Science

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s nomination of former senator Bill Nelson as the next administrator of NASA has won widespread support from both members of Congress and the broader space community. The White House announced March 19 its formal intent to nominate Nelson, a Democrat who served three terms in the Senate from Florida, as

TAMPA, Fla. — The UK Space Agency will partly fund the development of an in-orbit telemetry relay system called InRange, which will use British satellite operator Inmarsat’s L-band constellation to guide rocket launches. Inmarsat says that InRange will reduce launch providers’ dependence on ground-based systems for tracking rockets in flight, potentially saving them money on

Liftoff of GK Launch Services first launch without a Russian government satellite onboard postponed to March 22 This story was updated March 20 at 4:30 p.m. EDT to add a Roscosmos statement about the new March 22 launch date for the mission. SEOUL, South Korea — The launch of a Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying a South

WASHINGTON — A polar-orbiting weather satellite decommissioned nearly eight years ago has broken up, adding to the growing debris population in a key orbit. The Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron said March 18 it hard confirmed the NOAA-17 satellite broke up March 10. The squadron said it was tracking 16 pieces of debris associated

The GAO probe was requested last month by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.). WASHINGTON — The U.S. Government Accountability Office confirmed on March 19 that it will review the Air Force’s methodology and scoring that led to the decision to move U.S. Space Command headquarters  from Colorado to Alabama. The GAO probe was requested last month

The question of what it means to behave responsibly in space has taken on increasing urgency following a series of Russian anti-satellite weapon tests. WASHINGTON — As more satellites are launched into space, there is a growing conversation about the need to keep the cosmos safe and establish rules of the road for orbital activities.

TAMPA, Fla. — The frenzy of activity swirling around SPACs is pushing space into a new era of risk-taking, according to two satellite industry veterans.  The past decade’s flow of private capital into megaconstellations and launch startups was a sedate “tea party” in comparison to what’s happening now, Iridium Communications CEO Matt Desch told SpaceNews

WASHINGTON — The White House plans to nominate Bill Nelson to be the next administrator of NASA, putting the former senator in charge of the agency he once advocated for on Capitol Hill. According to several sources, the administration is expected to formally announce the nomination as soon as March 19. An announcement was reportedly

SAN FRANCISCO – Evona, a U.K. space industry recruiting startup, is preparing to establish a U.S. office as part of a campaign to help satisfy global demand for space sector employees. Bristol-based Evona has been growing rapidly since it was founded in 2018 to recruit workers for entrepreneurial space companies. Evona’s year-over-year revenue jumped more

WASHINGTON — NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is making continued progress for a launch in October as engineers close out a series of technical issues with the spacecraft but deal with one new problem. In a March 16 presentation during a meeting of NASA’s Astrophysics Advisory Committee, Eric Smith, JWST program scientist, said engineers had

WASHINGTON — NASA should be able to set a new date for the Artemis 1 launch within a few weeks of the Green Run static-fire test of the Space Launch System core stage, assuming that test goes as expected. NASA is scheduled to conduct the static-fire test March 18 at the Stennis Space Center in

WASHINGTON — Aerojet Rocketdyne doesn’t expect any potential changes to the Artemis program to have much of an effect on its business supplying engines for NASA’s Space Launch System. Speaking at the J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference March 15, Dan Boehle, chief financial officer of Aerojet Rocketdyne, played down any impacts of possible changes to the

Gen. David Thompson: “The more we can depend on commercial space for routine activities like transportation and debris removal, the more we can focus on national security.” WASHINGTON — Vice Chief of Space Operations of the U.S. Space Force Gen. David Thompson said it would make sense for the government to pay companies to clean

Todd Harrison: “I don’t think the Space Force will end up being an area that progressive Democrats want to cut.” WASHINGTON — A March 16 letter signed by 50 House Democrats urges President Joe Biden to reduce the Pentagon’s budget to pay for other activities.  The letter is intended to influence the president’s budget proposal

WASHINGTON — Loft Orbital is buying antennas for an upcoming mission from French provider Anywaves, a deal the companies see as a sign of a growing European ecosystem of space startups. Anywaves announced March 16 it sold two S-band antennas to Loft Orbital, which will install them on its YAM-3 spacecraft launching in June on

