Space

Virgin Galactic’s founding CEO George Whitesides is relinquishing daily management of the fledgling space tourism company to focus on future programs, including point-to-point hypersonic and orbital space transportation, the company said on July 15.

The first Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is about halfway through an eight-part Green Run test program at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, with a full-duration static firing of the booster’s four Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25 engines expected in October, Boeing Vice President and SLS Program Manager John Shannon said on July 15.

Northrop Grumman’s Minotaur IV rocket ended a nearly three-year hiatus with a July 15 launch from Wallops Island, Virginia, to put a quartet of classified satellites into orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

With bleak weather forecast, the United Arab Emirates’ Mars Hope mission, which was slated to lift off on July 17 from Japan’s Tenegashima Space Center, faces a second launch delay.

The first entirely Chinese mission to Mars may depart within two weeks, following arrival of the spacecraft at the Wenchang launch base on Hainan island.

The Defense Innovation Unit’s plans call for establishing an unmanned orbital outpost in low Earth orbit initially.

The commercial human lander system is a critical part of the Trump administration’s directive that NASA accelerate its return to the surface of the Moon with human explorers from 2028 to 2024.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Hayabusa 2 asteroid sample return mission will drop off materials from the asteroid Ryugu as it passes by Earth on Dec. 6 Japan time.

Poor weather at Japan’s Tenegashima Space Center is prompting a delay of the United Arab Emirates’ Mars Mission to no earlier than July 17.

Interest in the human and robotic exploration of the Moon and Mars is on the rise—politically influenced budgets, the global economy and COVID-19 pandemic permitting.

The British government and Bharti Global’s joint offer for the OneWeb satellite constellation has been given the nod by U.S. judges.

As Europe strengthens its focus on the environment, ESA prepares for massive spending on new-generation Earth observation satellites.

The KZ-11 solid-propellant space launcher of Chinese state company Expace failed on its first flight on July 10.

Objectives include surveying the topography and geology of Mars, its physical fields, atmosphere, ionosphere and climate.

Our roundup of the main aerospace and defense stories making the news this week.

With the interplanetary highway to Mars poised to open next week, spacecraft owned by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and NASA have been loaded onto their respective launch vehicles at Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center and Cape Canaveral.

Why things happen the right way when nothing is left to chance.

U.S. Military bureaucracy has neglected serious risks to the system and its users for decades.

UK government sees OneWeb acquisition as a steppingstone to sovereign global navigation system.

NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is looking at suborbital flights.

Here is a look at missions that have landed and attempted to land on Mars, as well as upcoming projects by the U.S., China and Europe.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has a strategy for winning support from a Republican-led Senate for NASA’s full $25.2 billion fiscal 2021 budget request, after Democrat-led House authorizers voted against a requested 12% topline increase.

NASA and Boeing have completed a joint review of software and verification problems that cut short the uncrewed flight test of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, resulting in 80 recommendations to be implemented prior to a repeat test targeted for late this year.

UAE and China are looking for Mars debuts, joining eight spacecraft currently operating at the Red Planet.

The Mars InSight lander’s mission team has decided to give its 6-ft.-long robot arm a rest from applying pressure into the red planet’s surface.