Stories about the tech that’s driving the new space age.
A Viasat ($VSAT) communications satellite has malfunctioned, the company announced Thursday, marking the second such failure within the span of a month. This time, the issue is with a new member of the Inmarsat fleet, which Viasat acquired in May. The I6 F2 satellite launched in February as a backup, providing spare L-band and Ka-band […]
Partners are teaming up across the pond to work on spacecraft propulsion tech. Pulsar Fusion, a propulsion startup based in England, announced last week it is partnering with the University of Michigan to research electric Hall-effect thruster tech. The UK Space Agency is funding the collaboration. “This is another key US partnership for Pulsar—we continue […]
NASA awarded 11 companies a combined $150M to support a next-gen lunar base camp and broader space exploration tech, the agency announced yesterday. The grants, which were awarded under NASA’s Tipping Point program, fund an array of sci-fi-like projects including lunar nuclear fuel, in-situ resource utilization, LiDAR navigation, inflatable heat shielding, and lunar power transmission. […]
Canada is experiencing its most severe wildfire season on record, with emissions from the fires at their highest levels since satellite monitoring began in 2003. In a bid to help responders better control the spread of wildfires in the future, OroraTech, a startup founded in 2018 as a Technical University of Munich spin-off, aims to […]
NASA is pulling the plug on its experimental all-electric X-57 Maxwell aircraft before it ever hit the air, the agency announced on Friday. Officials cited safety concerns as the reason for the cancellation, but the decision comes at a time of overall belt-tightening at NASA, with budget pressures coming down the pike. Electric plane: The […]
NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) has teamed up with Starburst Aerospace, Mission Innovation X at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT MIx), and MassChallenge for its next program, which will send alliance resources to innovators in a several fields, including hypersonics, energy and propulsion, and space. Why the partners? Starburst, MIT MIx, […]
Ursa Major received a contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) on Tuesday to test a prototype of its new Draper engine for hypersonics and to continue developing its Arroway engines. AFRL awarded these funds aiming to decrease US dependence on foreign propulsion systems for space launch, a key goal of its rocket propulsion […]
Stratolaunch successfully completed a key step on the way to flying its hypersonic vehicle on Saturday with the separation and landing of its Talon-A test vehicle from the Roc carrier aircraft. Stratolaunch 101 The Mojave, CA-based company was founded in 2011 by late Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen with ambitions to build hypersonic test vehicles. Its […]
Israeli startup WeSpace Technologies is angling to provide Israel’s official contribution to the Artemis program with its lunar hopper. The company plans to launch its first craft in less than three years to begin providing “flying services on the Moon,” CEO Yifat Feffer told Payload. Lunar hopping WeSpace’s offering to the growing lunar economy is […]
Relativity is adding two new 3D printing technologies to its repertoire to build the larger, heavy-lift Terran-R, CEO Tim Ellis told Payload. “Aeon R is a pretty giant engine. Not just thrust, but I think the size of it,” Ellis said. “So the two new printing technologies are necessary to start doing some hybrid additive […]
The Moon will have to wait a little longer for its first non-governmental visitor.
Cubesats may soon be able to find their way in space at a lower cost thanks to a new star sensor developed by Indian researchers, which launched to space on Saturday. Starberry-Sense hopes to help small satellites determine their orientation in space in relation to surrounding stars for just 10 percent of the cost of […]
