The U.S. Space Development Agency is poised to send its first five small experimental satellites and payload on orbit, with the intent to validate space-based laser communications, battle management and target custody technology.
Procter and Gamble is working with NASA to develop a space version of its Tide detergent to clean the clothing and fabrics of astronauts assigned to future missions to the Moon and Mars that could double as a more environmentally friendly cleanser for use on Earth.
The European Space Agency and the European Commission on June 22 signed a long-sought financial framework partnership agreement for 2021-27, formalizing a relationship they intend to make tighter.
Xuntian will be similar to the Hubble Space Telescope but with a field of view 300 times larger, according to the director of the National Astronomical Observatories at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The U.S. Export-Import Bank on June 21 reported its first satellite-related export financing deal since 2015, backing SpaceX’s expected launch of Hispasat’s planned Amazonas Nexus satellite so that rival Arianespace did not win the business with European export credit agency support.
Intuitive Machines (IM), one of NASA’s early Commercial Lunar Services Payload Services providers, announced plans on June 21 to place a communications satellite in orbit around the Moon to provide a data link to Earth as part of its second lunar mission planned for late 2022.
During a 6.5-hr. spacewalk that concluded at 2:10 p.m. EDT on June 20, the European Space Agency’s Thomas Pesquet and NASA’s Shane Kimbrough overcame the hardware obstructions that had prevented them from finishing their task four days earlier.
Debate about whether UFOs existed – and the Pentagon was covering up their existence -- was covered extensively in Aviation Week & Space Technology more than 50 years ago. And our reporting had a decidedly anti-extra-terrestrial bent.
Former space shuttle commander and retired U.S. Air Force Col. Pamela Melroy was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to become the deputy administrator of NASA, serving alongside NASA chief Bill Nelson.
The inaugural flight of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket is slipping to 2022 to allow more time for its customer, Astrobotic, to prepare its Peregrine lunar lander for launch.
The U.S. Space Force and SpaceX has launched the fifth GPS III satellite from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral, marking the first time a national security space launch reused a booster.
NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency on June 16 were prevented from equipping the International Space Station (ISS) with the first of six planned Roll Out Solar Arrays, due to a spacesuit issue and hardware misalignment.
Russia says it is ready to discuss the future of the International Space Station (ISS) despite earlier threats to withdraw from the program after 2024.
Russian intends to fly cosmonauts to the Chinese Space Station, launching Soyuz capsules from its own Vostochny Cosmodrome or Europe’s Kourou, French Guiana, spaceport, though neither site has yet supported a human spaceflight, the head of Roscosmos, the Russian State Space Corp., said on June 15.
