The U.S. Space Command has established the Combined Joint Task Force-Space Operations, a new organization tasked to streamline space operations and provide satellite-based services to military forces on the ground. CJTF-SO will ensure the efforts of the Joint Task Force-Space Defense and the Combined Force Space Component Command are coordinated to enable an agile response […]
Advanced Space will build an experimental spacecraft for tracking objects around the moon under a $72 million contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate. Contract work supports the lab’s Oracle spacecraft program, which aims to develop advanced techniques to detect previously unknown objects and study spacecraft positioning and navigation in the region […]
Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s planetary science division, has said the delay to the Venus Emissivity, Radio science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy mission could help the Psyche mission launch by 2023. The VERITAS mission seeks to study the planet Venus from orbit, while the Psyche mission seeks to study an asteroid of the same name. […]
Ball Aerospace has received a $78.2 million contract modification to provide a second Weather System Follow-on Microwave Satellite to the U.S. Space Force, which plans to launch it in 2028. The first WSF-M spacecraft was ordered in 2018 and is set to be deployed in 2024, SpaceNews reported Friday. The new satellite is meant to […]
Atlas Space Operations has secured a Small Business Innovation Research contract to provide the U.S. Space Force with a platform that can analyze data from space communications infrastructure and multidomain command and control systems. The data analytics platform will be designed with the capability to deliver improved insight into the performance of ground site hardware […]
The Space Development Agency is moving forward with December plans to launch an initial batch of satellites for Tranche 0 of its Transport Layer and Tracking Layer programs. SDA plans to deploy four tracking spacecraft from SpaceX and an undisclosed number of transport spacecraft from Lockheed Martin and York Space Systems. A follow-up mission set […]
L3Harris Technologies said its Cross-Tracker Infrared Sounder infrared weather forecasting technology has been launched on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration‘s Joint Polar Satellite System-2 weather satellite. JPSS-2 orbits the Earth 14 times a day to gather weather data. The CrIS instrument, a Fourier transform spectrometer, gathers hyperspectral, infrared data that supports NOAA in providing […]
Maj. Gen. DeAnna Burt, special assistant to the vice chief of space operations at the U.S. Space Force, attended an annual Air Traffic Control Association event on Nov. 7 to talk about a planned transfer of space traffic management operations to the Office of Space Commerce. At present, a U.S. Space Command squadron oversees safety […]
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has appointed Jimmy Kenyon as the director of the Glenn Research Center. Kenyon will oversee various NASA missions, including the Gateway Power and Propulsion Element, the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket development and other aeronautics research. He will also lead over 3,200 employees and contractors who design, develop and […]
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center has awarded Momentus a contract modification to provide in-space transportation services for two 1.5U CubeSats that will be launched in 2023 as part of The Aerospace Corp.’s Low-Latitude Ionosphere/Thermosphere Enhancements in Density mission, which the space agency has funded. Under the contract, Momentus will deliver its Vigoride orbital service vehicle to […]
