Space news

India staked new claim as a national superpower in space, landing its Chandrayaan-3 mission safely on the moon’s unexplored south pole on Wednesday.

A payload adapter that is the target of a European debris cleanup mission may have itself been damaged by a debris impact.

Following the Flight Readiness Review (FRR), NASA and SpaceX gave the go for Crew 7. The launch is scheduled for August 25th...

There is a lot of national fervor surrounding Chandrayaan 3.

The billionaire backing a series of private astronaut missions with SpaceX says the first of those flights will likely be delayed to some time in 2024.

Mynaric, a supplier of laser communications terminals, was selected by the Space Development Agency to design an optical ground station to transmit to and receive data from satellites in low Earth orbit.

After being delayed due to Hurricane Hilary last week, which forced the droneship to retreat to the Port of San Diego, SpaceX...

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is seeking information from the private sector on barriers encountered by commercial remote sensing data providers when doing business with the intelligence community and the Department of Defense.

Payloads: Flow Boiling and Condensation Experiment (FBCE): FBCE Avionics 1 was replaced within the Fluids Integrated Rack (FIR) and test fluid was refilled. A test Module data cable was left capped as the connector was clocked 180 degrees from the expected configuration. Ground teams are assessing to address this issue. FBCE seeks to validate a …

Sidus acquired Pasadena, California-based Exo-Space to expand its “talent, technology and total addressable market,” said Carol Craig, Sidus founder and CEO.

The U.S. Air Force awarded Umbra a $1.25 million contract to demonstrate the capabilities of space-based radar sensors to track moving targets on the ground.

There's no comparison between a partial solar eclipse and a total solar eclipse.

NASA and SpaceX are moving ahead with the launch of a seventh crew rotation mission to the International Space Station this week, remaining vigilant about crewed launches even as they become more routine.

The head of the Russian space agency said today that Luna-25 crashed into the Moon because the spacecraft’s engine fired longer than planned. The trouble began on Saturday when Luna-25 […]

Here are some of the stories you may have missed in the past week. The third week of August 2023 featured SpaceX...

Eutelsat has scheduled a shareholder vote Sept. 28 to get the final approval needed to take over OneWeb after clearing all regulatory hurdles for the multi-orbit merger.

Following several launch delays last week, the week of Aug. 21 through Aug. 27 is set to see seven launches marking the 129th through 135th orbital launch attempts of 2023.

"There is no place for modernization, there is only the mission of survival."

The Pentagon’s Space Development Agency on Monday awarded $1.5 billion in contracts to Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman for prototype communications satellites.

Payloads: Advanced Resistive Exercise Device – Kinematics (ARED-K): The ARED-K Acquisition Unit (AU) in Node 3 was powered on to verify ground connectivity. The ground was successfully able to connect to the AU, and the crew powered off the AU. The ARED-K investigation assesses the current exercise programs to allow for the improvement of exercise …

The Space Development Agency announced Aug. 21 it awarded contracts worth $1.5 billion to Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin to build and operate 72 satellites.

Progress 83P Undock: Sunday afternoon, the Russian Cargo Vehicle Progress 83P, which provided cargo and propellant to the ISS, undocked from the Service Module (SM) Aft port at 6:50 PM CDT. Following departure from the ISS, the vehicle’s thrusters fired to maneuver 83P into a deorbit trajectory to send it into the Earth’s atmosphere where it …

Space infrastructure company Redwire is putting a biotech technology testbed on Sierra Space’s first mission with its inflatable space habitat, establishing a new partnership between the two companies to make drugs in orbit.

Space company Axiom raised $350 million in a round that was led by Saudi-owned Aljazira Capital and Korean healthcare investment firm Boryung, the company announced on Monday.

Axiom Space announced Aug. 21 that it has raised $350 million from Saudi Arabian and South Korean investors to continue development of a commercial space station.

Sierra Space and Redwire are partnering on a biotech experiment platform that will be installed on a Sierra Space commercial space station module in what the companies call a first-of-its-kind arrangement.

