The Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit has tapped Fireplace Aerospace for a trade study on the rapid launch capabilities of the company’s Elytra spacecraft to support missions beyond geosynchronous Earth orbit, or xGEO. The study is part of the DIU’s Sinequone project to prototype commercial launch and orbital transfer capabilities in xGEO where the agency foresees […]
Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef space station completed four testing milestones under a NASA Space Act Agreement awarded to the company in 2021. According to Angela Hart, manager of NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program, the milestones ensure that Orbital Reef can sustain human life and allow researchers to conduct experiments in LEO. Specifically, the […]
The Defense Innovation Unit has selected Blue Origin, Space Logistics and Spacebilt to develop prototypes for its Orbital Logistics Vehicle project, aimed at providing logistics solutions for accessing geostationary and other high orbits beyond low Earth orbit at reduced costs. The initiative strategically leverages commercial technologies and private investment to provide low-cost, responsive solutions that […]
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has selected Northrop Grumman to research the feasibility of a lunar railroad network. Northrop will identify the necessary groundwork for such a network, establish a list of potential costs and logistical and technological risks, work on prototypes and demonstration models and explore robotics-enabled construction and operation concepts. Chris Adams, […]
NASA has tapped 10 organizations involved in small research satellite development to join a mission to the International Space Station. The University of Louisiana at Lafayette is one of the institutions selected by the U.S. space agency. The organization has been working on the Cajun Advanced Picosatellite Experiment Twiggs, a prototype of a 3U cubeSat […]
NASA said Leslie Livesay has assumed her role as deputy director of Jet Propulsion Laboratory, taking over from Larry James, who was appointed in September 2013. Livesay is equipped with nearly four decades of experience in autonomous space exploration. She previously served as JPL’s associate director for flight projects and mission success, director for astronomy […]
NASA and other organizations with payloads on Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander announced that they have still managed to gather useful information from the mission despite it not reaching the moon. The Peregrine Ion-Trap Mass Spectrometer, a NASA instrument, is among the payloads aboard the lunar lander. During the flight, it detected traces of nitric oxide […]
NASA and SpaceX have reached a significant milestone in the Artemis program with the third integrated flight test of SpaceX’s Starship human landing system. The test flight took place on March 14 at SpaceX’s Starbase orbital launch pad in Texas, NASA said. Powered by 33 Raptor engines, the Super Heavy booster propelled Starship into orbit. […]
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will integrate for testing in its Martian moons mission spacecraft a spectrometer that NASA delivered on Thursday. According to the agency, the instrument’s review board has evaluated and certified the Mars-moon Exploration with Gamma Ray and Neutrons instrument and approved its delivery to JAXA in the fall of 2023 after a […]
Five individuals have received NASA’s Development and Advancement of Lunar Instrumentation grants, a program under the Lunar Discovery and Exploration Program that aims to develop technologies useful in future flight opportunities. Hao Cao of the University of California, Los Angeles, is among the awardees. Cao and his team are developing a miniaturized, low-power, ultra-scalable fluxgate […]
