Commercial Space

NASA has joined with crowdsourcing network HeroX to seek a strategy for the elimination of lunar astronauts’ bodily wastes under its “Lunar Loo Challenge.”

With 12 licensed commercial spaceports and counting, the FAA is planning a spaceport infrastructure funding program.

Pleased so far with the performance of SpaceX’s Demo-2 test flight to the International Space Station, NASA is planning a series of four and possibly six spacewalks by its two veteran astronaut test pilots before returning to Earth, potentially in early August.

California-based Relativity Space, which is developing a 3D-printed small satellite launcher, has signed a contract with Iridium to launch up to six of its Iridium Next ground spares, the companies announced June 24.

Redwire, a venture capital-backed family of space technology companies, has added Florida-based Made In Space to its portfolio, the companies announced June 23.

The U.S-UK Technology Safeguards Agreement overcomes current regulations so that U.S.-developed launchers can operate from UK soil.

The Space Development Agency must submit a detailed plan to use commercial satellites as a service in the future National Defense Space Architecture, a panel of lawmakers say.

Under a Space Act Agreement with NASA, space company Virgin Galactic is to develop a training program for private astronaut missions to the International Space Station.

Startup Space Perspective is looking to early 2021 to begin test flights of a high-altitude balloon with a pressurized capsule from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), with an eye toward carrying commercial passengers and research payloads.

Chinese scientists have taken a large step toward a theoretically secure communication technology, demonstrating quantum key distribution (QKD) between ground stations via a satellite.

With the support of a newly appointed associate administrator, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has expressed confidence that his agency can achieve an accelerated return to the Moon’s surface with human explorers by 2024.

Airbus is to lead a consortium to secure a tender to run the UK’s military satellite communications network.

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions will acquire CPI ASC Signal Division from Communications & Power Industries for $35 million in cash, in a deal that further guarantees the U.S. government at least two major providers of key satellite communications technology.

DARPA has awarded Blue Canyon Technologies a $14.2 million contract to provide commercial satellite buses for the Blackjack program to demonstrate a military constellation of autonomous satellites in low Earth orbit connected by a high-speed network.

Fresh off a major milestone in a difficult 10-year effort by NASA to establish a U.S. commercial capability to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS), Kathy Lueders has taken over leadership of an accelerated effort by the agency to return human explorers to the Moon’s surface in 2024.

Leonardo has increased its stake in Italian space company Avio to just less than 30%.

After an 11-week hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Rocket Lab resumed launch operations on June 13 by successfully launching a payload of small satellites for NASA, the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and the University of New South Wales Canberra Space into low Earth orbit.

Representatives from the three commercial Human Lander System developers recently chosen by NASA to shuttle future astronauts from lunar orbit to the Moon’s surface are expressing confidence that their efforts can help the agency achieve the White House goal of returning to the Moon with astronauts in 2024 and establishing a sustainable presence.

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

NASA has awarded Astrobotic a $199.5 million contract to deliver the Volatiles Investigation Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) to the Moon’s south pole in 2023, where it will search for water ice deposits that could be useful to future astronauts.

Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken lifted off aboard SpaceX rocket, first Americans to launch into orbit on a U.S. vehicle since shuttle.

The director of the White House National Space Council believes NASA’s push to return astronauts to the lunar surface by 2024 is helping the agency significantly streamline its decision-making, though there’s more to do.

As the commercial space market grows, how can industry incentivize efforts to clean up orbital debris?

The design concept for the habitation and logistics elements of the lunar-orbiting Gateway that NASA is pursuing under a $187 million contract with Northrop Grumman has a significant heritage in the evolving Cygnus resupply mission spacecraft that have so far launched and berthed successfully to the International Space Station 13 times since September 2013.

In partnership with SpaceX, NASA’s blueprint for next-generation space exploration leaps into public view.