Space news

Payloads: ADvanced Space Experiment Processor (ADSEP): The ADSEP hardware was installed and activated. A Tissue Cassette was inserted for equipment check out. ADSEP is a thermally controlled single-middeck-locker equivalent that accommodates up to three cassette-based experiments that can be independently operated. Its companion hardware consists of a collection of several experiment cassettes, each doubly or …

A Chinese space launch company has outlined its plans for a series of solid and reusable rockets for launch services and space tourism and opened a new industrial base.

Xplore, a startup based in Redmond, Washington, announced Jan. 31 it was granted a remote-sensing license for the company's first mission to low Earth orbit.

Los Angeles-based Embedded Ventures kicked off an inaugural $100 million fund, the firm announced Tuesday, as it looks to back companies building for both commercial and national security customers, especially in the space sector.

NASA has effectively reached full utilization of the International Space Station given limitations on crew time and the ability to get cargo to and from the station, an agency official said Jan. 30.

The House Science Committee scored a bipartisan victory Jan. 30 with the passage of a minor commercial remote sensing bill even before the committee’s first meeting of the new Congress.

Lockheed Martin plans to launch the first demonstration mission of its new LM 400 mid-sized satellite bus in 2023.

SpaceX has installed a pair of rocket-catching arms on a tower meant to support the first East Coast launches of its next-generation...

The two men who flew on the first NASA commercial crew mission to the International Space Station in 2020 received a rarely awarded medal from the White House Jan. 31.

Payloads: Actiwatch-Plus (AWP): The crew connected the AWP devices to a Human Research Facility (HRF) rack Universal Serial Bus (USB) hub to charge them and transfer data for subsequent downlink. The Actiwatch-Plus is a waterproof, non-intrusive, sleep-wake activity monitor worn on the wrist of a crewmember and contains a miniature uniaxial accelerometer that produces a …

Inmarsat’s latest geostationary telecoms satellite has arrived at its Florida launch site after a three-day journey from Airbus’ testing facilities in France.

Vice President Kamala Harris will award former NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken the Congressional Space Medal of Honor at 4:15 p.m. EST on Tuesday, Jan. 31. Hurley and Behnken will receive the award for bravery in NASA’s SpaceX Demonstration Mission-2 (Demo-2) to the International Space Station in 2020.

Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station will conduct a spacewalk Thursday, Feb. 2, to continue the installation of hardware for future power system upgrades. The spacewalk is scheduled to begin at 8:15 a.m. EST and last about six and a half hours.

Ten sample tubes, capturing an amazing variety of Martian geology, have been deposited on Mars’ surface so they could be studied on Earth in the future.

Blue Origin has said nothing publicly about the September failure of New Shepard.

A startup with plans to mine asteroids for metals says it will launch its first two missions this year, including one that will fly by a near Earth asteroid.

LeoLabs announced the commissioning Jan. 30 of its West Australian Space Radar to improve tracking of satellites and debris in low-Earth orbit.

NASA says that the astronauts responsible for SpaceX’s first crewed Dragon test flight will be awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor...

SpaceX is less than a month into 2023, but CEO Elon Musk’s wildly ambitious goal of 100 launches in one year is...

Update: To “allow additional time for pre-launch checkouts,” SpaceX has delayed Starlink 2-6 from January 30th to 8:15 am PST (16:15 UTC),...

NASA officials met last week to review its overall exploration architecture, although it was unclear exactly what they agreed to and when they will make it public.

The Commerce Department has outlined the services it proposes to offer free of charge to satellite operators from the space traffic management system it is developing.

European officials say they’re making progress to achieve “strategic autonomy” in space traffic management by building up both capabilities and policy.

Lynk Global is close to completing a ground station in Hawaii as part of plans to connect its growing constellation of small satellites to standard smartphones this spring.

SpaceX could attempt a long-awaited static-fire test of all 33 Raptor engines in its Super Heavy booster as soon as next week, one of the final technical milestones before an orbital launch attempt, a company executive said Jan. 27.

