Space

NASA is asking for $500 million more in fiscal 2016 than it received from Congress last year to try to meet its many obligations.

Since unveiling plans in January to build rival networks of hundreds, or even thousands, of Internet satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), SpaceX and OneWeb are prompting comparisons with past ventures that flopped, among them Teledesic and Skybridge, two well-financed start-ups whose visions of delivering high-speed broadband to the masses were thwarted by technical setbacks.

Controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are setting up NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Earth-observation satellite following its Jan. 31 launch into polar orbit from Vandenberg AFB, Calif.

NASA and its commercial crew partners open up about their plans, now that the legal hurdles have been cleared.

Early work is underway on an expendable version of the space shuttle main engine, which will power the heavy-lift Space Launch System.

SpaceX-USAF legal settlement offers little near-term gain for SpaceX, but it appears to serve the company’s strategic goals.

The Rise and Fall of a Launch Monopoly?

Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have reached into their bag of tricks to keep NASA’s solar-propelled Dawn probe in good shape to enter orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres, its second stop in the main asteroid belt.

Test-flight data for the Orion crew capsule heat shield will be important in the redesign process.

Canadian startup UrtheCast seeks to secure its future with revenues from imagery services and ISS commercial experiments.

Global demand for Earth-observation satellites booming, mainly from emerging countries lacking their own space programs.

Thanks to relatively abundant power, improved data links and a unique orbit, the ISS is an attractive vantage point for instruments designed to study Earth. Researchers are taking notice.

France seeks European partners for Musis imaging satellite program.

SpaceX has agreed to drop its lawsuit against the U.S. Air Force. In return, the service is vowing to increase the number of launches it plans to compete.

A preview of programs and issues to watch for during the first week of February, when the Pentagon makes its budget request to Congress.

Dueling global satellite Internet systems could be on the horizon if plans by SpaceX and OneWeb come to fruition.

Work on air-launch space access projects hits all-time high as test flights loom.

SpaceX’s near-term plans for U.S. government work have been thwarted by certification requirements.

Aviation Week editors discuss the reasons behind our selection of Vladimir Putin as Person of the Year for 2014.

Obama administration has made great progress in reforming export-control procedures, but benefits for the A&D industry are slow to materialize.

Aviation Week’s Person of the Year is the figure who had the most impact—for better or, in this case, worse—on aerospace and aviation over the year. In 2014, Putin’s actions roiled defense, space and commercial aviation.

Landing people on Mars is a goal on which there is widespread consensus.

ULA expects its first—and possibly only—Orbital Sciences Cygnus capsule to arrive in Florida late this summer for a launch targeted for the last quarter of the year. Orbital Sciences has an option for a second flight in 2016.

The three-year, $916 million SMAP mission will give weather forecasters in agricultural regions an early warning signal for drought and allow better near-term flood warnings.

Despite its failure to thwart NASA’s selection of Boeing and SpaceX for commercial crew vehicles, Sierra Nevada will proceed with development of Dream Chaser.