The Federal Communications Commission on Dec. 7 selected 180 companies to participate in the first phase of an ambitious project to bring high-speed internet to rural communities in the U.S.
NASA has awarded four companies contracts to collect samples of lunar regolith, then transfer ownership to the agency, not for return to Earth necessarily but to expand the legal and regulatory framework for commercial space activities on the Moon and beyond.
Aspiring small satellite launch service and logistics provider Aevum has unveiled an 80-ft.-long, 60-ft. wingspan unmanned aircraft system to serve as the reusable first stage of a three-stage, autonomous launch system that aims to cut costs and dramatically reduce the time needed to plan and execute missions.
The European Investment Bank, the long-term lending institution of the European Union, announced Dec. 3 that it could invest up to €20 million ($24.3 million) in Spire Global, a Luxembourg-registered nanosatellite operator for cloud-enabled data analytics, marking the European institution’s first direct new-space venture.
Axiom Space, selected by NASA to berth the first element of an eventual commercial low Earth orbit-crewed free flyer at the International Space Station (ISS) in 2024, has significantly upgraded the architecture of its planned Axiom Station, providing an initial four-person crew capability.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has signed an €86 million ($100 million) contract with an industrial team led by Swiss start-up company ClearSpace for the provision of a debris removal service.
After years of discussions, Canada’s Telesat and Loral Space & Communications will combine to form a new publicly traded Canadian company called Telesat Corp., the companies announced.
Virgin Orbit will make a second attempt to reach orbit with the air-dropped LauncherOne small satellite rocket on Dec. 19, with backup launch windows available later in the month in the event of a delay.
The space launch ambitions of the Shetland Islands have been given an additional boost with investment from a Scottish conservation fund, but the cash injection appears to have prompted a war of words between competing space ports.
SpaceX has marked its 100th Falcon 9 launch with a record seventh reflight of a first-stage booster, a mission that increased the company’s burgeoning Starlink broadband network to more than 950 satellites.
Following up on a pilot program to assess the value of commercially provided weather-forecast data, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration has awarded data-purchase contracts to GeoOptics and Spire Global.
A week after sending its first space taxi to the International Space Station for NASA, SpaceX launched the flagship Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite into orbit to join spacecraft collecting key data for tracking climate change.
Supersonic business jet developer Aerion has teamed with satellite company Spire Global to supply the high-fidelity weather data critical to the aircraft maker’s goal of achieving Mach 1-plus cruise speeds without generating a sonic boom on the ground.
Newly emerged from bankruptcy, under new ownership and with a new CEO, OneWeb’s goal is to resume launches for its global, high-speed internet-via-satellite service on Dec. 17, the company said on Nov. 20.
A Rocket Lab Electron booster has lifted off from New Zealand, sending 30 small satellites on their way to orbit. It then turned around and parachuted into the Pacific Ocean for the first time.
New-space investment group Voyager Space Holdings is buying the Launch Co., a launch support startup based near Anchorage, Alaska, that has been partnering with other marquee space startups and increasingly the U.S. military.
The FAA next year will begin using live telemetry data from commercial space vehicles to determine the extent of airspace it needs to protect during launch and re-entry operations.
NASA’s third cargo resupply line to the International Space Station, operated by privately owned Sierra Nevada Corp., is delaying the debut launch of its reusable winged Dream Chaser spaceplane until 2022 due to COVID-19 pandemic-related work issues, the company said on Nov. 17.
Launch service operator Arianespace has traced the cause of the Nov. 16 failure of a Vega rocket to an improperly connected electrical harness on the launcher’s Avum engine.