L3Harris announced Jan. 26 it delivered the Navigation Technology Satellite-3 to the U.S. Air Force

Christopher Kubasik, CEO of L3Harris Technologies, said Jan. 27 regulators continue to review the company’s proposed $4.7 billion acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne and expects the merger to close in 2023.

Students from Choctaw Nation Head Start, Jones Academy Elementary, and seven area public schools in Durant, Oklahoma, will have an opportunity this week to hear from a NASA astronaut aboard the International Space Station.

As part of its effort to provide more resources and information to new audiences, NASA has launched new webpages featuring aeronautics information in Spanish. The webpages aim to make aeronautics content more accessible to the Spanish-language community.

Como parte de su empeño por proporcionar más recursos e información a nuevos públicos, la NASA ha lanzado nuevas páginas web con información sobre aeronáutica en español. El objetivo de estas páginas es hacer más accesible el contenido aeronáutico a la comunidad hispanohablante.

Payloads: Muscle Tone in Space (Myotones): Crewmember and operator performed the skin marking and Myotones Device measurements. The Myotones investigation observes the biochemical properties of muscles (e.g. muscle tone, stiffness, elasticity) during long-term exposure spaceflight environment. Results from this investigation can provide a better understanding of the principles of human resting muscle tone. This could …

Since the focus on Martian exploration ramped up in the mid-1990s, most of the familiarity with the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) sequence of landers and rovers to the surface of other planets has taken place against the backdrop of Mars.

As NASA prepares to launch another commercial crew mission with a Russian cosmonaut on board, the agency says it has yet to work out an agreement with Roscosmos on future crew swaps.

After recently investing in Spain’s largest reforestation project, Madrid-based operator Hispasat hopes to use a satellite SpaceX is launching next month to support other sustainability projects across Latin America.

A NASA asteroid smallsat mission that lost its original ride to space is considering alternative missions while also accommodating performance issues with its propulsion system.

"It's time for us to start launching them right here at home."

The U.S. has sanctioned a Chinese small satellite manufacturer for allegedly supplying Russia's Wagner Group with radar satellite imagery of Ukraine to support its combat operations

Top acquisition executive Frank Calvelli said the Space Force must focus on advancing satellites systems for military operations on Earth

SpaceX has begun building a backup launch pad for its Cargo and Crew Dragon spacecraft and says the facility could be ready...

SpaceX has launched its heaviest payload yet for the third time in ten months, demonstrating that it’s still finding ways to improve...

Payloads: BioNutrients-1: BioNutrients-1 Production Packs were hydrated, incubated, and agitated. BioNutrients demonstrates a technology that enables on-demand production of human nutrients during long-duration space missions. The process uses engineered microbes, like yeast, to generate carotenoids from an edible media to supplement potential vitamin losses from food that is stored for very long periods. Specially designed …

I met up with Planet CFO Ashley Fieglein Johnson here in NYC earlier this month, and one thing she said has really stuck with me: “We have to do well in order to do good.”

A Falcon 9 rocket thundered off a launch pad at Cape Canaveral before dawn Thursday with another batch of 56 Starlink satellites, setting a record for the heaviest payload ever launched on a SpaceX rocket at more than 38,000 pounds.

NASA has added another asteroid flyby to its Lucy mission later this year that will provide a test of its capabilities for future encounters.

While Congress provided more funding than NASA requested for an asteroid mission, agency officials said it will not prevent a two-year slip in its launch.

SpaceX has set the stage for a record-breaking Starship booster static fire after the rocket completed a complex fueling test and launch...

Colorado Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper met with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin Jan. 26 and urged him to reverse the Air Force’s decision to relocate U.S. Space Command headquarters

Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican representing Colorado Springs, was named chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces subcommittee.

Payloads: PK-4: The PK-4 HD was packed for return and two new hard drives were inserted. The chamber gas insert valve was switched from Neon to Argon. PK-4 is a scientific collaboration between ESA and the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), performing research in the field of Complex Plasmas: low temperature gaseous mixtures composed of …

NASA has selected six companies to provide early-stage innovations and partnership support services. The services will be provided across multiple NASA centers. The place of performance will be specified in each specific call, with much of the work being performed virtually.