Space

NASA’s sample return missions to the Moon, Comet Wild 2 and the Sun have proven scientifically game-changing, and agency planners behind the Mars Sample Return believe it will prove of equal value.

The owners of aerospace and defense group Sierra Nevada are creating an independent company to take over the former’s space business, to be called Sierra Space, which will sell to the burgeoning low-Earth-orbit and Moon commercial space markets.

Private space sector jobs reached a nine-year high in 2020, according to new Space Foundation analysis of U.S. government data, with the industry employing 148,000 people, while space-related mergers, buyouts and equity financings totaled $18.2 billion.

Startup ABL’s launcher is well-sized for Lockheed’s new satellite bus.

Lockheed Martin is offering a new line of its LM 400 satellites in response to military plans to develop constellations that have a variety of intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR), and target-acquisition capabilities.

Ahead of a draft solicitation for Space Development Agency satellites, the Pentagon wants to ensure the interoperability of the products.

Blue Origin simulated pre- and post-launch passenger operations as its 15th suborbital launch of the New Shepard lifted off on April 14.

Orbital Sidekick, a San Francisco-based startup aiming to offer satellite-based hyperspectral imaging and data analytics for the energy sector and others, has wrapped up a $16 million series A investment round, as expected.

Astrobiotic’s Griffin lunar lander, carrying NASA’s water-hunting VIPER rover, will fly on a Falcon Heavy, perhaps in late 2023.

Fixing an issue with NASA’s Mars Ingenuity helicopter will require a slight modification to the vehicle’s software, delaying the first flight test.

The second Mission Extension Vehicle, MEV-2, autonomously docked with the Intelsat 10-02 satellite on April 12 in its operational GEO location at 1 deg. West longitude.

In the broad sweep of history, imagine the roughly 70-year path to the creation of the U.S. Space Force as a single line on a blank page.

The announcement confirmed the spacecraft designers in Track B of Phase 1 of DARPA’s Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (Draco) program.

Gen. Thomas Moorman pressed a decades-long campaign through a minefield of bureaucratic and geopolitical obstacles to elevate a fractured and often dysfunctional space enterprise to a status equivalent to the naval, land and air domains.

Space Hero Partnerships has signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA to study sending a reality TV show winning contestant to the ISS.

Exolaunch, which specializes in rideshare brokerage and equipment, is planning a space tug for orbit-customization and debris-deorbiting.

Do SPACs herald a brave new world for space dreamers or a repeat of the dot-bomb era of the early 2000s and the space flops of the 1990s?

The award begins a two-track Phase 1 for the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Opeations (Draco) demonstration program.

Ingenuity was preparing to spin its dual rotors at full speed—the last in a series of preflight checkouts—late on April 9 when the issue occurred.

The UAE has named its first female Arab astronaut as it confirmed the second batch of the country’s astronaut programme today.

Australia’s Electro Optic Systems has demonstrated technology that is key to tracking and moving space debris in low Earth orbit that uses a laser-generated guide star and adaptive optics to remove atmospheric distortion and increase the laser power on target.

Former NASA astronaut and U S. Air Force test pilot Jack Fischer has joined with the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership (BAHEP) to provide the emerging Houston Spaceport with TexSpace, a future nonprofit focused on facilitating innovation within the space enterprise.

OrbComm, the low Earth orbit constellation provider of industrial connectivity services whose roots date to 1990s commercial space efforts, will be acquired by GI Partners, a U.S.-based investor in data infrastructure businesses, in an all-cash deal worth around $1.1 billion, including net debt.

The EU, the European Space Agency and their member states should convene in a high-level summit next year and define a European ambition in space, says Josef Aschbacher, ESA’s new director general.

The Biden administration is requesting $24.7 billion for NASA for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, a 6.3% hike over the agency’s current funding level.