The National Aeronautics and Space Administration will continue buying data gathered by commercial Earth observation satellites, according to Kevin Murphy, the space agency’s Earth Science Division chief science data officer. The decision comes amid the increasing pace of commercial satellite launches, which is prompting NASA officials to look for ways to improve the data acquisition […]
NASA’s Heliophysics Environmental and Radiation Measurement Experiment Suite has passed the Key Decision Point C mission review. The milestone evaluated the HERMES mission’s preliminary design and program plan to meet a launch date of no earlier than November 2024. HERMES will proceed to Phase C, which includes the development of the final mission design. HERMES […]
Long Beach-headquartered Virgin Orbit announced its selection by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to provide launch services for the agency’s Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated Rideshare missions. The fixed-price indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract will leverage commercial satellite launch practices, and the flexibility afforded by the LauncherOne system to enable more efficient launch timelines, mission-tailored orbits and competitive […]
The California Institute of Technology has named Laurie Leshin as director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, effective May 16. She will also serve as vice president of Caltech. JPL is a federally funded research and development center in La Canada Flintridge owned by NASA and managed by Caltech. The laboratory specializes in developing robotic spacecraft […]
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the selection of 12 companies to provide launch services for its Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare missions will provide new opportunities for science and technology payloads and foster a growing commercial launch market. The fixed-price indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts have a five-year ordering period with a maximum total value […]
The James Webb Space Telescope has arrived at its final destination around 1.5 million kilometers from Earth after nearly a month since its launch. To reach its target, a thruster onboard JWST fired for five minutes to change its velocity to around 1.5 meters per second. The maneuver placed the spacecraft into a halo orbit […]
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that it will move its next Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite weather satellite into position over the Western United States soon after it reaches orbit. This marks a departure from the traditional practice of allowing satellites to spend about six months in their initial geostationary orbital slot before they […]
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration on Monday revealed that it continues to face difficulties in sending some of its payloads to orbit as hosted payloads on commercial satellites. Charles Webb, the agency’s Earth Science Division associate director for flight programs, said there is an ongoing search for a geostationary commercial satellite to house the […]
The U.S. Space Force plans to buy new space hardware and data and analysis services to replace weather satellites that are approaching the end of their life cycles. Lt. Col. Joseph Maguadog, the electro-optical/infrared weather system materiel leader at Space Systems Command, said the products sought should provide EO/IR data to succeed the remaining hardware […]
Florida-headquartered PredaSAR announced that it has been selected for a contract award by the National Reconnaissance Office‘s Geospatial Intelligence Systems Acquisition Directorate in connection with a requirement for strategic collection enhancements in the commercial radar focus area. The NRO’s Broad Agency Announcement award includes six months of modeling and simulation activities and 24 months to […]
