Space news

Engineers have made progress in attempts to fully unfurl a solar array wing that snagged on NASA’s Lucy asteroid explorer shortly after launch last October, adding to optimism that the spacecraft can complete its 12-year mission as planned.

Here are the reasons the International Space Station (ISS) needs to deorbit eventually.

Using Mynaric terminals,, Northrop Grumman conducted a ground demonstration of optical communications for the U.S. Space Development Agency's low Earth orbit constellation

Contec said June 10 that it had raised 61 billion won ($47.3 million) in a Series C funding round to pursue its goal of building a global ground station network and operating its own Earth observation satellites.

A SpaceX cargo Dragon mission to the International Space Station will now launch no earlier than July 11, a delay of more than a month after engineers identified the source of elevated hydrazine readings in the spacecraft.

NASA and SpaceX have delayed Cargo Dragon’s CRS-25 space station resupply mission another two weeks after the company narrowed down the cause...

China's Xidian University has completed what it calls the world’s first full-link and full-system ground test system for space-based solar power.

BlueHalo won an $11 million contract from AFRL to develop a pair of optical laser communications terminals and a ground station.

Former AFRL directed energy director Kelly Hammett on June 6, 2022, took over as head of the Space Rapid Capabilities Office

Planet revealed the value of its largest contract to date, a two-year $146 million award from the National Reconnaissance Office to provide imagery over two years, during the company’s June 14 earnings call.

SpaceX has secured environmental approval from the FAA and relevant federal, state, and local stakeholders to conduct orbital Starship launches on the...

Atlas Space Operations announced a Defense Innovation Unit contract June 8 to demonstrate a hybrid network to link Defense Department, civil government and commercial satellites.

An FAA environmental review has concluded that SpaceX can conduct orbital launches of its Starship vehicle from its Texas test site, but only after completing dozens of mitigations to reduce impacts on the environment and the public.

The maiden flight for Ariane 6 that had been slated toward the end of 2022 is now targeting next year, European Space Agency Director General Josef Aschbacher said June 13.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Monday outlined more than 75 actions SpaceX has to implement in order to reduce the environmental effects of flying its gigantic 40-story-tall Starship rocket from South Texas, but the federal regulator found no significant impacts and moved SpaceX a step closer to receiving a launch license.

Germany startup Okapi: Orbits raised 5.5 million euros ($5.7 million) in a seed funding round led by Munich Re Ventures with participation from Dolby Family Ventures, Herius Capital and APEX Ventures.

AST SpaceMobile said June 13 that SpaceX aims to launch the prototype for its cellphone-compatible broadband constellation in the week of Aug. 15.

Scientists will discuss new research from NASA missions – on topics ranging from exoplanets to citizen science discoveries – at the 240th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS).

The nonprofit that runs the national laboratory portion of the International Space Station is not making full use of the advisory group established after an independent review of the organization.

NASA wants Elon Musk's SpaceX to ensure its plan to launch its next-generation Starship rocket from Florida would not put at risk nearby launch infrastructure critical to the International Space Station, a senior space agency official told Reuters.

SpaceX’s two East Coast drone ships have passed each other by as one returned from the company’s most recent Falcon 9 launch...

NASA’s Artemis 1 moon rocket rolled out to pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center on June 6, preparing for another countdown rehearsal later this month to try loading cryogenic propellants into the massive launcher.

Two small NASA hurricane research satellites were destroyed after launch Sunday from Cape Canaveral when their commercial rocket, provided by Astra, prematurely shut down its upper stage engine before reaching the mission’s target orbit.

An Astra launch of two NASA cubesats to monitor tropical storms failed June 12 when the rocket’s upper stage shut down prematurely.

The first of three flights to launch the TROPICS satellites for NASA lifted off on Sunday during at 1:43 PM EDT (17:43 UTC). Astra’s LV0010 vehicle launched from SLC-46 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, making the company’s seventh orbital launch attempt.

The Space Development Agency is looking to acquire as many as 10 satellites to host military payloads for experiments in low Earth orbit.

In early June, the main body of NASA’s upcoming Europa Clipper spacecraft completed construction and was shipped to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California soon after. The arrival of Europa Clipper’s main body marks a major milestone in the construction of the spacecraft and shows that the spacecraft and its teams are on track for a launch in 2024.

The U.S. Space Force recently ordered five military satellite launches from United Launch Alliance and three from SpaceX, awards valued at $846 million for missions scheduled to fly in the next two years.

NASA is targeting Saturday, June 18, for the beginning of the next wet dress rehearsal test of the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with tanking operations on Monday, June 20.

Leaders of NASA’s Lucy asteroid mission are increasingly confident that the mission can continue as planned even if ongoing efforts to fully deploy and latch a solar array don’t succeed.

NASA’s Minority University Education and Research Program (MUREP) Innovation and Tech Transfer Idea Competition (MITTIC), a Shark Tank-style competition for students at minority-serving institutions, is officially included in the 2022 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU) Scholar Recognition Program.

Lockheed Martin has completed the first-time power-up of the Orion capsule for the Artemis 2 mission — the first Orion capsule that will be tasked with carrying humans.

Technological innovation is a big part of the fun of space exploration, and you can help make it happen.

NASA will commission a small independent study of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), a move the agency says is part of its desire to support risky research that has the potential for high payoffs.

A SpaceX Starship prototype that could become the first to launch into space has returned to the company’s Starbase rocket factory after...

NASA says it plans to buy five more crew rotation missions on SpaceX’s fleet of Dragon spaceships, bringing SpaceX’s contract with the space agency to 14 operational astronaut launches, likely enough to keep the International Space Station staffed through 2030.

Astra is preparing to launch the first of three straight dedicated missions for NASA this weekend at Cape Canaveral to deploy six shoebox-size hurricane research satellites, helping pioneer a new paradigm of riskier but less expensive science missions.

NASA and Astra Space are targeting no earlier than Sunday, June 12, for the first launch of NASA's Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS) mission.

A new mobile launch platform that Bechtel is building for NASA will cost up to four times as much as originally planned and could push back the first launch of an upgraded version of the Space Launch System to the late 2020s, a NASA audit concluded.

"We found Bechtel's poor performance is the main reason."

SpaceX’s Starbase is heading into its latest phase of milestones for Starship, with the high likelihood the FAA is close to approving a critical checkpoint for its rapidly reusable launch vehicle, paving the way for the orbital launch attempt of Booster 7 with Ship 24.

Egyptian operator NileSat’s latest communications satellite is ready to move to its final orbit after clearing health checks following its SpaceX launch June 8, according to the spacecraft’s prime contractor.

The U.S. Space Force delivered the first of two military communications payloads that will launch in 2023 on Space Norway’s Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission.

NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT today – Thursday, June 9 – to discuss a new study team the agency is commissioning to examine unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs).

We spoke with the scientists leading the first observations of TRAPPIST-1 using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in order to understand what mysteries their observations will help unlock.

A delay in the launch of NASA’s Psyche asteroid mission is forcing another asteroid mission hitching a ride to revise its plans.