Space

The Pentagon’s fiscal 2023 budget request released, March 28, is the first time the U.S. Space Force has been able to plan spending as its own independent service, and the result is a big investment in research and development aimed at making key services in orbit more protected from emerging threats.

Clean Aviation’s first call; Polaris spaceplane demonstrator; Bioinspired Venus flyer; and Robust hybrid-electric propulsion.

Momentus is preparing its Vigoride space tug for vibration testing in advance of its targeted June launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

NASA’s Jasmin Moghbeli and the European Space Agency’s Andreas Mogensen have been selected as the first two of four astronauts planned for launch aboard the SpaceX Crew-7 Dragon no earlier than 2023 for a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station.

DARPA has kicked off its orbital Moon manufacturing program, naming eight research teams for the initiative.

Neuraspace, a Portuguese startup looking to use artificial intelligence for space debris and satellite collision avoidance services, has landed more than $2.7 million from Armilar Venture Partners to accelerate the commercialization of its platform.

Barry Matsumori, a SpaceX veteran and until recently the CEO of space optical communications startup BridgeComm, was named the chief operating officer of Impulse Space Propulsion, the new in-orbit transfer services company founded by Tom Mueller, a SpaceX co-founder and its longtime chief technology officer.

For decades, the U.S. Air Force relied on its workhorse fleet of MQ-1 Predators to track and identify targets and attribute events on the ground.

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission promises some real drama as it zeros in on its target later this year.

Startup Dark Fission Space Systems announced plans on March 22 to build and demonstrate a nuclear thermal rocket engine in orbit within five years.

A Canadian satellite recently came “dangerously close” to another nation’s satellite, a Canadian Space Agency official says.

NASA plans to extend its Human Landing System contract with SpaceX to cover a second crewed landing on the Moon and launch a parallel procurement leading to a second commercial provider for crewed transportation services to and from lunar orbit and the lunar surface.

Maintenance and upgrades were the focus of a nearly 7-hr. spacewalk conducted by two astronauts outside the International Space Station on March 23.

Propulsion startup Ursa Major on March 23 announced the delivery of its Handley engine to two separate customers for two different uses.

NASA has not given up on the idea of creating artificial gravity for astronauts on long-duration space missions despite the many technical challenges associated with it, according to the agency’s space operations chief.

Viasat is still working to restore internet to some of its users after a suspected Russian cyberattack took thousands of KA-SAT satellite terminals in Europe offline starting Feb. 24.

As cooperation with Russia dwindles and Ukrainian suppliers vanish, ESA is reviewing its options in launch services and exploration.

Isotropic Systems has completed all tests demonstrating that its GM2000 series military standard satellite terminal can track and link to satellites in multiple orbits from a single, solid-state, software-defined communications platform.

A minor production issue will delay the arrival of the first flight engines for United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan rocket to the middle of the year, paving the way for the booster’s debut launch no earlier than late 2022.

AE Industrial Partners, a private equity firm active in U.S. aerospace and defense, has led a $75 million Series B funding round in Firefly Aerospace, a space access startup recently caught up in Ukraine-related issues.

SpaceX has abruptly severed its long-standing relationship with customer Spaceflight Industries, which purchases rideshares and dedicated missions from launch service companies.

Building on its $550 million investment in startup OneWeb, Paris-based Eutelsat Communications on March 22 announced a partnership agreement to distribute broadband services from OneWeb’s satellite constellation in low Earth orbit to its maritime, aviation, business, government and other customers.

Whether it’s on the Moon with astronauts or in Earth orbit observing climate change, NASA intends to advance its science and technology and widely share the data from its efforts to benefit humanity as a whole, Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy says.

Leonardo has sold its U.S.-based Global Enterprise Solutions (GES) government satellite communications business to Luxembourg-based SES.

Germany-based space startup Polaris has been awarded a contract by the country’s defense ministry to build and flight-test a scaled demonstrator of its proposed Aurora reusable space plane.