Commercial Space

Northrop Grumman conducted a 139-sec. static test fire of its Omega rocket’s solid-fuel second stage on Feb. 27, the last of two full-scale engine firings prior to the rocket’s debut launch next year.

Virgin Galactic remains committed to becoming the first commercial human spaceflight provider this year, but it could entail just lofting co-founder and celebrity entrepreneur Richard Branson rather than starting regular operations as previously forecast.

The success of the growing commercial space industry is at risk.

Spirit’s eVTOL tieup; electrified commuter aircraft; kitplane-based MALE flies; Volocopter raises more funds; Sweden’s electric aviation.

The company aims to produce up to 42 engines per year at the new plant.

Plans for a satellite launch center on Britain’s Shetland Islands have been boosted by £2 million ($2.6 million) in funding from a private equity firm.

SpaceX tests space tourism waters by signing up with experienced flight services company.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral AFS with a fifth batch of the company’s Starlink broadband satellites.

Advancing Asian UAM; removing space debris; fuel could help in gusts; measuring X-59’s shocks; DLR’s new Falcon testbed.

The NASA-contracted Cygnus spacecraft was on course to reach the ISS with Feb. 18 following a successful liftoff from the Wallops Island Flight Facility

The budding space tourism company's publicly traded shares jumped more than 21% when investors saw a captive-carry transport flight of VSS Unity to its new commercial headquarters at Spaceport America in New Mexico.

Satellite-based synthetic-aperture radar services provider Iceye has hired the former Google executive who led development of the Terra Bella Earth imaging constellation as its new U.S. CEO, and the move signals plans to make satellites in the U.S.

Flight test exposed Starliner software glitches, but NASA is more concerned about what else may be lurking in process flaws.

With global spectrum rights in hand and ground stations under construction, OneWeb plans to roll out high-speed, global internet service.

An appreciation of Clay Christensen’s theory through the lens of disruptive aerospace innovations.

A group of software and aerospace veterans are aiming to raise and spend $200 million to offer cloud computing and data analytics to the coming explosion of low-Earth-orbit satellite-based systems.

Gerstenmaier, 65, left NASA last year after being reassigned by Administrator Jim Bridenstine in July to serve as a special advisor to Deputy Administrator Jim Morhard.

The rescheduled launch of Northrop Grumman’s 13th Cygnus re-supply mission to the International Space Station now is planned for no earlier than Feb. 13 at 4:06 p.m. EST.

KBR, Inc. will train commercial astronauts selected for missions to the International Space Station (ISS) and perhaps other destinations under a nonexclusive NASA Reimbursable Space Act Agreement.

The market for radar images and radio frequency mapping from space still relies on military and government customers.

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

A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying a batch of 34 satellites for aspiring broadband operator OneWeb lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Feb. 6, setting the stage for monthly flights to build an initial constellation of 648 spacecraft.

With gradual funding secured, Europe moves ahead with reusable launcher demonstrators.

After a tough year in 2019, Maxar Technologies has secured a trio of contract awards.

U.S. startup Astra Space has emerged from stealth mode and identified itself as the sole remaining competitor in DARPA’s Launch Challenge to increase the flexibility and pace of flights into low Earth orbit.