Satellite-servicing startup Astroscale and a New Zealand government agency have signed an agreement to study the removal of three large debris objects from low-Earth orbit using a single servicer satellite.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center at 9:03 p.m. EST on Nov. 10 to deliver a Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying four astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA.
In a search to add suppliers to help it build rockets, United Launch Alliance visited Wichita aerospace suppliers Nov. 10, accompanied by Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas).
Northrop Grumman has frozen the design for a satellite that could steer from low earth orbit an interceptor launched against a hypersonic glide vehicle or ballistic missile.
About 6 hr. ahead of when SpaceX was due to launch four new crewmembers to the International Space Station on Nov. 10, Russia conducted a 361-sec. burn of the station’s core module to maneuver the outpost away from a potential conjunction with a piece of orbital debris from China’s 2007 ASAT test.
Satellite operator Iridium announced on Nov. 10 that its Certus 100 satellite communications service is now commercially available for aviation and other applications.
Development costs for NASA’s Orion deep-space capsule through the Artemis II crewed flight test—which is now not expected until May 2024—will increase by $2.5 billion due to an expanded scope of work, delays from pandemic-related supply issues and other factors, boosting the program’s overall cost to $9.3 billion.
The SpaceX Crew-2 Dragon autonomously undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) Nov. 8 and prepared for a parachute-assisted, late-night splashdown and recovery in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola, Florida.
U.S.-based satellite communications provider Viasat on Nov. 8 announced a definitive agreement to acquire UK-based Inmarsat in a transaction valued at $7.3 billion that would create an unrivaled, multiband space and terrestrial network serving aviation, maritime and other markets.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s latest survey of scientific priorities in the fields of astronomy and astrophysics over the coming decade recommends that NASA reassess how its most costly and ambitious “flagship” missions are pursued, from planning through implementation.
NASA and SpaceX on Nov. 5 continued to assess how best to schedule a planned crew rotation aboard the International Space Station in response to a challenging weather outlook affecting a Falcon 9 Crew-3 Dragon launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, French national space center CNES and Airbus have inked a letter of intent to cooperate on Earth-observation satellites, including development of VNREDSat-2.
Equipped with emerging propulsion and navigation technologies, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test is intended to demonstrate for the first time the potential effectiveness of a kinetic impact strategy in deflecting an asteroid on a destructive collision course with Earth.
Three-year-old New York startup Innovative Rocket Technologies on Nov. 4 said it has signed an agreement with two-year-old Turion Space of Irvine, California, to launch 20 of the latter’s proposed Droid orbital-debris-removing satellites to low Earth orbit via iRocket’s planned Shockwave launcher.
The acquisition broadens CACI’s capabilities as a U.S.-based FSO laser communications provider supporting space, airborne and terrestrial missions to U.S. government and commercial customers.
The U.S. National Reconnaissance Office on Nov. 3 released a request for proposals to industry for the Electro-Optical Commercial Layer, a step for improved commercial imagery with a specific focus on intelligence and military needs.
UK startup Isotropic Systems has demonstrated the first simultaneous connections with communications satellites in different orbits, its solid-state terminal linking to SES spacecraft in both geostationary and medium Earth orbits at the same time.
Assuming a successful Dec. 18 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope from French Guiana atop an Ariane 5 rocket, the many thousands of experts who have worked on the $9.7 billion mission will have to hold their breath for another six months before the world’s most technically complex space observatory reaches its final orbit, fully deploys and checks out.
