Science

WASHINGTON — Blue Origin filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office April 26 over NASA’s decision to select only SpaceX for its Human Landing System (HLS) program, arguing the agency “moved the goalposts” of the competition. The company, in a lengthy filing with the GAO, claimed that in addition to not giving companies the

WASHINGTON — NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter performed its third flight on Mars April 25, setting it up for its final, and most challenging, tests. Ingenuity took off from the Martian surface at 4:31 a.m. Eastern, going up to an altitude of five meters. It then flew 50 meters downrange and back before touching down 80 seconds

TAMPA, Fla. — OneWeb’s growing low Earth orbit broadband constellation is set to reach 182 satellites, after Arianespace launched its latest batch of 36 spacecraft April 25. Arianespace launched the satellites with a Soyuz-2.1b rocket that blasted off 6:14 p.m. Eastern from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia, putting them into a near-polar orbit at an

China has experienced an explosion of commercial space companies since 2014, driven by the government opening up the space sector to private capital. According to Chinese publication Future Aerospace, there were 141 registered commercial aerospace companies in China by the end of 2018, in areas including launch, propulsion, satellite manufacturing, payloads and applications and ground

An enduring streak of large private investments not seen the space industry’s six decades of existence has taken hold in the past several years. By Northern Sky Research’s count, the space sector has garnered close to $32 billion in investments since the current wave of financing started in 2014 when Google paid $500 million for

Lockheed Martin Space hired 2,700 people plus 700 interns in 2020, a year unlike any other for human resources managers. Almost overnight, the prime contractor with about 23,000 employees switched from its traditional in-person approach to virtual recruitment, interviewing and training. SpaceNews correspondent Debra Werner spoke with Lockheed Martin Space executives Nick Spain, human resources

WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station April 24, less than 24 hours after its launch from Florida, giving the station its largest crew in a decade. The Crew Dragon spacecraft Endeavour, which launched from the Kennedy Space Center April 23, docked with the station’s Harmony module at 5:08

HELSINKI — China is set to launch the first module for its own space station next week after rolling out a Long March 5B rocket at Wenchang spaceport late Thursday. The 53.7-meter-long Long March 5B is now expected to launch the 22-ton Tianhe space station core module around April 29, although authorities have not officially

ORLANDO — The White House announced April 22 its intent to nominate an ocean scientist to be the next administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and a Defense Department official to be NASA’s next chief financial officer. The White House said that it will nominate Rick Spinrad to be administrator of NOAA and

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — SpaceX launched a Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying four astronauts from three nations April 23 as the commercial crew program moves firmly into operations. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 39A here at 5:49 a.m. Eastern on the Crew-2 mission. The Crew Dragon spacecraft separated from the Falcon

Lockheed Martin will do the assembly and integration of Blackjack satellite buses, payloads  and the Pit Boss data processor WASHINGTON — The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency increased Lockheed Martin’s contract for satellite integration work for the Blackjack program by $27.3 million, the agency announced April 22. DARPA a year ago selected Lockheed Martin as

ORLANDO — NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter successfully made its second flight on Mars April 22, expanding its flight envelope as the project considers more ambitious tests in the coming days. Ingenuity took off at 5:33 a.m. Eastern on the 51.9-second flight, although controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory waited nearly four hours before telemetry and images

ORLANDO — The Biden administration’s nominee for NASA administrator, Bill Nelson, got a friendly reception from former colleagues on the Senate Commerce Committee during a confirmation hearing April 21 but offered few specifics about how he would run the agency. During a hearing that lasted more than two and a half hours and included two

Lamborn: “Every dollar spent on moving Space Command is a wasted dollar that could be spent on enhancing space capabilities” WASHINGTON — U.S. Space Command has close ties to other military space organizations in Colorado, but if it has to move to Alabama it could continue to do its job without major disruption, Gen. James

HELSINKI — China is to oversee the construction and operation of a national satellite internet megaconstellation through coordinating the country’s major space actors.  Recent comments by senior officials indicate that plans are moving ahead to alter earlier constellation plans by space sector state-owned enterprises and possibly make these part of a larger “Guowang” or “national

