Commercial Space

Rocket Lab is to launch a cubesat to test water-based propulsion and plasma braking for maneuvering and deorbiting satellites.

Honeywell said its Aspire 150 and 350 satellite communications systems designed to use Iridium’s new Certus high-speed L-band service should be certified this year.

While urban air mobility SPACs have generated many headlines in recent months, due in part to their eye-watering sums, the SPAC phenomenon has featured more new new-space public candidates by end-market.

Slingshot Aerospace, an Austin, Texas, startup focusing on space traffic-control products and services, has acquired another startup, Stellatus Solutions, which was building a platform for competing satellite operators to communicate among themselves.

Hanwha Systems has joined a growing list of investors in the OneWeb low Earth orbit communications satellite constellation.

Raw data from space assets is valuable now, but may become commoditized as constellations grow.

A NASA-backed Moon mission targeted to launch from Wallops Island, Virginia, will instead fly from Rocket Lab’s New Zealand spaceport due to ongoing efforts by NASA to certify the Electron booster’s automated flight termination system for use at Wallops.

Building on their cooperation to install a first-of-kind space surveillance radar, LeoLabs and the New Zealand Space Agency have announced a multiyear agreement to develop a space regulatory and sustainability platform.

Boeing says it will continue to be a “long-term strategic” investor in AEI HorizonX and remain the anchor investor for the current fund and AEI HorizonX’s first standalone fund planned for 2022.

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

July 29 was a pivotal day for the UK’s space ambitions for both the commercial and defense space sectors.

Launch of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner on a long-awaited reflight demonstration to the International Space Station remained on hold while engineers assessed options to address an issue with valves in the spacecraft’s propulsion system.

The first orbital-class SpaceX Falcon Super Heavy rocket, outfitted with 29 methane-burning Raptor engines, was moved to its launch mount in Boca Chica, Texas, on Aug. 3.

In-space propulsion system is “like the diesel engine on Earth.”

The string of delays for the reflight of an uncrewed Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station continued on Aug. 3, with the next opportunity for launch available on Aug. 4.

China private rocket company Deep Blue Aerospace has successfully conducted the country’s first vertical takeoff/vertical landing trial of the Nebula-M reusable rocket after a series of ignition tests in late July.

Arianespace returned its workhorse Ariane 5 into service on July 30, clearing the way for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) towards the end of the year.

Key research module finally reaches station, then tries to depart.

At least 12 significant cyber security incidents affecting the aerospace industry have been made public since the start of the year.

With the successful launch of an experimental cubesat for the U.S. Space Force, Rocket Lab returned its Electron small satellite launcher into commercial service on July 29, with about six more missions on its manifest for the year.

Rocket Lab intends to return its Electron small satellite launcher into commercial service as early as July 29 following an accident two months ago.

German satellite launch startup Isar Aerospace has secured $75 million from investors which include Porsche, the majority owner of the Volkswagen automobile company.

Unity-22 and New Shepard-16 open a new chapter in human spaceflight.

Pioneering aviator was evaluated for spaceflight in the 1960s.

The same day Blue Origin made its first human spaceflight, sending four passengers into suborbital space, the Federal Aviation Administration issued new FAA Commercial Space Astronaut Wings eligibility requirements.