On Aug. 19, at 11:10 UTC, the Russian spacecraft Luna 25 performed a planned orbit maneuver. After an eight-day flight and two orbit corrections, it was parked in a circumlunar  90 by 113-kilometer orbit. It was time to transfer to the pre-landing orbit with the parameters of 18 by 100 kilometers. But something went wrong, and at 11:57 UTC, the connection with the spacecraft was lost and it crashed into the Moon.

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of August 20-26, 2023 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess […]

Russia's lunar exploration mission Luna-25, has ended in failure after the spacecraft crashed into the moon's surface; the announcement was made by Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, through a statement on their Telegram on the morning of August 20.

Russia joined the growing list of lunar lander failures today. Luna-25 crashed into the Moon following an anomaly yesterday after a command was sent to change the spacecraft’s orbit. Communications […]

This is a stunning loss for the Russian space program.

Russia’s Luna-25 mission ended in failure after crashing into the moon, space agency Roscosmos has announced.

SpaceX recently installed the new hot staging ring atop Booster 9 that will attempt this new stage separation method. The hot staging...

Russia’s space agency Roscosmos is reporting today that Luna-25 experienced an anomaly after being commanded to adjust its orbit around the Moon in preparation for landing on Monday. Luna-25 is […]

In December 2022, NASA lost contact with its Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) Mars lander, which had been operating on the Martian surface for just over four years. In the time since InSight’s mission was declared over, scientists have continued to analyze the incredible data the lander collected and have made some exciting discoveries.

Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft has encountered an "emergency situation" during a critical maneuver in Lunar orbit.

Russia’s first lunar mission in nearly half a century suffered an “emergency situation” during an attempted maneuver Aug. 19, putting plans for a landing into question.

The fourth and final session of the United Nations Open-Ended Working Group on Reducing Space Threats will take place at the end of this month. Previous discussions at OEWG and […]

SpaceX had its sights set on back-to-back launches from the East and West Coasts. However, only the Florida launch managed to get...

Preparations are taking place at Starbase for the upcoming second Starship test flight, with Booster 9 expected to return to the launch site in the coming days following the installation of its hot staging ring. Future vehicles are also being prepared for flight. At the same time, long-term aspirations are being worked on, with an old, scrapped ship reappearing, now repurposed as the newest test article for NASA’s Human Landing System.

"We don’t believe in signing janky, fake contracts."

German startup POLARIS Spaceplanes has received approval for temporary restricted airspace (ED-R) to begin testing its MIRA spaceplane demonstrator over the waters of the Baltic Sea. MIRA is 4.25 metres long and has a take-off mass of 210 kilograms. The demonstrator’s fiber-reinforced fuselage shell was built for POLARIS by Aachen-based Up2-Tec. It is the company’s […] The post POLARIS to Begin Testing Fourth Spaceplane Demonstrator From September appeared first on European Spaceflight.

Companies in the U.S. space industry are being increasingly targeted by foreign intelligence operations, U.S. intelligence agencies warn.

Poland has become the second European Space Agency member state to reach an agreement to fly an astronaut on a private mission to the International Space Station.

I must confess that I thought I was reading The Onion.

NASA and SpaceX are moving closer to the launch of Crew 7 to the International Space Station as Crew Dragon has arrived...

A Japanese firm developing a constellation of SAR satellites is the latest to turn to Rocket Lab after the bankruptcy of rival launch company Virgin Orbit.

NASA will provide coverage of the upcoming prelaunch and launch activities for the agency’s SpaceX Crew-7 mission with astronauts to the International Space Station.

True Anomaly, a startup based in Denver, opened a manufacturing facility where it plans to produce small satellites designed for surveillance and reconnaissance of objects in space.

SpaceX, Kuiper Government Solutions and Aalyria Technologies were selected for market-research studies on how commercial systems could add capacity to the military’s future low Earth orbit constellation.