Space news

The second launch of South Korea’s first domestically built rocket is set for June 21, a delay of a week due to strong winds and a technical glitch.

In-space transportation company Impulse Space Propulsion, which raised $20 million in a seed round earlier this year, announced June 17 it raised another $10 million to help accelerate work on orbital transfer vehicles.

Investors are funding orbital solutions for tracking space objects.

Exploration will always face setbacks, but this week’s Downlink reminds us of the impressive human ability to persevere.

SpaceX appears to be on track to launch a trio of Falcon 9 rockets in as few as 36 hours, beginning with...

SpaceX is launched yet another 53 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit. The liftoff at 12:09 PM EDT (16:08 UTC) on Friday was from the historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This mission marked SpaceX’s second launch of the month, its 24th launch of 2022, and the company’s 50th launch from Pad 39A.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 booster for a record-breaking 13th time Friday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, hauling 53 more Starlink internet satellites into orbit as astronomers renew concerns about the growing brightness of the latest generation of the broadband relay spacecraft.

As SpaceX gears up for another launch of Starlink satellites, astronomers are concerned the company maybe backsliding in its efforts to reduce the brightness of those satellites.

SpaceX has fired employees who helped write and distribute an open letter criticizing Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk's behavior, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing three employees with knowledge of the situation.

The organization that operates an airborne astronomical observatory that NASA is shutting down this year wants to end the project on a high note.

The first satellite in a billion-dollar program to provide the German military with improved radar surveillance imagery from space is set to rocket into a polar orbit Saturday from California’s Central Coast on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff hosted an evening of NASA STEM activities Friday at the Naval Observatory for military families and local students and their families, which included a special screening of Disney Pixar’s Lightyear.

NASA has assigned two veteran astronauts to the first crewed flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft in the latest reshuffling of personnel assigned to the long-delayed mission.

"This is a source of challenge in every launcher development."

The National Space Society and The Planetary Society jointly argue for funding the asteroid-hunting NEO Surveyor mission.

NASA will fly two astronaut test pilots aboard the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission to the International Space Station, where they will live and work off the Earth for about two weeks.

Danish startup Quadsat said June 16 it has secured European Space Agency funding to productize the drones it uses to calibrate and test satellite antennas.

Euroconsult forecasts 120 orbital transport vehicles to be in operation by 2031, according to the consulting firm’s latest Space Logistics Markets report.

SpaceX teams in Florida and California are preparing for three missions from three launch pads in three days, beginning Friday with a launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with a reusable Falcon 9 booster flying for a record 13th time.

The first segment of a new launch tower for SpaceX’s behemoth Starship rocket moved across the Kennedy Space Center late Wednesday to pad 39A, where the company is poised to erect one of the tallest structures at the Cape Canaveral spaceport.

Firefly Aerospace announced June 15 that Tom Markusic, co-founder of the launch vehicle and spacecraft developer, will step down as its chief executive but remain with the company as it prepares for its second launch.

The Senate Armed Services Committee on June 16 voted 23-3 to advance its version of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) in a draft version of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act pushes for changes in military launch services procurement.

Reuters reports that SpaceX has proposed modifying a second Florida launch pad to support Crew Dragon missions after NASA raised concerns about...

D-Orbit has ambitious plans to offer a wide variety of satellite services from active debris removal to space-based cloud computing.

NASA is gearing up for a fourth attempt to perform a fueling test and practice countdown of its Space Launch System ahead of a launch now no earlier than the latter half of August.

OneWeb said June 14 it successfully tested high-speed services on a commercial airliner last month using its low Earth orbit network.

The House Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee on June 15 approved by voice vote a defense funding bill for fiscal year 2023.

The Russian scientific community is speaking out unanimously against the unauthorized activation of the German eROSITA telescope aboard the Russian Spektr-RG space observatory, as suggested by Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy, Italian Space Agency (ASI) President Giorgio Saccoccia, and leadership from the U.S. Embassy in Rome will speak with astronauts aboard the International Space Station this week.

"The teams have really done a great job addressing the issues we saw."

NASA and the European Space Agency announced agreements to cooperate on Earth science and a lunar mission June 15, but agency leaders said they’re still discussing more substantial cooperation on the Artemis program and Mars exploration.

Blue Origin announced June 15 that former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Hyten, will join the company as executive director of the firm’s Club for the Future foundation and as a strategic advisor.

The United States Space Force (USSF)-12 dual-manifested payloads are in final preparations to launch into geosynchronous orbit following today's successful stacking atop their United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 541 rocket.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and ESA (European Space Agency) Director General Josef Aschbacher signed two agreements Wednesday at the ESA Council meeting in Noordwijk, Netherlands, further advancing the space agencies’ cooperation on Earth science and Artemis missions.

NASA and the European Space Agency have agreed that a pathfinder data relay satellite to support missions on the polar regions and the far side of the moon will be launched on a commercial rocket from the United States, deepening trans-Atlantic ties on the Artemis lunar program, officials said Wednesday.

Close approaches between U.S., Chinese, and Russian satellites are prompting calls for norms and better communications.

CEO Elon Musk claims that SpaceX could be ready to attempt Starship’s first orbital launch as early as July. While SpaceX has...

The first orbital transfer vehicle launched by Momentus continues to experience problems and the company says its confidence that the spacecraft can complete its mission has “substantially declined.”

The first test flight of a commercial orbital transfer vehicle from Momentus is suffering from a problem with its solar panels after launching last month on a SpaceX rocket, and the company said Monday that its confidence in completing the spacecraft’s demonstrations has “substantially declined.” The Vigoride 3 space tug was one of dozens of small satellites launched on SpaceX’s Transporter 5 rideshare mission May 25. The spacecraft rode a Falcon 9 rocket into a polar orbit from Cape Canaveral, beginning a variety of communications, Earth observation, tech demo, and research missions. Momentus intended to test the Vigoride spacecraft’s novel water-based propulsion system and deploy nine small customer-owned satellites from the transfer vehicle, but power and communications faults are preventing the mission from completing its objectives, the company said Monday. “We are continuing efforts to address the anomalies, but our level of confidence that we will be able to deploy additional customer satellites from Vigoride and perform some planned operations of the vehicle on this test and demonstration mission has substantially declined,” Momentus said Monday.

SpaceX and OneWeb said June 13 they have reached a spectrum coordination plan that would enable their current and second-generation broadband megaconstellations to coexist.

Belgian startup Aerospacelab announced plans June 14 to establish a new satellite "megafactory” large enough to produce 500 satellites annually.

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is on its way back to Earth after a multi-year, successful mission to the Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) Bennu. The spacecraft is now bringing a sample of Bennu’s surface back for a drop-off at Earth before continuing with an extended mission.

An explosion hit rocket facilities at China’s Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in October 2021, commercial satellite imagery shows.

Sierra Space is creating an astronaut training program led by a company executive and former NASA astronaut as another step in developing a crewed version of its Dream Chaser vehicle and a commercial space station.

Sixteen scientists from the U.S., Europe, Canada, and Japan have been chosen to help future samples from the Red Planet achieve their full potential.

NASA, in partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency), will release the James Webb Space Telescope’s first full-color images and spectroscopic data during a televised broadcast beginning at 10:30 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, July 12, from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.