NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion are big-government programs trying to keep pace in a marketplace increasingly dominated by commercial industry, meanwhile, the U.S. military is looking to build bridges to international partners, that same commercial industry and to the intelligence community.
Sierra Space is in discussions with the European Space Agency and German aerospace center DLR to extend existing partnerships covering crew access to the International Space Station to include new commercial vehicles.
Startup Astroscale’s ELSA-d orbital debris removal demonstration has accomplished its first key goal, with the servicer satellite showing how it would capture a defunct spacecraft.
Startup Firefly Aerospace says plans remain on schedule to attempt the first launch of its two-stage Alpha rocket from Vandenburg SFB, California, on Sept. 2 following a successful static fire test in mid-August.
With support from a NASA Tipping Point technology development award, Mojave, California-based Masten is developing a suborbital aerospace testbed with an option for point-to-point payload transportation.
Virgin Orbit, the airborne small-satellite rocket launch upstart that announced its intent to go public Aug. 23, apparently will build and offer a fleet of Earth-observation and internet of things (IoT) satellites starting in 2023, according to investor materials.
Australia has approved a launch permit for tiSPACE, a Taiwanese rocket startup, to test launch its Hapith I rocket from the Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex by the end of 2021.
Despite the worldwide pandemic, the global space economy grew 4.4% last year to reach $447 billion, with the commercial sector accounting for the bulk of the increase, a new Space Foundation report shows.
Virgin Orbit, the small-satellite launching startup under aerospace entrepreneur Richard Branson’s portfolio that started operations this year, plans to end 2021 as a publicly traded company after a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company, executives announced Aug. 23.
Collins Aerospace is to develop an environmental control and life-support system (ECLSS) for a privately owned and operated outpost in low Earth orbit for an unidentified customer.
Millennium Space Systems says last month’s early re-entry of an experimental spacecraft successfully demonstrated the ability of deployable tape technology to significantly accelerate de-orbiting a satellite.
The rise of launch companies like SpaceX and Rocket Lab have shown the U.S. government how it can leverage the investment of private companies to reduce its costs and improve its technologies.
Low-Earth-orbit launch upstart Rocket Lab will become a publicly traded company Aug. 25 after shareholders approved a reverse merger with Vector Acquisition, a special purpose acquisition company, grossing three-quarters of a billion dollars for the 15-year-old rocket company.
