Commercial Space

By Mark Carreau
Startup Venus Aerospace plans to proceed with the development, testing and production of a small hypersonic aircraft capable of transporting a dozen passengers or time-critical payloads between major continental destinations in an hour.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Jen DiMascio, Irene Klotz, Guy Norris
Listen in as Aviation Week editors talk with Jared Isaacman, the founder and CEO of Shift4Payments who has chartered a SpaceX crew Dragon orbital
Space

By Irene Klotz
Suite of video cameras provides unprecedented view of what it is like to land on Mars.
Space

By Michael Bruno
Spire Global, a Luxembourg-registered nanosatellite operator for cloud-enabled data analytics, will become a publicly traded company after a reverse-merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that has been hunting for aerospace and defense targets, NavSight Holdings.
Space

By Michael Bruno
Rocket Lab will become a publicly traded company with $750 million in cash to develop a new medium-lift launcher, grow its end-to-end space business including through acquisitions, and continue to target U.S. government customers.
Space

By Irene Klotz
Virgin Galactic does not expect to resume flight tests of its suborbital passenger vehicle until May due to potential electromagnetic interference (EMI) issues from a new flight control computer, CEO Michael Colglazier said during a Feb. 25 call with investors.
Commercial Space

By Graham Warwick
With growing activity in cislunar space and lunar orbit, there is growing interest in using the weak and intermittent signals that are available from existing GNSS constellations for positioning and timing.
Commercial Space

By Irene Klotz
Blue Origin is targeting the fourth quarter of 2022 for the first flight of its reusable orbital New Glenn launch system, a delay of about one year, the company said on Feb. 25.
Commercial Space

By Michael Bruno
Weather service startup ClimaCell on Feb. 24 declared its intent to launch and operate a constellation of small satellites in the coming years to power its aspiration of becoming “the largest weather enterprise in the world.”
Commercial Space

By Irene Klotz
NASA is reviewing updated proposals from three companies vying for funding to continue development of human lunar landing systems for the Artemis program and expects to select two programs for Option A follow-on contracts “within the next few weeks,” Mark Kirasich, deputy associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said on Feb. 24.
Commercial Space

By Irene Klotz
The buildup of Launch Complex 36 (LC36) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for Blue Origin’s upcoming New Glenn reusable orbital booster is nearing completion, Scott Henderson, vice president of test and flight operations, said Feb. 23.
Space

By Tony Osborne
Aireon’s space-based Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast system is to be used to monitor helicopter operations off Norway’s coastline.
Commercial Space

By Michael Bruno
Redwire, a busy private equity funded space rollup, announced Feb. 23 it had acquired Deployable Space Systems, a provider of deployable solar arrays, structures and mechanisms for space applications.
Commercial Space

By Thierry Dubois
After delays due to a launch failure and the COVID-19 crisis, Avio is proceeding with the development of an upgraded version of its light launcher, Vega C, planning on a three-year transition over 2021-24.
Commercial Space

By Irene Klotz
Hayley Arceneaux, a physician assistant at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and pediatric cancer survivor, will fly along with entrepreneur and pilot Jared Isaacman on a chartered SpaceX Crew Dragon flight.
Commercial Space

By Mark Carreau
Northrop Grumman’s 15th NASA contracted resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) was on track to rendezvous with the six-person
Space

By Michael Bruno
BlackSky, a startup with a burgeoning constellation of imaging satellites and its own data analytics service, will become a publicly traded company.
Commercial Space

By Maksim Pyadushkin
Soyuz rockets may again begin launching civilians to the ISS.
Space

By Jen DiMascio
Launch services provider Spaceflight Inc. has purchased NewSpace India Ltd.’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle to launch Spaceflight’s largest spacecraft to date at the end of February from Sriharikota, India.
Commercial Space

By Bill Carey
Iceland’s air navigation service provider Isavia ANS announced Feb. 17 that it has implemented satellite-based surveillance of aircraft in its airspace.
Safety, Ops & Regulation

Aviation Week Staff
Axiom Space will speed the growth of its workforce and construction of the world’s first commercial space station with a $130 million infusion.
Commercial Space

By Irene Klotz
SpaceX delivered 60 more of its Starlink broadband satellites into orbit on Feb. 16 though it lost the first stage booster during a failed landing attempt, breaking its string of 24 successful touchdowns.
Space

By Michael Bruno
Two co-founders of Slingshot Aerospace, a startup that aimed to provide data analytics from airborne and space-based platforms, are swapping the CEO title while the company consolidates its business plan around its Slingshot Orbital space traffic control product.
Space

By Tony Osborne
Lockheed Martin envisages 2022 debut launch for UK Pathfinder satellite mission, but so does the competition.
Space

By Lee Hudson
The Pentagon has disclosed that two DARPA satellites scheduled to launch on the Transporter-1 mission were damaged during payload processing.
Commercial Space