano and microsatellites thanks to a Vega launch from Kourou, French Guiana, at 9:51 p.m. EDT on Sept. 1.

Turkey’s Roketsan has opened a new facility to support the development of a national satellite launcher.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral AFS on Aug. 30, sending an Argentine remote sensing satellite into a polar orbit, a flightpath from Florida that had not been used since 1969.

Rocket Lab’s Electron small satellite launcher returned to flight on Aug. 30, sending a 220-lb. (100-kg) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite into orbit for Capella Space, a San Francisco-based information services company.

Launch companies Orbex and Skyrora are gearing up fo launch from UK shores in 2022, as long as spaceports and regulations are in place.

The UK is facing competition from sites in Norway, Sweden and the Azores for smallsat launch from Europe.

The report calls on Congress to “enact, without delay, appropriations and any required authorities" for the Office of Space Commerce "to build this critical capability with requisite personnel, office infrastructure and authorities.”

Resources like the vast quantities of water ice believed to reside within shadowed craters at the Moon’s south and north poles promise to reduce the costs of initial exploration substantially.

Universal rocket modules for the Angara A5 heavy launch vehicle have been sent by train to the Plesetsk military spaceport in preparation for the rocket family's first liftoff since 2014.

The mission set a SpaceX record for reuse of a Falcon 9 first stage.

Following their successful Demo-2 test flight, NASA and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than Oct. 23 for the first operational commercial launch of astronauts to the International Space Station.

An Ariane 5 rocket carrying the second Northrop Grumman Mission Extension Vehicle along with U.S. and Japanese telecommunications satellites successfully lifted off from Kourou, French Guiana, late Aug. 15.

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

As public companies reported their latest quarterly results, one segment stood out for its near-universal positivity: space.