Space

Aviation Week Staff
Russia’s Roscosmos has added radar observation capabilities to its Earth-monitoring constellation with a launch of the Kondor-FKA satellite.
Space

By Mark Carreau
Axiom Space’s second four-person private astronaut mission (AX-2) to the International Space Station departed the orbital laboratory as planned on May 30.
Space

By Mark Carreau
NASA is once more reaching out to the private sector for assistance with the Artemis program, this time to provide unpressurized lunar terrain vehicles.
Space

By Chen Chuanren
China's Shenzhou-16 mission has reportedly docked successfully at the Tiangong space station with a crew of three astronauts, including one civilian researcher.
Space

By Garrett Reim
Ispace believes that its Series 1 lunar lander crashed into the Moon because of an error in the spacecraft’s altitude measurement software.
Commercial Space

By Irene Klotz
The final two members of a novel cubesat quartet were launched into orbit to track developing storms on a near-hourly basis.
Commercial Space

By Mark Carreau
NASA faces mounting urgency to control the cost of its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket development and production, an agency inspector general’s audit says.
Space

By Irene Klotz
The cislunar transporter would make propellant runs from LEO to lunar orbit.
Commercial Space

By Michael Bruno, Guy Norris
Like a shooting star, Virgin Orbit’s quick flare-up and steady diminution punctuates new space’s financial struggles.
Commercial Space

By Garrett Reim
Fleet Space Technologies has raised an about $33 million round of Series C funding to further finance its satellite connected geological survey business.
Commercial Space

By Mark Carreau
Part of NASA’s Artemis strategy includes a lunar south pole Artemis Base Camp, a concept that may end up consisting of more than one camp, experts say.
Space

By Irene Klotz
ULA canceled the planned May 25 static hot fire of its first Vulcan-Centaur rocket to review an issue with the booster engine ignition system.
Commercial Space

By Irene Klotz, Guy Norris
After a nearly two-year hiatus, Virgin Galactic returned its SpaceShipTwo passenger vehicle into suborbital space on May 25.
Commercial Space

By Irene Klotz
Five years after Jeff Bezos began wooing NASA to buy Blue Origin lunar landing services, the U.S. space agency said “yes.”
Commercial Space

By Garrett Reim
Tokyo-based Gitai, a startup developing several space robots, has raised about ¥4 billion ($29 million) in funding as part of a Series B extension round.
Commercial Space

By Mark Carreau
Russia’s MS-23 Progress resupply mission spacecraft autonomously docked to the Russian segment of the International Space Station at midday May 24.
Space

By Michael Bruno
Virgin Orbit will close after its assets were bought by four bankruptcy bidders including Rocket Lab and Stratolaunch.
Commercial Space

By Garrett Reim
NASA’s LROC has captured what appears to be images of debris scattered on the Moon at the planned landing site of ispace’s lunar lander, which crashed in April.
Commercial Space

By Mark Carreau
NASA has selected a new mission to study high-altitude ice clouds that form daily in Earth’s tropical and subtropical regions.
Space

By Garrett Reim
The company has a $2.5 billion backlog but also fast-shrinking cash reserves.
Commercial Space

By Jen DiMascio
The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory has awarded a contract to Ursa Major that will help it develop two key products.
Space

By Irene Klotz
ULA returned its first Vulcan rocket to the launchpad on May 22 in preparation for a static test firing of the booster’s dual BE-4 main engines.
Commercial Space

By Garrett Reim
SWISSto12 has received a contract to build three small geostationary communications satellites for Inmarsat.
Commercial Space

By Irene Klotz
Blue Origin has succeeded on its second try to win a NASA contract to ferry astronauts to and from lunar orbit and the Moon’s surface.
Space

By Mark Carreau
The NASA-funded Capstone has completed its six-month primary mission in orbit around the Moon with a successful autonomous navigation demonstration.
Space