Inspiration4, the first all-civilian astronaut crew to orbit the Earth, will be doing a lot more than gazing out the windows of their SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.
Firefly Aerospace is on track for the first flight test of its Alpha launch vehicle, a two-stage, liquid-oxygen-and-kerosene-fueled booster designed to carry 2,205 lb. to low Earth orbit.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it is investigating a deviation in the flightpath cleared for the descent of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Unity to Spaceport America in New Mexico, following its suborbital flight with Richard Branson and five employees aboard on July 11.
Japan’s SoftBank and its subsidiary HAPSMobile are developing new high-capacity communications systems as they prepare to launch commercial services providing connectivity from the stratosphere using long-endurance unmanned aircraft.
The tests should validate launchpad infrastructure, evaluate countdown procedures and train the launch team in advance of the inaugural Vulcan mission in 2022.
Collins Aerospace, already one of the largest commercial aerospace suppliers—let alone as part of Raytheon Technologies—is buying high-profile flight tracking data provider FlightAware.
Fledging small satellite launch provider Astra Space once again failed to reach orbit, but the booster managed 2 1/2 min. of flight time despite losing an engine less than 1 sec. after liftoff from Alaska’s Kodiak Island.
Australia’s fledgling space industry is attracting investment, with on-orbit inspection startup HEO Robotics completing a seed funding round led by British billionaire David Harding, founder and CEO of investment management company Winton Group.
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.
