President Joe Biden has selected Lt. Gen. Chance Saltzman to serve as the U.S. Space Force’s next chief of space operations and is promoting him to the grade of four-star general. If confirmed for the role, Saltzman would lead the nascent military service’s transition out of its early planning and organizational phases, the Air Force […]
Terran Orbital has executed a TCM-2 burn for the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment. The burn was carried out in two parts and was declared fully successful on July 26. The burn confirms that the CAPSTONE satellite will maintain its course towards the moon. The spacecraft is charting the near rectilinear […]
Lockheed Martin and Maxar Space have been awarded contracts worth $5 million each to help define the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s future geostationary weather satellite program. The deals stipulate that each company spend ten months developing the Geostationary Extended Observations Spacecraft concept, SpaceNews reported Wednesday. It was further revealed that the contracts call for […]
Dennis Andrucyk, the director of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, has announced his plan to retire. Andrucyk has been in federal service for 36 years and has held numerous leadership positions at NASA since 2000, his agency biography says. He has been leading Goddard since January 2020, NASA said Monday. As director, Andrucyk is […]
NASA is moving toward a services contract model as it prepares for the first integrated flight test of the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft. According to a presolicitation notice, the space agency plans to award Deep Space Transport its single-award Exploration Production and Operations contract. The company will provide hardware and services […]
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced that its Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover prototype recently passed the most realistic lunar terrain navigation simulations conducted at the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. The VIPER rover’s capabilities are being tested in preparation for its planned mission to the moon’s south pole, where soil conditions are especially […]
Gregory Robinson, the director of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope program, will retire on July 29 after working at the space agency for over 30 years. The JWST observatory will deliver high-definition images of space to allow scientists to identify key research questions, such as the origins of the universe and the solar system. Robinson […]
Mark Clampin, the incoming director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s astrophysics division, vowed to launch the next giant space telescope on time and within budget. He said that the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is still on track for its scheduled launch on October 2026 but there is a need to anticipate challenges […]
Safety advisers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on Thursday warned agency policymakers against phasing out the International Space Station at the end of the decade without putting in place a workable successor. Members of the agency’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel said in a meeting that they are concerned that commercial space stations may […]
NASA’s Space Launch System Program teams and Northrop Grumman have tested a ground-based version of a booster motor that will be used on the Artemis mission. Flight Support Booster-2 was mounted on a horizontal test stand at Northrop’s test facility in Promontory, Utah, and was activated for two minutes. The motor produced 3.6 million pounds […]
