Space

By Mark Carreau
Speculation is mounting over what’s next for U.S. human deep-space exploration following the Nov. 3 presidential election, but one noted space historian believes the U.S. will still land on the Moon within 10 years.
Space

By Tony Osborne
A consortium of British space companies is calling on the UK government to make key investments in space capabilities as an initiative to boost and shape the UK’s future economy.
Space

By Irene Klotz
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 15, sending a Crew Dragon spacecraft with four astronauts on its way to the International Space Station, the first U.S. government-certified flight of a commercially developed crewed orbital transportation system.
Space

By Irene Klotz
NASA and SpaceX are delaying the launch of the resident crew ferry flight to the International Space Station by one day due to expected high winds at the launch site and poor weather for booster recovery at sea.
Space

By Thierry Dubois
The European Space Agency has awarded three contracts to Airbus and Thales Alenia Space as part of Copernicus Expansion, an addition to the existing, wide-ranging Copernicus Earth observation program.
Space

By Jen DiMascio, Irene Klotz
SpaceX Founder, CEO and Chief Engineer Elon Musk has received two positive and two negative test results for COVID-19, he said on Twitter Nov. 13.
Commercial Space

By Irene Klotz
Virgin Galactic Chief Operating Officer Enrico Palermo will become the new head of the Australian Space Agency.
Space

By Mark Carreau
Achieving a return to the Moon’s surface with human explorers by 2024 tops a list of seven signature management and performance challenges that NASA faces over the coming decade, an assessment from the agency’s inspector general says.
Space

By Bill Carey
Aireon on Nov. 12 announced an agreement with the FAA allowing the agency access to its satellite-routed aircraft surveillance data to evaluate different air traffic control applications.
Safety, Ops & Regulation

By Michael Bruno
Raytheon Technologies has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Blue Canyon Technologies, a pioneering provider of small satellites and spacecraft systems components, for about $350 million.
Commercial Space

By Mark Carreau
The $3.84 billion lunar-orbiting, human-tended Gateway that NASA envisions as part of a long-term strategy to establish a sustained human presence at the Moon is unlikely to be in place in time to support the Trump administration’s goal of returning astronauts to the lunar surface in 2024, an audit by the agency’s inspector general says.
Space

By Irene Klotz
NASA and SpaceX on Nov. 10 completed the Flight Readiness Review for the first post-shuttle, operational International Space Station (ISS) crew rotation mission from the U.S., paving the way for a launch attempt of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 7:49 p.m. EST on Nov. 14 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Space

President-elect Joe Biden has selected an eight-member team of volunteers, headed by Ellen Stofan, former NASA chief scientist and current director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, to oversee the transition of NASA to his administration.
Space

By Mark Carreau
The joint NASA/European Space Agency mission to return samples from Mars’ surface faces a likely cost increase and two-year launch delay to address the challenges needed to achieve a high probability of success, according to an unusual, early independent review of the complex effort.
Space

By Lee Hudson
U.S. Chief of Space Operations Gen. John Raymond has focused the Space Force’s inaugural year on investing in resiliency, building next-generation capabilities and the establishment of a Space Warfighting Analysis Center.
Air Dominance

By Thierry Dubois
Ride-share schemes for small satellites are here to stay and, along with constellations and geostationary spacecraft, will contribute to solid activity in the near term, senior executives of launch service operators say.
Commercial Space

By Jen DiMascio, Steve Trimble, Lee Hudson
SDA director Derek Tournear joins Aviation Week editors on Check 6 to discuss how its system of space tracking and transport satellites will revolutionize the U.S. military and the challenges it will face along the way.
Air Dominance

By Thierry Dubois
Now planned from 2021-23, the transition between the current Ariane 5 and its successor may be complex for Arianespace.
Commercial Space

By Mark Carreau
Working through unfunded Space Act Agreements with 17 U.S. companies, NASA has selected 20 space technologies it intends to help advance to enable future activities at destinations spanning from low Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars.
Commercial Space

By Steve Trimble
Slightly over 18 months since the Space Development Agency's launch, the first two elements of its future constellation are now defined and under contract.
Space

By Mark Carreau
NASA is striving to complete a series of eight critical Green Run tests of the Space Launch System core stage by year’s end, a milestone that in late September it had planned to achieve in early November before Hurricane Zeta struck the Gulf Coast.
Space

By Mark Carreau
The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico has experienced another cable break, this one to a main cable which gave way late Nov. 6.
Commercial Space

By Irene Klotz
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tells Aerospace DAILY the new administration will need "somebody they know and trust."
Space

By Mark Carreau
The sample material recently gathered from the asteroid Bennu’s surface by NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft shows evidence for containing the water and organic chemistry that mission scientists were hoping will be returned to Earth, scientists say.
Space

By Steve Trimble
An attempt to rapidly field Tranche 0 satellites for a new Tracking Layer in low Earth orbit faces delays after two companies filed protests seeking to overturn contract awards by the Space Development Agency.
Space