Space news

Six members of California’s congressional delegation sent a letter to NASA Adminstrator Bill Nelson today urging him not to scale back Mars Sample Return funding right now. Saying they are […]

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has selected Jenni Gibbons to serve on the Artemis II Backup Crew.

Chinese launch startup Landspace has unveiled plans to develop a reusable stainless steel rocket.

Just days after announcing the completion of Tenacity, Sierra Space confirmed on November 17th that it had laid off 165 employees who had been instrumental in assembling the Tenacity.

A proposal to review satellite transmission power limits risks curtailing investments and innovation in geostationary orbit where space companies such as Viasat operate, an executive for the operator warned.

SpaceX's proposed concept of operations for the Starship lunar lander under the Human Landing System (HLS) program involves multiple launches of the Starship/Super Heavy system, which will require rapid turn around of both Starship launch facilities.

World View has officially terminated its plans to go public through a special purpose acquisition company merger with Leo Holdings.

Members of Congress are asking NASA not to slow down work on the Mars Sample Return (MSR) program now while also lobbying fellow members to provide more money for the effort in 2024.

Engineers will go beyond the ends of the Earth to find more performance for future Mars helicopters.

Payloads: Advanced Resistive Exercise Device-Kinematics (ARED-K):  The ARED-K acquisition unit was deployed to allow verification and troubleshooting of data pathways needed to support experiment operations. Resistive exercise is used as a countermeasure to musculoskeletal deconditioning in microgravity and currently ISS crews perform resistive exercise using ARED. However, a major unknown is the internal bone and muscle …

Zurich-based Beyond Gravity has announced a reusable fairing concept that would be recovered along with the first stage of a rocket. Traditional fairings are created in two halves and cover the rocket’s payload bay. Once in space, the two fairing halves spit off, and the rocket’s second stage continues onward to deploy the payload. At […] The post Beyond Gravity Unveils Reusable Fairing Concept appeared first on European Spaceflight.

"Along this loop is a set of red rock hoodoos that pop out of seemingly nowhere."

While NASA seeks to maintain an uninterrupted human presence in low Earth orbit, an agency official said a short-term gap between the International Space Station and commercial successors would not be “the end of the world.”

The United Kingdom has announced plans to join the Atlantic Constellation partnership, committing more than £3 million to build a pathfinder satellite. In September, Spain signed an agreement with the European Space Agency for the contracting and technical management of the Constelación Atlántica (Atlantic Constellation). The aim of the constellation is to provide data that […] The post The UK to Contribute More Than £3M to the Atlantic Constellation appeared first on European Spaceflight.

Satellogic has received a remote sensing license in the United States, the Earth observation operator announced Nov. 21 as it moves operations to the country from Uruguay in search of more government business.

Following a busy week for SpaceX with the launch of two Starlink missions and the second launch of Starship, SpaceX is currently on track to meet its 100 launch goal of 2023. The first launch of the week will be on Tuesday, with a Falcon 9 placing 23 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit (LEO). On Thursday, ExPace is expected to launch an unknown payload on its Kuaizhou 1A rocket, followed shortly by Roscosmos launching a Bars-M payload on a Soyuz 2.1a.

The U.S. Space Force is on track to launch at least two weather monitoring spacecraft next year while determining a long-term replacement for its aging satellites

Lunar rover developer Astrolab announced eight customers have signed contracts worth more than $160 million for its first mission to the moon in 2026.

"Personally, I don't think that would be the end of the world."

Payloads: Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE): The recently installed external AWE experiment has been activated, but the team is currently working through some data issues at its EXPRESS Logistics Carrier (ELC1) location. From its external space station perch, AWE will focus on colorful bands of light in Earth’s atmosphere, called airglow, to determine what combination of …

ArianeGroup has begun testing what it considers to be a versatile answer to numerous challenges facing European spaceflight.

The German space agency DLR completed the first flight test of its Red Kite solid rocket motor that will power European sounding rockets. Development of the Red Kite rocket motor began in 2019 as a joint project between DLR and Bayern-Chemie. Red Kite is a one-tonne class solid rocket motor that can be utilized in […] The post DLR Successfully Tests its New Red Kite Solid Rocket Motor appeared first on European Spaceflight.

