The Federal Aviation Administration’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee is seeking approval for the return of the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, or AST, as a standalone unit under the Secretary of Transportation, just like when it was created in 1984. COMSTAC unanimously recommended the office’s removal from FAA jurisdiction during its meeting Tuesday. […]
NASA announced that its Deep Space Optical Communications project has showcased the possibility of using optical communications to accelerate the sending of complex scientific information from space, including high-definition images and video. On April 8, the optical communication solution aboard the Psyche spacecraft achieved a maximum data transmission speed of 25 Mbps, surpassing the original goal […]
NASA has approved Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Pandora small satellite mission in its critical design review. The green light allows Pandora to progress toward launch and its mission to study exoplanets and their stars. Scheduled for launch in early 2025, Pandora is a 325 kilogram smallsat designed to enhance data collected by the James Webb […]
Blue Origin is scheduled to launch its New Glenn rocket to Mars with two NASA small satellites as payload on Sept. 29, according to Nick Benardini, the agency’s planetary protection officer. Benardini disclosed the inaugural flight’s date in his presentation of NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers mission to the planetary protection committee […]
Space access, mobility and logistics comprise the areas wherein the U.S. Space Force would fully rely on commercial solutions, according to Lt. Gen. Shawn Bratton, the U.S. Space Force’s deputy chief of space operations, strategy, plans, programs and requirements. Discussing at an Atlantic Council online event the eight priority mission areas of the recently released […]
Rocket Lab USA’s Electron rocket has deployed two satellites to distinct orbits on its 47th mission. The mission, which marks Rocket Lab’s fifth launch of 2024, launched from New Zealand on Wednesday, carrying payloads for the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and NASA, Rocket Lab said. The primary satellite, KAIST’s NEONSAT-1, is an […]
The Space Systems Command’s Innovation and Prototyping Acquisition Delta has completed its mission of providing scientists with data on Earth’s atmospheric conditions from space. The CloudSat mission executed its final command on March 20, ending its operations after nearly 18 years of being the country’s first effort to better understand the impact of cloud profiles […]
NASA has welcomed Slovenia to the Artemis Accords, with Slovenian State Secretary Matevz Frangez of the Ministry of the Economy, Tourism and Sport signing the multi-nation pact for sustainable space development on the country’s behalf on Friday. Bill Nelson, NASA’s administrator, described the country’s entry into the Accords as a “new frontier” in the U.S. […]
Mercury Systems announced that BlueHalo has again tapped its support for the U.S. Space Force Satellite Communication Augmentation Resource project, building upon an initial production agreement in 2023. Under the new agreement, Mercury Systems will supply its field-programmable gate array-based common signal acquisition and digital beamforming solution to BlueHalo’s Broad Area Deployable Ground terminal enabling […]
The U.S. Space Force has awarded L3Harris Technologies a contract extension worth of up to $187 million to continue modernizing and maintaining critical space infrastructure. The option year five contract is part of the Maintenance of Space Situational Awareness Integrated Capabilities program, which aims to spot and monitor deep space objects, providing prompt and reliable […]
