Space news

As India prepares to launch its second lunar lander mission, the fate of a second Israeli lander is in doubt after the organization developing it lost a major source of funding.

Chinese private rocket firm Landspace achieved a global first late Tuesday by reaching orbit with a methane-fueled rocket.

The European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is making remarkable progress in its construction, having just surpassed the 50% completion milestone.

China wins Methalox Space Race as Landspace, a private launch provider launches its Zhuque-2 rocket on its second ever flight. The Zhuque-2 experienced a nominal boost phase, stable orbit was confirmed, then the vehicle entered a spin.

Today, NASA received their NASA's Artemis program fleet at NASA Kennedy Space Center; the fleet of specially designed vehicles will transport astronauts on the final leg of their journey to the Moon from Crew Quarters to Launch Complex 39B.

The latest U.S. military budget goes all-in on the notion that resilience will be a core feature of space programs. As evidence, the term surpasses 300 mentions in the Space […]

Astranis set to build, deploy, and operate small geostationary broadband satellite with the capacity to connect up to 2 million people across 5,000 remote and rural communities in the Philippines in new long term contract with Orbits Corp, the satellite services arm of Philippine internet service provider HTechCorp.

Vast Space has appointed former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman as their Human Spaceflight Advisor; a strategic move that not only strengthens Vast Space's position in the commercial space industry but also signifies their commitment to excellence and innovation in the field of human space exploration.

Voyager Space has announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Voyager Space and India aimed at exploring potential of utilizing India's proposed Gaganyaan crewed spacecraft to support its commercial space station operations by the end of the decade.

NASA has directed the Janus project team to prepare the twin small satellite spacecraft for long-term storage after a launch postponement rendered its primary science targets inaccessible.

LandSpace launched its methane-based ZhuQue-2 rocket on Wednesday. This was the rocket’s second launch after its failed maiden flight in December 2022. Initial claims from the company noted a mission success, marking the first methalox rocket to reach orbit.

A Blue Origin rocket engine exploded during testing last month, CNBC has learned, a destructive setback with potential ramifications for the company’s customers as well as its own rocket.

Three for NASA, and one each for India, Russia, and Japan.

Astranis has sold a small broadband satellite launching to geostationary orbit next year to a telco in the Philippines looking for support from the country’s government, the Californian manufacturer announced July 11.

This week, LandSpace reached orbit on its second test flight of the ZhuQue-2 rocket; SpaceX will launch the final v1.0/v1.5 Starlink satellites on Starlink Group 5-15; India will launch the Chandrayaan-3 lunar exploration mission atop their Launch Vehicle Mark 3 rocket; and Rocket Lab will launch its “Baby Come Back” mission, which will include recovery of its first stage.

India’s flurry of technical and political space activities positions the state to become a preeminent space power. New domestic initiatives pave the way by resolving complex bureaucratic challenges. A series of civil and commercial partnerships with the United States build on this progress. To bolster its ascent, India must address remaining gaps in how it intends to govern the commercial-security nexus in space.

Vast Space has brought in a former NASA astronaut and SpaceX official to serve as an adviser for its plans to develop commercial space stations.

Astranis, a San Francisco-based company with an alternative approach to providing internet access from satellites, recently signed a deal to provide dedicated service to the Philippines, a first for the archipelago nation.

Payloads: BioFabrication Facility (BFF): BFF samples were inserted into the Minus Eighty Degree Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI) in preparation of upcoming operations. Using 3D biological printers to produce usable human organs has long been a dream of scientists and doctors around the globe; however, printing the tiny, complex structures found inside human organs, such …

Muon Space will begin delivering space weather data to the U.S. Space Force under a $400,000 contract option announced July 11.

British investment firm Seraphim Space surveyed the Earth observation sector a few years ago, categorizing startups by sensor type. Analysts determined that firms focused on electro-optical and synthetic aperture radar […]

WASHINGTON — NASA awarded task orders to two companies already working on spacesuits for the International Space Station and Artemis missions to develop alternative versions of their suits. NASA announced […]

Faced with dwindling cash and a stock delisting, Astra Space announced plans July 10 to perform a reverse split of its stock and sell up to $65 million of it.

