Boeing says successful tests of an all-composite cryogenic fuel tank at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center clear the way for large-scale application of the lightweight technology in future spacecraft and aircraft.

A day after delivering a classified National Reconnaissance Office satellite into orbit from California, SpaceX returned its attention to building its Starlink broadband communications network with a midafternoon Feb. 3 launch of another Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center.

Engineers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore have begun a three-month process to align the 18 segments of the James Webb Space Telescope primary mirror, fine-turning its shape so that it operates as a unified, 21-ft.-dia. mirror, NASA said on Feb. 3.

An entrepreneur with a background in space companies and an aerospace-focused investment group are partnering to launch a new company, O-G, that aims to provide microgravity and low Earth orbit (LEO) insertion services.

For the second mission in a row, one of four main parachutes used by SpaceX Dragon capsules inflated late, NASA confirmed on Feb. 3.

NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover and its companion Ingenuity drone helicopter are turning their focus to the remnants of a stream delta that was perhaps the site of a wet, habitable environment more than 3.5 billion years ago.

The startup, which is planning to perform its first launch from Space Hub Sutherland on the Scottish mainland later this year, is the first UK-based launch provider to disclose that it has applied for such a license. 

The International Space Station (ISS) partnership gave its formal blessing for the four-member Axiom-1 (Ax-1) crew to visit the orbital outpost, with launch aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule now slated for March 30, a day earlier than previously planned.