“Honey, I shrunk the NASA payload,” is a global crowdsourcing initiative unveiled by the space agency on April 9 to significantly reduce the size of rugged instruments, sensors and experiments that can be launched to the Moon.
NASA has selected Masten Space Systems, of Mojave, California, to launch, land and oversee operations of eight science payloads at the lunar south pole for at least 12 days in 2022 under its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
Australian nanosat startup Sky and Space Global has entered voluntary administration—a process similar to Chapter 11 U.S. bankruptcy—after posting losses of more than AUS$30 million ($18.5 million) in 2019.
NASA will invest $7 million to advance a range of 23 early stage technologies with the potential to hasten the journey of humans to Mars and increase the odds of success for robotic missions selected to explore potentially habitable extrasolar planets and ocean worlds.
The last of the SpaceX Dragon resupply capsules launched to the International Space Station (ISS) under an initial round of NASA commercial resupply contracts returned to Earth on April 7.
Discovered on Dec. 28, 2019, the puffy greenish Comet Atlas C/2019 Y4 rapidly brightened in the northern night sky near the Big Dipper as it raced toward the Sun.
President Donald Trump on April 6 signed a new national space policy directive reaffirming U.S. commitment to the commercial use of resources in space and encouraging international support for the policy.
A third SpaceX Starship prototype was destroyed early April 3 during a tanking pressurization test with cryogenic nitrogen to simulate flight temperatures and pressures.
NASA’s long-term strategy for a sustained human exploration of the Moon is to produce scientific, economic and geopolitical dividends as well as establish a sustainable proving ground for longer missions to Mars—and all executed with commercial partners and global alliances.
NASA is reviving its stylized “worm” logo, the popular version of the acronym for the agency’s full name that was retired in 1992 following a 17-year run.
The Space Development Agency plans to issue a request for proposals for an initial tranche of 20 satellites that will begin to form a low-latency network connecting all sensors, shooters and data from all domains of warfare.
Virgin Orbit, a startup small-satellite launch company owned by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, will partner with Oita Prefecture, located on the island of Kyushu in Japan, to develop a horizontal launch site for its air-launched LauncherOne service.
Taiwanese space launch company Tispace has rescheduled its first flight to June in response to the COVID-19 crisis while continuing development work and preparing for production.
More than 12,000 well-educated aspirants representing every U.S. state and territory have applied for an uncertain and perhaps modest number of openings in NASA’s astronaut corps.
The global space economy showed strong momentum in 2019 but faces a significant challenge going forward due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Space Foundation cautions in the first quarterly installment of its annual economic assessment.
The Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center has awarded two contracts worth up to $500 million each to Raytheon and L3Harris Technologies to develop and produce new, secure modems.
Over the next three to six months, the Department of the Air Force is transferring 23 missions from the U.S. Air Force to the Space Force, expanding the nascent service’s responsibilities.
