Working with Nanoracks, LLC, NASA is about to mark a milestone in its push to transition oversight of human scientific research and tech development in low Earth orbit to the private sector as it sets its sights on the Moon and Mars.

Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, the FAA is busier than it has ever been licensing commercial space launches, officials said Sept. 14.

After repeated attempts to sell a solid-propellant, heavy-lift space launcher to the U.S. national security community, Northrop Grumman is discontinuing work on its Omega rocket, the company said Sept. 10.

The air navigation service provider of Hong Kong will introduce satellite-based surveillance of aircraft in its flight information region beginning early next year, data provider Aireon announced Sept. 9.

NASA is turning to its Commercial Lunar Payload Services providers to bid on the delivery of 10 science investigations and technology demonstrations to a nonpolar region of the Moon in 2022.

While NASA strives through the Artemis Accords to promote peaceful efforts to explore the Moon, the Vienna-based Moon Village Association is assessing how to achieve a similar outcome through its Best Practices for Sustainable Lunar Activity.

The Electron rocket’s kick stage that dispatched a small satellite into orbit for on Aug. 31 has become a free-flying demonstration of Rocket Lab’s Photon satellite platform, the company disclosed Sept. 3.

The launch was shared among 21 customers. Applications for the spacecraft range from Earth observation to telecommunications to science, technology and education.