Space

It’s been a rough month for small satellite manufacturer Terran Orbital.

Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the development of Russia’s new orbital station after a special meeting at Energia Corp. on Oct. 26.

Our roundup of the main aerospace and defense stories making the news this week.

The AFRL is leading its first cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) between the U.S. Space Force and companies outside the U.S.

Zeno Power has built and demonstrated a shielded Strontium 90 heat source.

NASA is planning a payload resupply mission to the International Space Station.

China has sent its youngest set of astronauts to space on the Shenzhou-17 mission.

Two cosmonauts spent the early portion of their spacewalk outside the ISS Oct. 25 dealing with the latest in a series of Russian segment external coolant leaks.

The service’s broader commercial space strategy remains under consideration within the Pentagon.

The ambitious mission to explore seven asteroids is targeted to launch in March 2028.

Tyvak International, a subsidiary of Terran Orbital, has won a $4.7 million contract from the ESA to develop a nanosatellite that will deploy from Space Rider.

United Launch Alliance (ULA) is targeting Dec. 24 for the first launch of its Vulcan-Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral SFS.

Scientists suspect a metal asteroid the mission will explore may be the remnant of early planet.

Europe’s space workforce grew by 8.2% in 2022 over the prior year, the Space Foundation says in a quarterly report on the state of the space industry.

Lockheed Martin has awarded Terran Orbital a contract to build 36 sat buses for the Space Development Agency’s Tranche 2 Transport Layer Beta constellation

The QuickSounder is the first in a new generation of small, low-Earth-orbit satellites for weather and climate-change observations.

The company is developing a large spacecraft to transport, host, refuel and provide data and other services for multiple payloads.

Axiom Space is nearing completion of its Hab One pressure vessel.

Airbus and Northrop Grumman have teamed up to bid on the modernization of the UK’s Skynet military communications satellites.

Pakistan and Belarus have joined the China-led International Lunar Research Station program, according to the China National Space Administration.

A company has announced a “record-setting” $100 million “seed” round of venture capital investment toward its proposed platform for lunar transportation.

A team of European rocket developers are to help prove German ambitions for sat launch at sea with a series of suborbital launches planned for spring 2024.

NASA is addressing two issues with its 1970s-era Voyager 1 and 2 deep space probes.

NASA intends to develop a spacecraft that will rendezvous with, refuel and relocate Landsat 7, an Earth-observation satellite, to extend its life in LEO.

Space economy venture-capital investments rose 17% year-on-year to $3 billion across 103 companies in the third quarter of 2023.