Space news

For the third consecutive year, bipartisan legislation will be moving through the House and Senate aiming to establish a Space National Guard as a reserve component of the U.S. Space Force.

After successfully launching the first pair of small satellites earlier this month from New Zealand, NASA and Rocket Lab are now targeting no earlier than 1:30 a.m. EDT Monday, May 22 (5:30 p.m. NZST), to launch the second pair of storm tracking CubeSats into orbit.

British cybersecurity software developer Arqit has hired financial adviser Silverpeak to sell its space division following interest from potential buyers, according to a source close to the process.

Payloads: Dreams: The crew doffed the Dreams dry-electroencephalogram (EEG) headband, charged it, and then set it up for a later science session. Sleep plays a major role in human health and well-being. Insufficient sleep or sleep disorders can increase the risk of developing medical conditions, such as cardiovascular diseases, and can impair task performance. The …

Frank Rubio, a NASA astronaut aboard the International Space Station, will speak to students associated with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Latino.

During an event at 10 a.m. EDT Friday, May 19, at NASA Headquarters in Washington, the agency will announce the company selected to develop a sustainable human landing system for the Artemis V Moon mission. The human landing system will take astronauts to and from Gateway in lunar orbit to the surface and back to the spaceship as part of NASA’s ret

If you pay a company like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, or Boeing to go into space, perhaps even perform your own spacewalk, should those companies be bound by safety regulations issued by the FAA? Currently, the answer is “no,” thanks to a law that bans federal regulation of commercial space enterprises.

China’s human spaceflight agency is seeking to foster a commercial, low-cost transportation system to deliver cargo to and from its Tiangong space station.

Two startups that went public through SPAC mergers say they are pressing ahead with plans despite warnings that they are running perilously low on cash.

SpaceX and Axiom Space will have only two opportunities this month to launch a private astronaut mission to the International Space Station before having to wait potentially several months before getting another shot.

As the countdown begins for the final launch of the Ariane 5 rocket, the space industry prepares to bid farewell to one of the most reliable workhorse rockets in recent history.

Just over six months ago the European Space Agency (ESA) revealed the much-anticipated Ariane 6 would debut by the end of 2023, but now in the second quarter of the year, it is becoming clearer that the heavy-lift rocket won’t fly until 2024.

The upcoming Starlink production facility in Bastrop, Texas, is nearing construction completion, which could become a sales growth driver shortly. Until recently,...

The U.S. Space Force sees growing support from Congress for its plans to build large constellations in low Earth orbit and other priorities the service laid out in its 2024 budget request, the vice chief of space operations said May 15.

Italy’s space agency has awarded local companies 235 million euros ($256 million) in pandemic relief funds for an in-orbit servicing demo in 2026, the group’s leader Thales Alenia Space announced May 15.

Virgin Orbit, the satellite launch company founded by Richard Branson, has announced an extension of the deadline for bids as part of its bankruptcy auction process.

The four astronauts who will fly around the Moon on NASA’s Artemis II will visit Washington Wednesday, May 17, through Friday, May 19, to discuss their upcoming mission and are available for a limited number of in-person media opportunities.

France's Zephalto has announced its plans to offer stratospheric balloon flights to adventurous passengers starting in 2025.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has announced the termination of the Lunar Flashlight mission, just five months after its launch.

In a triumph of engineering persistence, the radar antenna on the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) mission, a European Space Agency (ESA) venture, has finally deployed after being stuck for weeks.

Astroscale and Momentus have annouced they have partnered together to present NASA a plan to raise the orbit of the Hubble Space Telescope.

China’s secretive reusable spaceplane has completed its second mission, successfully landing on May 8th after spending 276 days in orbit.

The United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) can’t advance the governance necessary to meet the needs of today’s space sector. To fix the problem, COPUOS needs to rethink its approach to consensus decision-making.

Brightline has announced that it has become the first in its industry to provide Starlink satellite broadband to its customers.

Kathy Lueders, the most recent top human spaceflight official at NASA, has joined Elon Musk’s SpaceX after retiring from the agency a couple of weeks ago, CNBC has learned.