WASHINGTON — A NASA astronaut flying to the International Space Station in April could spend up to a year on the station, an extended stay that he said he was “enthusiastic” about. NASA announced March 9 that Mark Vande Hei would fly on the Soyuz MS-18 mission to the space station, launching April 9. He

Before returning to DARPA, Tompkins was vice president for research and technology transfer at the Colorado School of Mines. WASHINGTON — Stefanie Tompkins on March 15 assumed the top post at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Tompkins is DARPA’s 23rd director. She is a former military intelligence officer in the U.S. Army and previously

WASHINGTON — Three space industry groups are asking the Commerce Department to commit to continued support and funding for the Office of Space Commerce. In a March 9 letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, the Aerospace Industries Association, Commercial Spaceflight Federation and Satellite Industry Association called for the department to fund the small office at

WASHINGTON — A Falcon 9 launched another set of Starlink satellites March 14, with the rocket’s first stage setting a record with its ninth launch and landing. The Falcon 9 lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center at 6:01 a.m. Eastern. The upper stage deployed its payload of 60 Starlink satellites

As the first flight of Artemis moves ever closer from Kennedy Space Center, critics continue to raise questions around the cost of the U.S. return to the moon by pointing to private sector alternatives as more expeditious and less resource intensive. Somehow lost in this critique is that the private sector is, in fact, the

For many companies in the industry, filling job openings can seem as difficult as rocket science. For others, it simply involves rockets. SpaceX often uses its launch webcasts as recruiting tools, taking advantage of an audience of thousands who will tune in at all hours to see a rocket launch and landing. Webcasts hosts will

HELSINKI — China launched a new-generation Long March 7A rocket Thursday, sending a classified, experimental payload into geosynchronous transfer orbit. Liftoff from the coastal Wenchang Satellite Launch Center occurred at 12:51 p.m. Eastern March 11. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC), the country’s main space contractor, confirmed launch success 40 minutes later (Chinese).

SEAKR, based in Centennial, Colorado, is developing the artificial brain of DARPA’s Blackjack satellite network. WASHINGTON — The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced March 12 it awarded SEAKR Engineering a $60.4 million contract to develop a data processing system for satellites to operate autonomously.   SEAKR, based in Centennial, Colorado, was selected by DARPA

SAN FRANCISCO – Radar satellite startup Umbra plans to capture imagery with a resolution as high as 15 centimeters per pixel thanks to a Federal Communications Commission license. The FCC granted Umbra, a Santa Barbara, California, startup preparing to launch its first X-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) microsatellite this year, an experimental license in February

WASHINGTON — NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope resumed observations March 11 after a software error placed it in a protective safe mode several days earlier, but the incident is a reminder of the telescope’s mortality. NASA said Hubble resumed observations at 8 p.m. Eastern March 11, more than four and a half days after a software

‘We’re trying to figure out how to monetize and operationalize all of this data,’ said Matthew Tirman, head of Satellogic North America. WASHINGTON — Earth observation company Satellogic is expanding its presence in the United States to compete in the government market. It is standing up a U.S. subsidiary specifically to work with national security

TAMPA, Fla. — Satellite communications provider Speedcast emerged Thursday from nearly a year in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection under private equity ownership. Centerbridge Partners, which manages about $28 billion of assets, has officially taken ownership of the company after completing all necessary regulatory and administrative requirements. The private equity firm invested $500 million into Speedcast

Kurs Orbital plans to focus on servicing commercial geostationary satellites WASHINGTON — A Ukrainian startup is building an in-orbit servicing vehicle using space docking technology developed decades ago by the former Soviet Union.  The startup, named Kurs Orbital, was co-founded by the former head of Ukraine’s space agency Volodymyr Usov. The company plans to launch

TAMPA, Fla. — Northrop Grumman’s MEV-2 satellite servicer is performing close proximity operations with Intelsat’s in-orbit 10-02 spacecraft ahead of a docking attempt, SpaceNews has learned. Both spacecraft remain healthy after being in close quarters to calibrate and test systems before MEV-2 backed off, according to a Northrop Grumman official. The company intends to release

WASHINGTON — NASA has signed an agreement with Blue Origin to use that company’s New Shepard suborbital vehicle for flights that will simulate the reduced gravity on the surface of the moon. NASA said March 9 that it is supporting upgrades to New Shepard to allow the vehicle to briefly similar lunar gravity on its