The flagship James Webb Space Telescope has begun its 14-day journey from the coast of California through the Panama Canal to the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana, program scientist Eric Smith told NASA’s Astrophysics Advisory Committee on Sept. 29.
A half-dozen NASA Mars rovers, landers and orbiters will cease or in some cases curtail their transmission and reception of data with Earth as the Solar System’s two most hospitable planets experience a two-week, once-every-two-year solar conjunction beginning Oct. 2.
Three International Space Station crewmembers inaugurated spacecraft dockings at the orbital lab’s new Russian segment Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module on Sept. 28 as they separated from the 11-year-old Rassvet Mini Research Module-1 in their Soyuz MS-18 to redock at Nauka.
The U.S. Space Force is investing $24.35 million in Rocket Lab’s new medium-lift Neutron booster, with emphasis on the rocket’s upper stage for possible use in the National Security Space Launch program.
Privately owned Terran Orbital plans to invest $300 million to build a factory at Kennedy Space Center capable of producing 1,000 small satellites per year.
Landsat 9, the latest satellite in a long-running Earth observation collaboration between NASA and the U.S. Department of Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey, was successfully launched on Sept. 27 from a foggy Vandenberg Space Force Station, California.
Isotropic Systems, a British flat-panel satellite antenna systems maker backed by Boeing and venture capitalists, says it has landed $37 million in fresh funding, enough to fully fund development of its multibeam ground antenna through expected product launch in 2022.
Astraius wants to use a Boeing C-17 airlifter to conduct horizontal launch of its Hera II two-stage launch vehicle, which is an adaptation of the Hera target missile used by the U.S. Defense Department to test missile defense systems.
Astroscale Japan has selected Rocket Lab to launch the first step in a two-part mission to demonstrate the removal of a large piece of space debris from low Earth orbit.
Landsat 9, the latest in a half-century of overlapping NASA/U.S. Geological Survey satellites focused on monitoring changes to the planet’s surface and natural resources, is planned for a Sept. 27 launch.
Under the wing of Boeing, Millennium Space Systems is hitting its stride making smart end-to-end satellite constellations to be deployed in multiple orbital regimes.
In response to the proliferation of new space launch systems and small satellite deployments, German Aerospace Center DLR has developed a Launch Coordination Center to help manage the safe and efficient launch and re-entry of missions through European airspace.
The U.S. Space Force’s recently disclosed effort to field a space-based ground-moving targeted indicator capability is part of a coming migration of aerospace missions to orbit, especially in the realm of tactical intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
NASA has awarded Aerojet Rocketdyne a $600 million maximum value contract for the design, certification, production and other requirements for the main engine of the Orion crew capsule.
NASA and congressional policy makers face difficult choices as they resolve how to transition a range of research and technology development activities underway aboard an aging International Space Station to a fleet of commercial free-flying platforms, a panel of experts told U.S. lawmakers in Washington Sept. 21.
NASA is separating its Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) mission directorate into two new directorates, one focused on current initiatives while the other looks ahead to systems development and plans for the next 20 years, Administrator Bill Nelson announced on Sept. 21.
L3Harris Technologies announced plans to grow a classified campus in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to meet expected business demand from the Pentagon’s “growing and urgent need for advanced, resilient satellites.”