Ukrainian entrepreneur Max Polyakov, with his Silicon Valley-based investment vehicle Noosphere Ventures Partners, is on a mission to build out a vertically integrated space business. A year after Noosphere founded satellite imagery venture Earth Observation Data Analytics (EOSDA) in 2016, Polyakov got into the launch business by snapping up Firefly Aerospace out of bankruptcy. The

WASHINGTON — The next commercial crew mission to the International Space Station passed its final review before its scheduled April 22 launch, with weather the only major issue. At an April 20 briefing, NASA said the Crew-2 mission passed its launch readiness review, the final major review before launch. That allows NASA and SpaceX to

WASHINGTON — The successful flight of NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter on Mars paves the way for its use on future missions, agency officials said, but exactly when and how remain to be determined. At a press conference April 19, project officials said Ingenuity’s first flight, also the first powered flight by an aircraft on another world,

One of the desired capabilities for the tactical space layer is positioning, navigation and timing. WASHINGTON — U.S. Army leaders have signed off on plans to explore the use of satellites in low Earth orbit to give soldiers dedicated surveillance, navigation and imaging capabilities. The Army’s effort is called “tactical space layer” and is led

TAMPA, Fla. — Amazon has ordered nine Atlas 5 rockets from United Launch Alliance to help place its 3,236-strong Project Kuiper broadband constellation. The U.S. internet retailing giant declined to disclose a time frame for its deal with ULA, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin known more for its government missions than commercial

WASHINGTON — Boeing said April 17 that the next test flight of its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle won’t take place until at least August, confirming a lengthy delay widely expected because of the schedule of other launches and International Space Station missions. In a statement, Boeing said that the company and NASA are projecting

WASHINGTON — NASA managers approved plans to launch a SpaceX commercial crew mission to the International Space Station next week, pending the resolution of one minor issue with the Falcon 9 rocket. NASA officials said April 15 that, after the completion of a flight readiness review, they approved plans for the launch April 22 of

WASHINGTON — NASA now plans to attempt a first flight of the Mars helicopter Ingenuity early April 19 after finding a workaround to a software problem that delayed the flight earlier this month. The agency announced April 17 that the first flight of the 1.8-kilogram helicopter will take place at 3:31 a.m. Eastern. Images and

Updated 8 p.m. Eastern with comments by Beyer and Bridenstine. WASHINGTON — The White House announced April 16 it will nominate former astronaut Pam Melroy to be NASA’s deputy administrator. Melroy’s nomination was one of eight the White House announced to fill positions across the government. The position will require confirmation by the Senate. Melroy

Todd Harrison: The U.S. government needs to be clear about which Chinese space developments pose a threat and which merely show that China is pursing an ambitious civil space program. WASHINGTON — The U.S. intelligence community in a report listed China’s space program as a top security concern for the United States. Some space experts

TAMPA, Fla. — Private investors deployed another $1.9 billion in SpaceX, OneWeb and other space infrastructure companies in the first three months of 2021, according to data from New York-based Space Capital. The company, which invests in early-stage ventures in addition to providing market intelligence, includes rocket and satellite builders in how it defines space

WASHINGTON — NASA has selected SpaceX as the sole company to win a contract to develop and demonstrate a crewed lunar lander, while keeping the door open for others to compete for future missions. NASA announced April 16 that it awarded a contract to SpaceX for Option A of the Human Landing System (HLS) program,

Chinese Voyager-like missions could launch in 2024, making planetary flybys before focusing on heliosphere science. HELSINKI — China is developing a mission to send a pair of spacecraft to study the far reaches of the solar system and reach interstellar space by mid-century.  The project aims to send separate spacecraft to the nose and tail

LeoLabs is adding sensors and cloud infrastructure as it moves toward its goal of tracking 250,000 objects WASHINGTON — Space object-tracking startup LeoLabs is adding more sensors and data processing capacity to its network in preparation for a surge in satellites launches in the coming years, the company’s CEO said April 15. There are about