Payloads: Airborne Particulate Monitor (APM): The crew checked the APM hardware and display, then notified the ground team of the status. Air quality in crewed spacecraft is important for keeping astronauts healthy and comfortable. Although requirements exist for maximum allowable concentrations of particulate matter, currently no measurement capability verifies whether these requirements are met. APM …

"I think it would be pretty ambitious... but really great if we could pull it off."

NASA has ended the mission of a cubesat intended to go into orbit around the moon but which was unable to do so because of problems with its propulsion system.

A radar antenna on a newly-launched European mission to Jupiter has finally deployed after weeks of effort to loosen a stuck pin.

On May 14, 1973, the final Saturn V rocket lifted off to deploy Skylab, America’s first space station. Despite a troubled start to its life, Skylab pioneered long-duration spaceflight, and fifty years later lessons learned in this program are still contributing to the success of the International Space Station.

Two companies have disclosed details about how they could raise the orbit of the Hubble Space Telescope as NASA evaluates that and other concepts offered to the agency.

SpaceX launched another batch of 56 Starlink internet communication satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) on Sunday, May 14, at 01:03 EDT (05:03 UTC). Launching from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, in Florida, the Starlink Group 5-9 mission marks SpaceX’s fourth launch in May.

Virgin Orbit has extended the deadline for bids as part of its bankruptcy auction process that the company says has attracted interest from dozens of potential bidders.

In a May 11 draft solicitation, the agency laid out its requirements for 100 “Alpha” satellites that will be part of a mesh network known as Transport Layer Tranche 2.

NASA will announce the second phase winners of its Deep Space Food Challenge, a global competition to help develop innovative food systems for future spacefarers on long-term exploration missions, on Friday, May 19.

Action finally returned to the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) as the Vulcan-Centaur rocket rolled out to the pad on May 11 for further testing ahead of its debut flight. Meanwhile, ULA offloaded its final Delta IV Heavy rocket from their Rocketship vessel.

A shrinking broadcast business led to another drop in revenues for Eutelsat as the French satellite operator edges closer to merging with OneWeb, the low Earth orbit constellation set to boost its shift into connectivity services.

NASA, Axiom Space, and SpaceX will provide coverage of the upcoming prelaunch and launch activities for Axiom Mission 2 (Ax-2), the second private astronaut mission to the International Space Station.

With further Ariane 6 delays, Europe has missed a huge opportunity.

NASA is holding a public meeting at 10:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday, May 31, of its independent study team on categorizing and evaluating data of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). The agency also will host a media teleconference at the conclusion of the meeting.

Using the joint NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, a group of astronomers has directly imaged three dusty disks — the outermost being an asteroid belt — surrounding a young star. The outermost of the disks was first discovered by NASA’s Infrared Astronomical Satellite in 1983 and has since been imaged in detail by the Hubble Space Telescope, Herschel Space Observatory, and the Atacama large millimeter/submillimeter array (ALMA). However, none of the images from Hubble, Herschel, or ALMA allowed scientists to determine the internal structure of the disk or the existence of additional disks — until now.

RS Extravehicular Activity (EVA) #58: Today, ISS CDR Sergey Prokopyev (EV1) and FE-2 Dmitry Petelin (EV2) performed RS EVA #58 with Andrey Fedyaev supporting as the Intravehicular (IV) operator. The trio performed a multitude of tasks in order to deploy and integrate the MLM [РТОд] radiator. The MRM2 hatch opened at 10:46 AM CDT and …

As we find ourselves amidst a tectonic technology shift, adopting AI systems will undoubtedly prove critical in protecting our national security and our space infrastructure.

Intuitive Machines says its first lunar lander mission has slipped into the third quarter of this year as pursues a wider range of business opportunities.

"If we’re going to have sovereign space capabilities ... we need somewhere to launch from."

A Space Force office created to work with the commercial space industry is opening up a new facility in Chantilly, Virginia.

United Launch Alliance plans to resume tanking tests of its Vulcan Centaur rocket and test fire its main engines as early as next week, the company announced May 11.

AT&T requested regulatory permission May 10 to lease AST SpaceMobile the wireless spectrum the venture needs to connect smartphones in the United States to its planned constellation.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awarded a contract to L3Harris Technologies to continue providing ground services for the current generation of geostationary weather satellites.

A key Ariane 6 supplier expects the rocket to make its first launch within a year, but ruled out any chance the vehicle could fly before the end of 2023.