Since launching on November 16, the Artemis I core mission has gone off practically without a hitch (unless you count damage to the elevator doors near the pad as a vital loss). SLS successfully carried the Orion capsule out of the Earth’s atmosphere and sent it on its trajectory to the Moon, where it made […]
Space debris x South China Sea…the crossover nobody asked for. On Monday, a Philippine military commander accused China of forcibly seizing a big piece of metal—most likely space debris—that the former nation’s navy was towing through the South China Sea. The course of events, per Philippine Vice Admiral Alberto Carlos’s telling: Beijing’s take: China’s foreign […]
3D metal printing is getting a makeover. Rosotics, a Mesa, AZ-based startup designing a more efficient, large-scale 3D printer optimized for the needs of the aerospace industry, announced this morning the closing of a $750,000 pre-seed round. The round was led by Draper Associates with participation from Correlation Ventures, Vibe Capital, and Sequoia Capital. That’s […]
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released its first National Cislunar Science & Technology Strategy on Thursday. The document lays out a whole-of-government R&D plan for American science and technology leadership, in service of “responsible, peaceful, and sustainable exploration and utilization of cislunar space, including the Moon.” Cislunar, what? OSTP defines […]
Gravitics, a startup building human-rated space station modules, has closed a $20M funding round to build StarMax, its first product. Type One Ventures led the round, with participation from Draper Associates, FJ Labs, The Venture Collective, Helios Capital, Giant Step Capital, Gaingels, Spectre, Manhattan West, and Mana Ventures. Introducing Gravitics The Seattle-based startup emerged from […]
Lockheed Martin and Nvidia are joining forces to develop a global weather digital twin for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the two companies announced Thursday. The AI-driven earth observation system will help NOAA monitor and increase global weather conditions, including extreme events increasing in frequency. Digital twin, you say? Digital twins are virtual […]
Hermeus, a startup building a hypersonic aircraft capable of traveling five times the speed of sound, has completed a major milestone in engine testing. The company successfully demonstrated that its engine can transition from turbojet—like what’s used in passenger aircraft—to ramjet, a much more powerful engine technology. Hermeus 101: The Atlanta-based startup is moving fast […]
It finally happened. SLS made it off the ground, and as you read this, the Orion capsule is en route to the Moon. Though the main spectacle was certainly NASA’s $4.1B, 322-foot-tall rocket lifting off and launching Orion farther than any human-rated spacecraft has gone before, that’s not all that Artemis I had going for […]
Figuring out how the US remains a leader in low Earth orbit after the ISS plummets into the ocean should be a top priority for Congress in 2023, according to outgoing Science, Space and Technology Committee chair Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX.) There are no follow-on plans for a government-run space station in low Earth […]
Canadian launch startup SpaceRyde has inked a deal with ISILaunch, a launch services company based in the Netherlands, to launch four customer payloads on its balloon-lofted rocket. The SpaceRyde approach: The launch startup is building a rocket that utilizes a stratospheric balloon instead of a first stage. The balloon is meant to lift the main […]
We’re on our way back to the Moon. In the wee hours of the morning, NASA finally got the 322-foot-tall Artemis I off the ground. This was the third attempt to launch the $4.1B Mega Moon Rocket. Previous attempts dating back to August were foiled by leaky hydrogen lines, faulty sensors, and two hurricanes. The […]
Rocket Factory Augsburg has struck an agreement with the German Aerospace Center (DLR) to test its Helix engines at the historic Institute of Space Propulsion in Lampoldshausen. Who’s who in the zoo: RFA currently does all its engine testing at the Esrange Space Center in Sweden. Lampoldshausen is significantly closer to the company’s manufacturing facility […]