Spacecraft engine manufacturer and small rocket builder Astra plans to conduct a reverse stock split at a 1-to-15 ratio, the company disclosed in a securities filing on Monday

Voyager Space is considering using India’s proposed Gaganyaan crewed spacecraft to serve the commercial space station it aims to be operating by the end of the decade.

In an era of great power competition and increasing global reliance on space-based assets, the U.S. military is trying to harmonize seemingly competing demands for security and sustainability. As a […]

Axiom Space has been awarded a contract by NASA to modify its next-generation Artemis III lunar spacesuit design to enhance NASA's spacewalking capabilities on the ISS.

NASA has awarded Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace task orders under existing contracts to advance spacewalking capabilities in low Earth orbit, as well as moonwalking services for Artemis missions.

With the money raised, Benchmark plans to shift its focus from propulsion system research and development to manufacturing and testing.

Through a project called Destination: Space 2050, Lockheed Martin executives are exploring, for example, how AI could assist scientific exploration of locations where communications with remote sensors would be disrupted by high latency.

The atmosphere is super-saturated with silicate and metal vapors.

It is not uncommon to be faced with a problem but struggle to find a solution. In the case of space sustainability, as low Earth orbit fills with both active […]

ISRO's mission to the Moon's south polar region will deepen our understanding of the Moon.

Recent support from Bremen stands in contrast to budget cut proposals.

Payloads: Dreams: The Dreams Dry-Electroencephalogram (EEG) Headband was setup, charged, and donned before sleeping. The Sleep Monitoring in Space with Dry-EEG Headband (Dreams) is a technology demonstration investigation that utilizes the Dry-EEG Headband: an effective, affordable, and comfortable solution to monitor astronaut sleep quality during long-duration spaceflight aboard the ISS. Sleep plays a major role …

Launching July 9th, at 11:58 p.m. ET (03:58 UTC), the record-breaking Falcon 9 successfully lifted off from Space Launch Complex-40 on Cape...

The Planetary Society is organizing a new space constituency that is educated, empowered, and loud.

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of July 9-15, 2023 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session […]

Utilizing the infrared-sensitive instruments of the joint NASA/European Space Agency (ESA)/Canadian Space Agency (CSA) James Webb Space Telescope, a group of scientists has discovered the most distant active supermassive black hole to date. Located within a galaxy named CEERS 1019 — that existed just 570 million years after the formation of the universe — the black hole is less massive than any other black hole identified in the early universe.

Plasmos, the Los Angeles-based startup developing rocket engines, is pivoting to become an artificial intelligence-driven venture capital firm.

Satellite TV broadcaster Dish Network is rumored to be considering recombining with internet-focused sister company EchoStar to strengthen its financial resources.

As the European Space Agency continues to develop proposals for human space exploration efforts, more European countries are showing an interest in launching astronauts.

The Biden administration has launched a commercial space regulation initiative under the name of “mission authorization,” which is laying the groundwork for a potentially debilitating web of unnecessary regulation on the U.S. commercial space industry. Congress must act quickly to avoid the worst.

Astronauts ride a pillar fire off the planet, so naturally, they encounter some fear along the way. But astronauts confront a host of other stressors in space, too: isolation, sensory deprivation, sleep disruption, pressure, boredom, and close-quarters tension.

NASA is commemorating the first year of science and discoveries from the agency’s James Webb Space Telescope, the largest, most powerful, and most complex space telescope ever built. To celebrate the anniversary, multiple events will take place online and live across the U.S.

It’s said nature abhors a vacuum. The same is true of leadership. In the global space community, a government body is almost always a leading component of a nation’s growing […]

Payloads: International Commercial Experiment Cubes (ICE Cubes) Facility: In a continuation of the troubleshooting, the crew inserted a Solid-State Drive (SSD) into the system’s SSD slot. The ICE Cubes Facility is a capable experiment platform that offers flexibility to host many different experiments for research, technology demonstration or educational objectives. During flight, users are able …

Chinese rocket firm Space Pioneer has secured C-round funding for its Tianlong-3 medium-lift reusable launch vehicle.

SpaceX will launch 48 version 1.5 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force...

"It's not a function of size, rather how much it accelerates our road map."