German satellite launch startup Isar Aerospace has secured $75 million from investors which include Porsche, the majority owner of the Volkswagen automobile company.
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.
Korean Air and Seoul National University have been commissioned by the Republic of Korea Air Force to explore using the Boeing 747-400 passenger aircraft for an air launch system, similar to Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne.
The 10-min. suborbital spaceflight on July 20 marks the first time a crewed spacecraft made a debut flight without test pilots, test engineers or professional astronauts aboard.
An 18-year-old student on a gap year before college will join Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos and aviation pioneer Wally Funk on Blue Origin’s first human spaceflight, slated to launch on July 20, the company said on July 15.
SpaceShipTwo Unity glided to a landing at 9:32 am on July 11 after successfully providing a six-member crew, including Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson, a few minutes of weightlessness in space.
NASA is moving ahead with efforts to engage the U.S. private sector in a competition to develop and provide sustained commercial Lunar Exploration Transportation Services.
Virgin Orbit delivered seven satellites into orbit on June 30, including cubesats for the U.S. Defense Department’s Rapid Agile Launch Initiative (RALI), a Polish-based startup planning to sell optical imagery to agricultural and energy customers and the first military satellite for the Royal Netherlands Air Force.
Estes Industries, famous among model rocket enthusiasts for the company’s solid propellant motors, has spun off a new company sporting lineage to Aurora Flight Sciences that aims to provide engineering support for larger launchers.
The U.S. Export-Import Bank on June 21 reported its first satellite-related export financing deal since 2015, backing SpaceX’s expected launch of Hispasat’s planned Amazonas Nexus satellite so that rival Arianespace did not win the business with European export credit agency support.
Intuitive Machines (IM), one of NASA’s early Commercial Lunar Services Payload Services providers, announced plans on June 21 to place a communications satellite in orbit around the Moon to provide a data link to Earth as part of its second lunar mission planned for late 2022.
Supporters of establishing a commercial spaceport in Camden, Georgia, received a minor boost June 17 when the FAA issued a final environmental impact statement that endorsed the latest slimmed-down proposal as a “preferred alternative.”
A Hungarian information technology and telecommunications company is aiming to buy a majority stake in Israel’s Spacecom, a satellite services provider and owner-operator of the AMOS satellite fleet, for $65 million.
