SpaceX has received a five-year license from the Federal Aviation Administration, allowing it to conduct a planned integrated test flight of the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket between April 17 and April 22. The Starbase test site in Boca Chica, Texas, will serve as the launch venue. Following a stringent assessment, the FAA determined […]
A director at the Space Systems Command said a sustainment plan for the U.S. Space Force’s Satellite Control Network is near completion. Shawn Sawyer, director of data transport for product support for the SSC’s Battle Management Command, Control & Communications, shared that the SCN Life Cycle Sustainment Plan is in its final review phase and […]
Blue Canyon Technologies, a Raytheon Technologies subsidiary, will supply NASA with three microsatellites in support of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory-led Investigation of Convective Updrafts mission. INCUS aims to study the behavior of tropical storms and thunderstorms and their impact on Earth’s climate and weather models. Blue Canyon’s microsats, expected to launch in 2027 as part of […]
Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, the U.S. Space Force’s chief of space operations, emphasized at the Explore 2023 conference on Thursday that there is a need to study how commercial firms can best augment existing capabilities. He added that the service should figure out what functions should be delegated to the military, the government and industry […]
Boeing has introduced a new satellite offering designed to provide protected communications and anti-jamming capabilities to military users. The Protected Wideband Satellite features Boeing’s Protected Tactical SATCOM Prototype payload. PTS-P features jammer geolocation, real-time adaptive nulling, frequency-hopping and other anti-jamming techniques and uses the U.S. military’s Protected Tactical Waveform to keep warfighters connected. The payload […]
Testing on a shared cloud environment where the Department of Defense and the private sector will collaborate in will begin this June. Col. Jennifer Krolikowski, the chief information officer of the Space Systems Command, shared with Breaking Defense at a recent industry summit that her organization is preparing to evaluate an initial set of hardware […]
Loft Federal and Microsoft will support Ball Aerospace’s satellite development and integration work under a contract with the Space Development Agency worth up to $176 million awarded in October 2020. Ball Aerospace is the prime contractor for building 10 satellites and accompanying ground systems that will serve as the experimental testbed of the Proliferated Warfighter […]
The Government Accountability Office said the U.S. Space Force needs to upgrade the Satellite Control Network as the Department of Defense and other agencies send more satellites to space. According to a GAO report released on Monday, SCN-supported satellite launches have tripled since 2012, and the 19-antenna infrastructure might not have the capacity to support […]
Makenzie Lystrup has been named director of Goddard Space Center, a Maryland-based NASA institution responsible for space science research and development. Administrator Bill Nelson swore her in on Thursday at the agency’s Washington headquarters. Lystrup takes over from Chief Program Management Officer David Mitchell, who had served as Goddard Space Center’s director in an acting […]
The U.S. Space Force is set to begin its Victus Nox mission this summer aimed at developing a satellite for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance within eight months and launching it within 24 hours after receiving a deployment order. Boeing subsidiary Millennium Space Systems won a contract in September to build a satellite and ground system […]
