As Virgin Galactic enters final preparations for the first rocket-powered flight of SpaceShipTwo from its Spaceport America operational facility in New Mexico, the company has added two additional pilots to its ranks.
NASA and SpaceX are targeting Nov. 14 for the launch of Crew-1, the first operational crew ferry flight to the International Space Station from U.S. soil in more than 11 years.
Guidance, navigation and control (GNC) software for Stratolaunch’s Talon-A hypersonic flying testbed has passed a preliminary design review and is being readied by developer Draper for loading next year into the vehicle’s flight control computers.
A 15th batch of Starlink satellites reached orbit on Oct. 24, SpaceX’s second launch within a week to build up an initial 1,450-member broadband communications network.
NASA’s Osiris-Rex mission team has announced plans for an Oct. 27 early stow of the spacecraft’s Touch and Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism collection head into the probe’s Sample Return Capsule to minimize the loss of material collected from the asteroid Bennu.
The U.S. Space Force has not closed the door on helping industry fund a “manufacturing on orbit” concept, meaning building parts for satellites while in space, according to the service’s acquisition executive.
NASA’s Osiris-Rex mission team is expediting efforts to secure the material collected from the surface of the asteroid Bennu after a camera scan of the sample container revealed some of the scientific bounty escaping.
NASA recently conducted certification baseline reviews of the three U.S. companies vying to make landers that will transport astronauts to the Moon by 2024—Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX.
The crew of the International Space Station has temporarily sealed the non-life-threatening air leak first noticed a year ago in the Russian Zvezda service module.
The U.S. Space Force aims to establish a new acquisition arm, Space Systems Command, by spring 2021, but the Pentagon is still hammering out the details, according to the chief of space operations.
The first flight of Russia’s new spacecraft Oryol will take place in November or December of 2023, Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos State Corp., told the TASS newswire earlier this month.
One U.S. astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts departed the International Space Station for a safe descent to Earth in remote Kazakhstan late Oct. 21, leaving the orbiting science lab staffed by three crew for at least three weeks as NASA and its Commercial Crew Program partners continue efforts to kickoff regularly scheduled crew launches.
Flying autonomously more than 208 million mi. from Earth, NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft made brief successful contact with the boulder-strewn surface of the asteroid Bennu, according to data from the probe received by the mission operations and science teams on Oct. 20.
Firefly Aerospace, which plans to debut its Alpha small satellite launch vehicle this year, has signed contracts with Spire Global and Geometric Space Corp. for multiple flights.
NASA and the European Space Agency have signed contracts with privately owned Nanoracks to use the company’s Bishop airlock, which is due to be delivered to the International Space Station next month.
Satellite network operators Inmarsat and Hughes Network Systems announced a “strategic collaboration” on Oct. 20 to provide in-flight connectivity designed for commercial airlines in North America.
With the arrival of 60 more Starlink satellites into orbit on Oct. 18 and another 60 due to launch this week, SpaceX intends to roll out public trials of its high-speed internet service before year’s end.
