The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity has launched a program to enhance the monitoring of small space debris. IARPA Program Manager Alexis Truitt was selected to lead the four-year Space Debris Identification and Tracking program, which was created in view of the risks centimeter- and millimeter-sized orbital junk pose to operational space assets and space […]
Lt. Gen. John Shaw, deputy head of the U.S. Space Command, said on Thursday that maneuverable platforms are expected to grow more prominent in the next five years of space activities. Speaking at a Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event, he noted that what he calls positional space operations may no longer suffice for certain […]
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center will continue testing and configuring the flight software of the Space Launch System that will carry an Orion capsule transporting four astronauts selected for the first crewed lunar flyby mission since 1972. The mission, called Artemis II, is expected to be deployed in November 2024. Teams involved in the effort […]
The Defense Innovation Hub has issued a solicitation for its Novel Responsive Space Delivery effort, which seeks commercially available autonomous cargo delivery capabilities. The effort has three modalities: Earth-to-orbit, orbit-to-Earth, and orbit-to-orbit cargo deliveries. According to the solicitation, selected companies will prototype delivery solutions for one or more of the modalities. The deadline for responses […]
Maxar Technologies has embarked on a new project that could enable solar-powered equipment on the lunar surface as part of NASA’s Artemis program. Under the Light Bender program, Maxar will use mirrors to autonomously track sunlight and reflect it to equipment operating on the moon’s permanently dark regions. Specifically, two 33-foot reflectors and a 65-foot […]
KBR will provide mission and instrument systems engineering services at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia as a subcontractor to McCallie Associates. In March, NASA awarded McCallie a potential five-year, $387.1 million Systems Engineering Advanced Services II contract to support various NASA facilities. The SEAS II small business […]
The Space Development Agency has issued an other transaction authority solicitation for the Tranche 2 Transport Layer, part of the agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture initiative. For T2TL, SDA wants to procure 100 Alpha satellites equipped with either three or four optical communications terminals, a Ka-band, a Link 16 payload, command and control data processors […]
The Mitchell Institute has released a report detailing gaps in the U.S. Space Force’s counter-space deterrence. According to Charles Galbreath, the report’s author and senior resident fellow for space studies at the institute’s aerospace studies department, the service currently lacks the technology to defend against adversary attacks aimed at disabling satellites and command and control […]
The U.K. Space Command will set up a Joint Task Force-Space Defense Commercial Operations Cell under a U.S. Space Command initiative for enhanced situational awareness capabilities. The planned JCO-UK cell will allow British authorities to work with their U.S. counterparts on efficiently using commercially furnished space domain awareness data. Specifically, JCO-UK will incorporate eight-hour operations […]
Four teams will advance to the third and final level of the Watts on the Moon Challenge Phase 2, allowing them to demonstrate their power supply and storage technologies in a simulated lunar environment. The finalists were selected among the seven teams that received $200,000 each to develop parts of their proposed solutions. Advancing to […]
