Los Angeles-area rocket startup ABL Space Systems has closed a Series B investment round of $170 million, with the infusion going toward developing the 1,000-kg class RS1 launch vehicle and GS0 deployable launch system that should see its first launch this year.
The upcoming launch of Russia’s Soyuz MS-18 to the International Space Station with two cosmonauts and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei will initiate a dynamic few weeks of crew exchanges.
The European Space Agency has allotted a combined €10.45 million ($12.5 million) to two UK companies developing microlaunchers for small satellites: Orbex and Skyrora.
The fifth Space-Based Infrared System satellite has arrived at the processing facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, ahead of its anticipated launch from a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on May 17.
Another month, another big announcement from private equity-founded Redwire: this time that the new-space roll up will become a publicly traded company in a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company known to be hunting for aerospace and defense assets.
Canadian space stalwart MDA, which was taken private a year ago by private equity buyer Northern Private Capital, has filed with Canadian securities authorities for an initial public offering of stock worth almost $400 million.
NASA is unveiling a two-phase, multiyear strategy to foster the development of multiple U.S. commercial low Earth orbit free flyers that would take over current International Space Station activities.
With a 23rd successful mission dedicated to deploying its Starlink communications network, SpaceX is closing in on its initial goal of about 1,450 operational satellites to kick off commercial broadband services in the U.S. and other regions.
Developers of the solar electric propulsion (SEP) system for NASA’s Lunar-orbiting Gateway outpost have successfully validated key elements of the design.
United Launch Alliance’s final Delta II rocket has secured its place in history as the newest member of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex’s Rocket Garden, an outdoor exhibit of retired launch vehicles.
China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft—one of a trio of missions that successfully reached Mars in February—will dispatch a companion rover for a targeted mid-May landing on the planet’s surface, Chi Wang, director general of China’s National Space Science Center, said March 23.
NASA’s newly arrived Perseverance rover is preparing to dispatch a small helicopter that accompanied it to Mars for the first demonstration of powered flight on another planet.
The UK is looking to develop a constellation of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance satellites as it expands its defense involvement in space.
Lockheed Martin and Omnispace, a startup targeting satellite-enabled 5G communications, on March 23 announced a “strategic interest agreement” to explore 5G business opportunities from space, and possibly creating the first dual-use commercial- and government-serving platform.
After a two-day delay to conduct additional ground equipment checks, the Soyuz 2.1a rocket flew through clouds above the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan at 2:07 a.m. EDT on March 22.
NASA’s nearly two-decade-long push to establish game-changing commercial partnerships in low Earth orbit operations to expand human exploration and scientific research and grow the economy is broadening its scope to include a new role for private sector communications and navigation assets and services.
Glynn Lunney, a member of the Space Task Group that launched NASA’s human spaceflight operations and the flight director remembered for leading the safe return of the Apollo 13 crew, has died at 84.
International Space Station Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and flight engineers Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Kate Rubins boarded their Russian Soyuz MS-17 on March 19 and undocked from the orbital outpost, reparking 34 min. later at a different module to clear the preferred port for the arrival of the next crew.
President Joe Biden on March 19 nominated former three-term Sen. Bill Nelson, (D-Fla.), to serve as the 14th administrator of NASA, succeeding fellow former U.S. legislator Jim Bridenstine, whose nomination Nelson opposed.
The first fully commercial space launch of the Russian Soyuz 2.1a vehicle in 2021, planned for March 20, is expected to orbit 38 various satellites from 18 countries into three different Sun-synchronous orbits.
Listen in as Nanoracks CEO Jeff Manber predicts that by the end of the year, private space companies will have more discretionary money to spend than the U.S. federal government.
The Pentagon is diversifying the U.S. early missile warning portfolio with a mix of satellite types and sizes in different orbits to prevent unwanted missile attacks.
