The U.S. Air Force will need help from Congress to pursue its next-generation launch system plan, but Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) continues pressure against the use of RussianRD-180 rocket engines.
The Indian space industry is aiming to correct a chronic criticism-—that it lacks the heavy-launch vehicles necessary to compete on the international commercial space launch market.
Commercial capacity in lower Earth Orbit is booming, but it’s unclear what payloads will use all that’s being built up by companies such as SpaceX, United Launch Alliance (ULA), Blue Origin, Arianespace, Energia, China Great Wall and India’s Antrix.
European planners are looking beyond the next-generation Ariane 6 to a completely new LOX/Methane engine that would dramatically lower production costs, with or without reusability.
Cargo deliveries to the International Space Station with the SpaceX Dragon capsule will have the highest price of the three private vehicles chosen for the second round of Commercial Resupply Services work, but NASA has high confidence of its chances for success.
Lockheed Martin, Arab Satellite Communications Organization and King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) have completed a comprehensive technical review of Arabsat 6A and Hellas-Sat-4/SaudiGeoSat-1.
By specifying the months this year in which the first flights of Long March 5 and 7 are due, CASC shows greater confidence in the development schedules for the rockets, both of which are running years late.
The burgeoning space economy needs government regulation before it spins out of control, a young conservative House Republican congressman urged space-industry representatives Feb. 2.
Demand for mass-produced smallsats leads Clyde Space to expand its U.K. operations and establish a subsidiary in the U.S., where the defense market beckons.
Two small satellites developed by engineering students from in-state rivals Texas A&M and the University of Texas were deployed by astronauts aboard the International Space Station on Jan. 29.
The Arizona senator accuses United Launch Alliance of “manipulative extortion” on RD-180 engines; cargo carriers fight FAA fuel tank AD; NASA ponders how to use funding windfall; U.S. nuclear weapons seem here to stay.
U.S. space and defense agencies are helping to fund lightweight optics in a project that could produce a hundredfold reduction in the size, weight and power consumption of remote-sensing telescopes.
An anomaly resolution team continues to pursue the source of a worrisome water blob that formed in the helmet of the NASA spacesuit worn by U.S. astronaut Tim Kopra during a Jan. 15 spacewalk outside the International Space Station.
Australian researchers pursue a different approach to cutting launch costs—a wing-borne, fly-back booster and a reusable, scramjet-powered second stage.
As part of SpaceX’s plan to develop a human-rated version of the Dragon crew capsule capable of precision powered landings on the ground, the company has revealed first images of propulsive hover tests undertaken in late November at its McGregor, Texas facility.
Sixty days after Blue Origin achieved its first milestone vertical landing with the New Shepard sub-orbital launch vehicle, the company has repeated the feat with the same rocket.
