Development costs for NASA’s Orion deep-space capsule through the Artemis II crewed flight test—which is now not expected until May 2024—will increase by $2.5 billion due to an expanded scope of work, delays from pandemic-related supply issues and other factors, boosting the program’s overall cost to $9.3 billion.
The SpaceX Crew-2 Dragon autonomously undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) Nov. 8 and prepared for a parachute-assisted, late-night splashdown and recovery in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola, Florida.
U.S.-based satellite communications provider Viasat on Nov. 8 announced a definitive agreement to acquire UK-based Inmarsat in a transaction valued at $7.3 billion that would create an unrivaled, multiband space and terrestrial network serving aviation, maritime and other markets.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s latest survey of scientific priorities in the fields of astronomy and astrophysics over the coming decade recommends that NASA reassess how its most costly and ambitious “flagship” missions are pursued, from planning through implementation.
NASA and SpaceX on Nov. 5 continued to assess how best to schedule a planned crew rotation aboard the International Space Station in response to a challenging weather outlook affecting a Falcon 9 Crew-3 Dragon launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
OneWeb’s Vice President mobility services - Ben Griffin, explains to Technology and Space editor Steve Nichols why the London-headquartered satellite operator has seen a “huge amount of interest” from airlines, and is currently “working with and talking to a good number” of carriers.
The Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, French national space center CNES and Airbus have inked a letter of intent to cooperate on Earth-observation satellites, including development of VNREDSat-2.
Equipped with emerging propulsion and navigation technologies, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test is intended to demonstrate for the first time the potential effectiveness of a kinetic impact strategy in deflecting an asteroid on a destructive collision course with Earth.
Three-year-old New York startup Innovative Rocket Technologies on Nov. 4 said it has signed an agreement with two-year-old Turion Space of Irvine, California, to launch 20 of the latter’s proposed Droid orbital-debris-removing satellites to low Earth orbit via iRocket’s planned Shockwave launcher.
The acquisition broadens CACI’s capabilities as a U.S.-based FSO laser communications provider supporting space, airborne and terrestrial missions to U.S. government and commercial customers.
The U.S. National Reconnaissance Office on Nov. 3 released a request for proposals to industry for the Electro-Optical Commercial Layer, a step for improved commercial imagery with a specific focus on intelligence and military needs.
The U.S. military needs to develop more offensive capabilities in space, coupled with beefing up defenses for critical satellites, to maintain superiority in that domain as China rapidly closes the gap, the nation’s top uniformed military official warned.
UK startup Isotropic Systems has demonstrated the first simultaneous connections with communications satellites in different orbits, its solid-state terminal linking to SES spacecraft in both geostationary and medium Earth orbits at the same time.
Assuming a successful Dec. 18 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope from French Guiana atop an Ariane 5 rocket, the many thousands of experts who have worked on the $9.7 billion mission will have to hold their breath for another six months before the world’s most technically complex space observatory reaches its final orbit, fully deploys and checks out.
Recently public new-space company Redwire is buying Techshot, a microgravity biotechnology company that provided the first U.S. system capable of manufacturing human tissue in microgravity, among other innovations.
The U.S. Space Force’s Commercial Satellite Communications Office is planning to release 20 solicitations to industry for commercially provided satellite services over the next year—starting with nine requests for proposals in the next two months.
A crew medical concern has joined a weather issue in delaying the anticipated launch of NASA’s SpaceX-contracted Crew 3 Dragon mission to the International Space Station (ISS) from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) until Nov. 6 at the earliest.
Spurred by rising space business opportunities, reinsurance and risk management service provider Applied Underwriters on Nov. 1 said it was taking on former PartnerRe Direct and Facultative Space staff for a new Washington-based joint venture called Applied Underwriters Aerospace.