Webb reveals the Sagittarius C region of the Milky Way.

NASA says the first crewed launch of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner vehicle remains on schedule for the middle of April as the company completes work to resolve the latest technical problems with the vehicle.

NASA expects that a Mars smallsat mission will be on the first launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn launch vehicle within a year, although with some risk about whether the rocket will be ready in time.

As the International Space Station celebrates its 25th anniversary, the Director of NASA’s Commercial Space Division said today that the agency is working closely with partners to avoid a space […]

As the International Space Station celebrates its 25th anniversary, the Director of NASA’s Commercial Space Division said today that the agency is working closely with partners to avoid a space […]

the world’s heaviest commercial communications satellite, is performing as expected after deploying solar arrays and antennas in geostationary orbit.

The long-awaited crewed launch of Starliner has gained increased positivity that its latest launch date will remain on target, following numerous slips since the maiden uncrewed flight to the International Space Station (ISS).

The stage is set for a global showdown four years in the making for access to the radio waves needed for communications in space, on Earth, and everywhere in between.

An undisclosed customer is paying MDA 180 million Canadian dollars ($131 million) to start engineering a non-geostationary constellation of 36 satellites.

Government officials leading the U.S. delegation said their top priorities are to ensure spectrum access for next-generation wireless services and to boost U.S. growth in the space economy.

On just its second flight, Starship now is arguably as successful as NASA's SLS rocket.

Payloads: Cell Gravisensing-2: Following the completion of the six-day experiment session last week, today the crew removed the observation chamber from the Confocal Space Microscope, and returned the microscope to its nominal configuration. Recent spaceflight experiments have revealed that individual animal cells can feel the effects of gravity. However, how cells can sense gravity is …

The European Space Agency has launched a call for ideas to develop self-sufficient life support systems that address the challenges of extended space missions in low Earth orbit and beyond. Sustaining life in space requires considerable amounts of water, oxygen, and food. The consumption of those resources then generates waste, which is an equally challenging […] The post ESA Launch Call to Develop Life Support Systems for Space appeared first on European Spaceflight.

China has added a United Arab Emirates’ university to its list of partners for the country’s moon base ambitions.

"We had a lovely string of clear nights in late September and early October."

Sierra Space laid off 165 employees who had been working on its Dream Chaser vehicle as part of what the company described as efforts to realign its workforce to other projects.

World View, the stratospheric ballooning company that has offered an alternative to spacecraft for applications from remote sensing to space tourism, has terminated plans to go public through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger.

Rocket engine startup Ursa Major plans to break into the solid rocket motor market, the company announced Nov. 20.

In 2008, observations from NASA’s now-retired Spitzer infrared space telescope hinted at the presence of neon within the protoplanetary disk of Sun-like star SZ Chamaeleontis (SZ Cha). However, Spitzer’s instruments could not confirm whether this reading was correct. Over a decade after Spitzer’s results were published, the joint NASA, European Space Agency, and Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope observed SZ Cha and directly detected distinct amounts of neon in the protoplanetary disk of SZ Cha — confirming Spitzer’s observations from 2008.

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the next TWO weeks, November 19-December 2, 2023 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are […]

A year after the launch of the Artemis 1 mission, NASA is continuing to study the performance of the heat shield on the Orion spacecraft, a review that may take several more months to complete.

On November 18th at 7:02am CT, SpaceX launched the second integrated flight test of Starship.

As the 2030 deadline for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals fast approaches, the global digital divide stubbornly persists. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) counts more than 2.7 billion people worldwide […]

Following a brief hold at t minus 40 seconds, Starship took to the morning skies just after 7 a.m. CT from Starbase,...

The second orbital flight test of SpaceX’s Starship rocket got further than the first, but still fell short of the goal.  The giant rocket lifted off and the two stages […]

SpaceX’s Starship vehicle reached space on its second integrated test flight Nov. 18 but broke apart late in its ascent after successfully demonstrating the performance of its booster and a new stage separation technique.

SpaceX's Starship reached an altitude of 148 kilometers shortly after the vehicle's Super Heavy booster broke apart moments after separation.

SpaceX launched its second Starship rocket flight on Saturday, with the company pushing development of the mammoth vehicle past new milestones.