Rook can’t get enough of space. At least, that’s the vibe we’re getting from Jared “Rook” Isaacman, the billionaire CEO of Shift4 Payments and commander/financier of Inspiration4. Yesterday, Isaacman announced that he’d purchase three additional crewed spaceflight missions from SpaceX. The trio of missions, dubbed the Polaris Program, is slated for launch in late 2022 and […]
After a few weeks of tension, Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) has decided to call off its acquisition of missile and rocket propulsion manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne (NYSE:AJRD). ICYMI: In late January, the FTC sued to block a $4.4B acquisition deal between Lockheed and Aerojet, originally announced in 2020. The commission alleged that the merger would allow Lockheed to inflate the […]
A rocket will launch from another planet, potentially within a decade. If that’s not enough to get your head spinning, we’ve done a little more reading up on the lengthy checklist for the Mars Ascent Vehicle, or MAV for short. The Perseverance rover has been milling about on Mars for a while now, collecting samples of dirt from the planet’s […]
Lynk announced yesterday that it has completed a demonstration of its direct-to-phone telecom service from its fifth satellite. The company said the satellite connected to thousands of devices on three continents. The Virginia company is hoping to roll out its direct-to-phone two-way communications service later this year. In the meantime, the demo results show that […]
Launcher has reserved three more missions for Orbiter, its orbital transfer tug, to Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) on future SpaceX Transporter rideshares. The Hawthorne, CA-based space transportation startup’s first Orbiter mission is scheduled to fly on Transporter-6 in October. Last-mile services: The Orbiter vehicle is designed to link up with satellites that have reached generic orbits through rideshare missions […]
Right now, a $10 billion space telescope is orbiting an empty point in space a million miles from home where the gravitational forces of the Earth and Sun balance out. The observatory, which took some of the world’s best engineers and scientists more than 20 years to build, is gearing up to take its first […]
Astra announced on Twitter yesterday that it expects to receive the first-ever Part 450 launch license from the FAA by Friday. That could allow the company to launch from the Florida Space Coast for the first time Saturday, carrying four NASA CubeSats aboard a Rocket 3. Part 450? In light of the growing commercial launch sector and, in turn, the […]
China and Russia are still planning on signing an agreement to build a lunar research station by 2035, CNSA officials confirmed Friday. The station, called the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), was originally announced in June and represents the two nations’ response to NASA’s Gateway project. ILRS 101: The proposed station would consist of an orbiting outpost and a […]
For a long time, on-orbit servicing, assembly, and manufacturing (OSAM) seemed just out of reach. Now, multiple startups have successfully demonstrated the technology, and many more are developing OSAM capabilities for refueling, repairing, and towing satellites around in orbit. But as this tech becomes more common, industry and policy voices have to consider potential dark […]
Yesterday, NASA announced it had awarded 12 launch services contracts totaling $300M to support its Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) missions. The VADR contracts are fixed-price, indefinite delivery agreements with a five-year ordering period. The biggest names in launch made appearances on the list of awardees: ABL Space Systems Astra Blue Origin L2 Solutions Northrop […]
NASA has released Spinoff 2022, an annual report that tracks scientific and technological spillovers from the space agency into society. As NASA is fond of noting, plenty of space program innovations have been productized in the private sector and taken up by top research labs around the country. Spinoff 2022 profiles 45+ research projects that tapped […]
OneWeb has struck up a six-year partnership with a distributor in India, Hughes Communications India (HCIPL), to sell its broadband services within the country. OneWeb does not yet have regulatory approval to operate within India. Both OneWeb and Starlink, which was recently ordered by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to stop preselling the service in the country, […]
