Space

In this week’s Washington Outlook, American Airlines and others continue fight to overhaul the FAA; U.S. needs to move faster to counter Chinese and Russian space prowess; rethinking Syrian conflict; Boeing can sell aircraft to Iran.

Reaction Engines is firming up plans to build a fighter engine-size ground demonstrator of its reusable hypersonic propulsion system.

United Launch Alliance is taking the first steps along an alternate path involving recovery of only the first-stage engines.

The recent accident that destroyed a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket offers competing launch service providers an opportunity to tout their relative strengths.

New head of Germany’s DLR space agency and her colleagues across Europe lobby for money to fund future projects.

Lower cost is key for Europe’s future launchers.

While Iridium has been able to raise the $3 billion needed to build and orbit the new system, which includes spares for backup, getting back to space has been a challenge.

Satellite fleet operators old and new see rising growth in aeronautic, maritime broadband.

SpaceX is planning to be back in flight swiftly after the catastrophic failure of a Falcon 9 rocket, while competitor Arianespace is touting a reliability advantage for the “proven” Ariane 5.

Despite SpaceX and Blue Origin’s advances on reusable engines, the 16 old space shuttle engines are the only way right now to power flight crews into space.

Still to be revealed are the payload masses for Blue Origin’s two New Glenn variants. Both versions of the new launcher will have a 23-ft. diameter. The two-stage version will stand 270 ft. tall, while the three-stage vehicle will be 313 ft.

ISRO’s satellite center will help train companies to assemble and test spacecraft.

Boeing is to build a 702 satellite, called GiSAT, with a new digital payload offering twice the capacity of previous digital payload designs to support Sub Saharan communications.

The focus of the investigation is on specific failures, faults and combination of events that might have led to the destruction of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and its payload on the launch pad during preparations for a routine static-fire test of rocket’s first-stage Merlin engines.

The $1 billion probe's long journey will place it at the 1,600-ft.-wide asteroid Bennu in August 2018.

NASA’s nine-year-old Dawn mission spacecraft began a spiraling, five-week climb above the dwarf planet Ceres on Sept. 2, a maneuver intended to conserve hydrazine fuel and allow for extended science observations at one of the Solar System’s most intriguing astrobiological prospects.

Ukrainian company seeks $155 million investment to build a space launch facility in North America.

The space infrastructure on which America’s highly networked armed forces depend is resilient but not invulnerable.

What does the Sept. 1 explosion mean for SpaceX and its customers?

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded at 9:07 a.m. Sept. 1 on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral as it was preparing for a prelaunch test.

NASA is readying its surviving Space Shuttle Main Engines for a last hurrah as the power plant for its new heavy-lift Space Launch System.

The near-term focus for the program is to get the Space Launch System off the ground—without and with humans on top.

The heavy-lift Space Launch System will be a big vehicle, and NASA is starting to turn out some big pieces—and ground infrastructure—for its first flight in 2018.

NASA is using a massive friction-stir welding tool at the Michoud Assembly Facility to build its first flight structure for the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS).

In this week’s Washington Outlook column: the GAO dings the Air Force on A-10 retirement plans, and Maryland Space Business Roundtable attendees weigh in on the U.S. presidential election.