Space

Made In Space’s Turbine Ceramic Manufacturing Module has manufactured a ceramic component in space.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has signed an €86 million ($100 million) contract with an industrial team led by Swiss start-up company ClearSpace for the provision of a debris removal service.

Days after unveiling plans to decommission and dismantle the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, the National Science Foundation announced a third wave of damage, the Dec. 1 collapse of the suspended 900-ton instrument platform.

After years of discussions, Canada’s Telesat and Loral Space & Communications will combine to form a new publicly traded Canadian company called Telesat Corp., the companies announced.

China’s Chang’e 5 lunar sample return mission successfully touched down on the Moon’s surface on Dec. 1, the China National Space Administration said.

Virgin Orbit will make a second attempt to reach orbit with the air-dropped LauncherOne small satellite rocket on Dec. 19, with backup launch windows available later in the month in the event of a delay.

Russia has taken another significant step toward development of its first reusable space launch vehicle.

Nov. 2, 2020, the date that marked 20 years of continuous human operations aboard the International Space Station, also represents an unfolding “wedding of the old and the new,” according to David Brady, NASA’s ISS associate program scientist.

The U.S. should be at the forefront of high-capacity power-beaming to lead the technology rather than be dependent on others for it.

The space launch ambitions of the Shetland Islands have been given an additional boost with investment from a Scottish conservation fund, but the cash injection appears to have prompted a war of words between competing space ports.

Measurements of ocean heights provide real-time indication of Earth’s changing climate.

In bringing back samples, Chang’e 5 will demonstrate technology that China will need for sending people to the Moon.

SpaceX has marked its 100th Falcon 9 launch with a record seventh reflight of a first-stage booster, a mission that increased the company’s burgeoning Starlink broadband network to more than 950 satellites.

Engineering and government professional services provider Jacobs has acquired cyber and artificial intelligence specialist The Buffalo Group to bolster its offerings to the U.S. intelligence community and military.

Though on his third voyage to the International Space Station, veteran Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi said each mission poses a challenge, with the adjustments well worth making to help inspire younger generations.

The Chinese National Space Administration’s Chang’e 5 lunar sample return mission lifted off Nov. 23 U.S. time, initiating a planned 3-4-week excursion to gather the youngest-ever samples from the lunar surface.

Following up on a pilot program to assess the value of commercially provided weather-forecast data, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration has awarded data-purchase contracts to GeoOptics and Spire Global.

A week after sending its first space taxi to the International Space Station for NASA, SpaceX launched the flagship Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite into orbit to join spacecraft collecting key data for tracking climate change.

Supersonic business jet developer Aerion has teamed with satellite company Spire Global to supply the high-fidelity weather data critical to the aircraft maker’s goal of achieving Mach 1-plus cruise speeds without generating a sonic boom on the ground.

Britain is stepping up space surveillance capabilities with a focus on attributing nefarious activity.

Newly emerged from bankruptcy, under new ownership and with a new CEO, OneWeb’s goal is to resume launches for its global, high-speed internet-via-satellite service on Dec. 17, the company said on Nov. 20.

A Rocket Lab Electron booster has lifted off from New Zealand, sending 30 small satellites on their way to orbit. It then turned around and parachuted into the Pacific Ocean for the first time.

New-space investment group Voyager Space Holdings is buying the Launch Co., a launch support startup based near Anchorage, Alaska, that has been partnering with other marquee space startups and increasingly the U.S. military.

The U.S. Air Force has selected six candidate locations for U.S. Space Command (Spacecom) headquarters, including the command’s temporary site at Peterson AFB in Colorado.

Delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, five hurricanes and some minor technical issues, the first core stage of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket is now scheduled for an 8-min. static test-fire during the week of Dec. 21.