After negotiations, Space Development Agency was able to get reduced pricing for national security launchSDA Director Derek Tournear said initially he did not want to use NSSL because it’s significantly more expensive than commercial launches but worked out an agreement with the Space Force to get the cost reduced
Space station spacewalk postponed by astronaut medical issueA planned spacewalk outside the International Space Station Tuesday was postponed after NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei was diagnosed with a pinched nerve, which NASA described as a “minor medical issue.”
Global space economy swells in spite of the pandemicThe overall space economy expanded 4.4 percent to $447 billion in 2020 with more nations participating than ever before, according to the Space Foundation’s updated Space Report.
Blue Origin lawsuit forces SpaceX, NASA to stop joint work on Starship Moon landerDays after Jeff Bezos space startup Blue Origin sued NASA over its decision to solely award SpaceX a contract to turn Starship...
After a dozen flights, NASA’s chopper has yet to come a cropperKitty Hawk a century ago. Mars today. Where 100 years from now?
NG-16 arrives at ISS, Northrop Grumman talks Cygnus’ future useAfter a 36 hour phasing profile, the S.S. Ellison Onizuka cargo ship, part of Northrop Grumman’s NG-16 mission, has arrived at the International Space Station (ISS). Safely in the grip of Canadarm2, Cygnus will now be attached to the nadir port of the Unity (Node-1) module for the multi-month cargo delivery and removal process.
Cygnus supply ship arrives at space station with four tons of cargoClosing out a 36-hour flight from a launch pad in Virginia, a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo ship arrived at the International Space Station Thursday with a host of biomedical experiments, supplies for a 3D printing tech demo, fresh food, and spare parts.
NASA Spacecraft Provides Insight into Asteroid Bennu’s Future OrbitNASA researchers used precision-tracking data from the agency’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to better understand movements of the potentially hazardous asteroid Bennu, significantly reducing uncertainties related to its future orbit, and improving scientists’ ability to determine the total impact probability and predict orbits of other asteroids.
Fully stacked Starship caps busy week at SpaceX’s Texas rocket yardLast week’s progress at SpaceX’s Starship development site culminated with the spectacular, but brief, site of a fully-stacked launcher towering nearly 400 feet above the tidal flats of South Texas.
Virgin Galactic re-opens ticket sales, first commercial flight slips to late ’22Virgin Galactic, buoyed by a successful July 11 sub-orbital test flight with founder Richard Branson on aboard the company’s winged rocket plane, re-opened ticket sales Thursday for rides to space starting at $450,000 per seat.
Boeing’s Starliner capsule returns to hangar for valve troubleshootingGround teams at Cape Canaveral wheeled Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule and a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket back inside their assembly hangar Thursday for further troubleshooting of misbehaving valves inside the Starliner propulsion system. Without a quick fix, technicians will have to remove the spacecraft from the Atlas 5 rocket for more extensive work, potentially delaying the Starliner test flight by months.
Keeping up busy launch schedule, China launches military telecom satelliteChina launched a communications satellite likely designed for use by the Chinese military Thursday, keeping up a busy schedule of space missions with the country’s fourth orbital launch attempt in barely a week.
Statements on Swearing in of Margaret Vo Schaus as NASA CFOThe following are statements from Margaret Vo Schaus, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, and Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy on Wednesday’s swearing in of Vo Schaus as NASA’s Chief Financial Officer:
SpaceX surges Starship work despite FAA environmental review uncertaintyThe unstoppable force of SpaceX’s recent surge in development of its Starship vehicle for its first orbital flight is in danger of colliding with an immovable object: an ongoing environment review that has no clear end date.
Modern civilization would be lost without GPSAircraft, cars, trucks, trains and ships rely on GPS for location data, while GPS timing signals underpin cellular communications and financial transactions.
After nearly 20 months, Boeing and Starliner have a shot at redemptionStarliner to attempt second flight test beginning Tuesday afternoon.
Atlas V’s launch of Starliner OFT-2 test flight delayedBoeing has scrubbed Tuesday’s planned launch of their Starliner spacecraft on its second uncrewed Orbital Test Flight, called OFT-2, aboard United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket. The issue at hand, according to Boeing, related to incorrect valve position indications in the propulsion system. The issues were first detected during checkouts after thunderstorms storms over launch site on Monday.
SpaceX outfits first orbital-class Starship booster with grid fins, Raptor enginesIn the space of two days, SpaceX has outfitted Starship’s first orbital-class Super Heavy booster with four car-sized grid fins, stacked the...
GAO dismisses lunar lander contract protestsSTORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION The Government Accountability Office ruled Friday that NASA did not violate procurement law or regulations when it awarded a single $2.9 billion moon lander contract to SpaceX, denying appeals from competitors Dynetics, a Leidos company, and Blue Origin, owned by Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos. NASA managers initially hoped to award two moon lander contracts, but “down selected” to a single provider — SpaceX — in April based on current and projected funding levels from Congress. Blue Origin and Dynetics protested the award, claiming NASA was required to make more than one award given the announcement’s stated goal and that the space agency should have given them an opportunity to adjust their bids when it became clear funding was not available to pay for more than one proposal. “In denying the protests, GAO first concluded that NASA did not violate procurement law or regulation when it decided to make only one award,” the government said in
In battle with Russian lab module, space station ‘brought a knife to a gun fight’Playing it safe, the seven-member crew of the International Space Station moved into the U.S. segment of the outpost Friday, closed hatches and window shutters and stood by while Russian flight controllers vented helium pressurization lines in the newly arrived Nauka lab module.


















