Maxar Technologies has selected European companies TTTech Aerospace and RUAG Space to provide the backbone of the fault-tolerant communications network for the foundational Power and Propulsion Element of NASA’s lunar-orbiting Gateway.
Relativity Space has secured its first contract with the Pentagon, through the Defense Innovation Unit, to provide responsive launch capability for the military.
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei has endorsed his March 9 assignment to lift off aboard Russia’s Soyuz MS-18 on April 9 to help ensure a continuous U.S. presence aboard the International Space Station.
China orbited another trio of Yaogan-31 Earth remote sensing satellites using a Long March 4C rocket launched from the country’s oldest and most northern spaceport in Jiuquan, Inner Mongolia on March 13, according to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC).
Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC-3) aboard NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was reactivated over the weekend, following a low-voltage incident linked to the aging observatory’s recent lapse into safe mode.
The French Air and Space Force is conducting its first virtual exercise for military operations in space, a weeklong simulation of various threats against satellites to test the fledging space command’s reaction.
After working with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to develop a robot arm for the Perseverance Mars 2020 rover, Motiv Space Systems is developing durable, multi-jointed limb also capable of functioning at the Moon’s south pole during long periods of darkness and extreme cold.
Responding to U.S. advances in in-space manufacturing, Airbus has been selected to study an orbital factory and potential demonstrator mission to establish a European capability to manufacture and assemble satellites in orbit.
Showing signs of its 30-plus years in Earth orbit, the Hubble Space Telescope resumed science operations late March 11, four days after slipping into safe mode due to a software error detected within the observatory’s main computer.
China successfully launched its new Long March 7A heavy rocket for the first time at 1:51 am local time on March 12 from the Wenchang launch site on Hainan island.
In another step in their growing space partnership, Russia and China have agreed to cooperate on an international lunar research station, potentially similar to the U.S. led-Artemis program’s Gateway project.
Scientists say they are pleased with the initial performance of SuperCam, a rock-vaporizing collection of lasers, high-tech cameras, spectrographs and microphones aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars 2020 rover.
NASA plans to try again on March 18 to fire up the four Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25 engines on the Space Launch System core stage for a critical integrated test ahead of the booster’s debut flight in late 2021 or early 2022.
Nanoracks has proclaimed its benchmark Bishop airlock, which was launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in December, “open for business” and ready to commercially support science experiments, spacewalks and equipment transfers on the exterior of the orbiting science lab.
NASA has contracted with Axiom Space to acquire a seat aboard Russia’s Soyuz MS-18 for a NASA astronaut to launch to the orbiting science lab on April 9.
The U.S. Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office on March 9 awarded task orders worth a total of $385 million to SpaceX and United Launch Alliance (ULA) for four upcoming launches, Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) said in a statement.
NASA on March 5 released a solicitation for launch services to send its Europa Clipper spacecraft on its way to the water-rich moon of Jupiter, a ride once earmarked for the agency’s own Space Launch System rocket.
NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance has made an initial 21-ft. test drive in its Jezero Crater landing site as flight controllers continue instrument checkouts and scout a location for a flight demonstration by a companion miniature helicopter.
Comet impacts during the Solar System’s planet-forming period about 4.5 billion years ago may have delivered the carbon essential for life to the rocky planets in the Sun’s habitable zone, according to a new study of the comet Catalina.
U.S. and Japanese spacewalking astronauts Kate Rubins and Soichi Noguchi joined outside the International Space Station on March 5 to complete modifications to two of six solar power channels on the orbital science lab’s long support truss due to be equipped with new ISS Roll Out Solar Arrays over the coming year.
A wave of space startups suddenly going public in SPAC deals is revving up an already excited sector. But one of them is ahead of others and is about to take another giant leap.
