Stories about US and international civil space missions, including those led by NASA and ESA.
The White House is requesting $27.2B for NASA next year, a 7% (or $1.8B) increase from the 2023 enacted level. Highlights from the budget include a significant boost to the Artemis program and funding for the eventual deorbit of the ISS. It’s worth noting the budget represents Biden’s wish list. With a divided Congress, the […]
A handful of new launch companies will soon head down to Cape Canaveral to set up shop at newly dedicated launch pads. USSF announced last night that it has begun to implement its Launch Pad Allocation Strategy (LPAS), which is intended to give more launch companies an opportunity to launch from the historic launch site. […]
What time is it on the Moon? The answer, it turns out, is a little complicated. As several countries across the globe collectively spanning just about every time zone prepare for the impending cislunar economy and get ready to send humans to the lunar surface, it may be time to put some standard processes—like an […]
Japan’s astronaut corps Across the Pacific, two cadres of spacefaring hopefuls are getting the chance to train for extended stays off Earth. This week, China and Japan both announced plans to train new astronauts to support their respective human spaceflight programs. Two candidates have joined Japan’s astronaut corps. Yesterday, JAXA announced the new recruits—the first […]
For the past few years, news of Western private constellation buildouts has become commonplace. At various stages of maturity, these constellations are intended to provide broadband across the globe. Now, though, more nations are drawing up their own plans to bring that broadband capability within the hands of their own governments. IRIS2 The EU’s sovereign […]
Texas Governor Greg Abbott is requesting a staggering $350M from state legislators to form a Texas Space Commission, as first reported by Ars Technica. While details on specific allocations have yet to be determined, the overall goal of the funding will be to further establish Texas as a space hub. “With companies seeking to expand […]
Last week, NASA released a new crowdsourcing competition to build out a virtual reality (VR) Mars simulator. The agency would be able to use the simulator to prepare astronauts for the various scenarios they may encounter on a mission to the Red Planet. The competition: Participants are given access to a pre-constructed digital world that […]
Last week, Georgia’s Supreme Court upheld a referendum in which residents voted to block Camden county from building a spaceport. The legal challenge by Camden County Commissioners, who sought to have the referendum declared invalid, was rejected unanimously. The backstory: Spaceport Camden has been a contentious issue in the county for over a decade, with […]
Another megaconstellation has cleared a key step toward LEO deployment. On Wednesday, the FCC approved Kuiper’s orbital debris mitigation plan, a significant regulatory hurdle that has been keeping Amazon’s broadband constellation out of the sky. The story so far: Amazon has taken a long, winding road with Kuiper. In 2020, the FCC approved the constellation, […]
Later today, two trailblazing American astronauts will receive the Congressional Space Medal of Honor at the White House. The details: Vice President Kamala Harris will award former NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken the medal at 4:15pm ET today. The medal was last awarded to Robert Crippen, the pilot of the first space shuttle […]
The aerospace & defense (A&D) primes started reporting fourth-quarter results on Tuesday, with Raytheon ($RTX) teeing off first, followed by Lockheed Martin ($LMT), Boeing ($BA), General Dynamics ($GD), and Northrop Grumman ($NOC) this morning. Across the board, companies’ results and forward-looking projections were on the one hand buoyed by sky-high American and allied defense budgets. […]
After a 50-year hiatus, the US is planning to test a nuclear fission-powered thermal propulsion system on a spacecraft. NASA said this week that it would team up with DARPA, the Pentagon’s R&D arm, to build, launch, and demonstrate a nuclear thermal engine. This early work is intended to pave the way for a crewed […]
