IMAGEInvesting in Space: Who wins in the Elon Musk versus Jeff Bezos moon raceThe billionaire race to the moon is on, but it doesn’t matter whether Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos gets there first – either way, NASA wins.
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IMAGENGA to map lunar geography to enable GPS on the moonThe National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is working with NASA to develop a positioning and navigation system to guide visitors around the surface of the moon “as accurately and as safely as GPS does on Earth."
IMAGEDefending Taiwan by countering China’s biggest threatChina’s anti-satellite capabilities are not the biggest threat to GPS. What should be much more of a concern to U.S. policymakers is that China relies far less on space for critical GPS-like services than we do.
IMAGEVirgin Orbit extends deadline for bankruptcy auction bidsVirgin Orbit has extended the deadline for bids as part of its bankruptcy auction process that the company says has attracted interest from dozens of potential bidders.
IMAGEEchoStar has fingers crossed for August Falcon Heavy launchEchoStar said its long-awaited Jupiter 3 satellite should be ready for a Falcon Heavy launch in August, although its deployment faces further delays if a higher priority government project takes this window.
IMAGEThe satellite boom is far from overThe global satellite industry is booming and now dominates the rapidly expanding space economy. For 2023 and beyond, look for the sector to maintain its robust growth.
IMAGEFrom Japan to the Philippines: US expands SSA cooperation with Asian countriesThe United States has agreed with the Philippines to strengthen cooperation on space situational awareness and space-based maritime domain awareness in the latest series of actions Washington has taken to strengthen ties with Asia-Pacific countries to counter China.
IMAGESatellite manufacturer LeoStella focused on defense market as commercial demand softensLeoStella, a manufacturer of small satellites, is pursuing U.S. defense sales amid a slowdown in production at its factory in Washington state near Seattle.
IMAGEElon Musk provides detailed review of Starship’s first launch—and what’s next"Weirdly, we did not see evidence of the rock tornado actually damaging engines."
IMAGEFirst ispace lunar lander feared lostControllers lost contact with a lunar lander developed by a Japanese company moments before its scheduled touchdown, raising fears the spacecraft crashed during its final descent.
IMAGEOur pledge to diversify the space industry workforce continues | Open LetterThe results from the first year of Space Workforce 2030 activity are in and we are trending in a positive direction. We are optimistic about our path forward, even as we remain realistic about the challenges we face and the work still to be done to make space more representative of everyone—by and beyond the year 2030.
IMAGEStarship conducts maiden launch – clears launch site and first stage flightThe most powerful rocket in history launched on its second attempt Thursday, the first major step to making life multi-planetary. Liftoff of Starship from Starbase, Texas came after an uneventful countdown, with only a couple of short holds before roaring off the launch mount.
IMAGELower space company price tags pave the way to more acquisitionsA drop in space company valuations could open the door to more transactions in the industry, according to an April 17 Space Symposium panel on the outlook for deals, as long as they can navigate increasing regulatory scrutiny.
IMAGESpace Systems Command’s Tetra-1 begins mission operationsMillennium Space Systems announced the handoff April 13 of the Tetra-1 microsatellite to the U.S. Space Force Space Systems Command for the start of mission operations.
IMAGENASA Sets Coverage for Air Quality Instrument LaunchNASA and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than 12:30 a.m. EDT Friday, April 7, to launch NASA’s TEMPO (Tropospheric Emissions Monitoring of Pollution instrument). TEMPO is the first space-based instrument to monitor major air pollutants hourly in high spatial resolution – down to four square miles – in a region stretching from the Atlantic to the Pa
IMAGENASA Helps Fund Minority Institutions Preparing Students for CollegeHigh school students from traditionally underrepresented and underserved communities will have a path to pursue careers in STEM with help from NASA. The agency announced Monday it has selected seven Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and one Predominantly Black Institution (PBI) to receive more than $3 million in funding to streng
IMAGENASA Names Two Diversity Champions for AgencyNASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced Monday he is taking additional steps forward to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) at the agency. Nelson named Steve Shih to serve in a new position as the agency’s first Diversity Ambassador and selected Elaine Ho as the next associate administrator for the Office of Diversity an
IMAGELaunch HN: Flower (YC W23) – Train AI models on distributed or sensitive dataHey HN - we're Daniel, Taner, and Nic, and we're building Flower (https://flower.dev/), an open-source framework for training AI on distributed data. We move the model to the data instead of moving the data to the model. This enables regulatory compliance (e.g. HIPAA) and ML use cases that are otherwise impossible. Our GitHub is at https://github.com/adap/flower, and we have a tutorial here: https://flower.dev/docs/tutorial/Flower-0-What-is-FL.html.Flower lets you train ML models on data that is distributed across many user devices or “silos” (separate data sources) without having to move the data. This approach is called federated learning.A silo can be anything from a single user device to the data of an entire organization. For example, your smartphone keyboard suggestions and auto-corrections can be driven by a personalized ML model learned from your own private keyboard data, as well as data from other smartphone users, without the data being transferred from anyone’s device.Most
IMAGEVirgin Orbit returning ‘small’ team from unpaid pause on Thursday to prep for next rocket launchVirgin Orbit is returning a “small” team to work on Thursday, according to a company-wide email obtained by CNBC, as it aims to prepare for its next rocket launch even as its future remains in doubt.
IMAGEBenchmark signs contracts for metal plasma thrustersBenchmark Space Systems announced contracts to sell around two dozen metal plasma thrusters based on technology the Burlington, Vermont-based startup acquired last year.