Lockheed Martin has delivered a company-built Mars lander to a launch site in California for NASA‘s upcoming mission to study the red planet’s deep interior. A U.S. military aircraft transported InSight on Wednesday from Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where the space vehicle will undergo final integration and tests, Lockheed said […] More

Cobham has been awarded contracts worth $20.5 million to supply actuators to NASA for the Mars rover program intended to explore the red planet. The actuators will work to drive the rover wheels, allow steering, antenna motion, and deploy the remote sensing mast of the rover, Cobham said Wednesday. “After a 350,000,000 mile journey to […] More

NASA has awarded approximately $17.1 million in contracts to Firefly Space Systems, Rocket Lab USA and Virgin Galactic to launch small satellites — or CubeSats — to low-Earth orbit. Jim Norman, director of launch services at NASA, said Oct. 14 the space agency’s launch services program aims to help transport smaller payloads into orbit through commercial […] More

Northrop Grumman has experimented with an occulting technology the company built to help astronomers view and study celestial objects from Earth. The company demonstrated circular and petal-shaped designs of its starshade in conjunction with the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope during engineering tests at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, Northrop said Tuesday. It marks the first […] More

NASA has received a new telescope structure built by Northrop Grumman for integration with the James Webb Space Telescope. The structure is designed to hold the hexagonal mirrors and other optical components of the space telescope, Northrop said Wednesday. Webb is a space observatory designed to capture images of undiscovered planets, galaxies and other distance space […] More

Megan Smith, U.S. chief technology officer since September 2014, will receive the New York State Society of Washington D.C.‘s “Charging Buffalo” award at the organization’s Buffalo Nite event Sept. 16 in Washington. The nonprofit organization gives the award to city natives or those it deems “friends of Buffalo” in recognition of their career achievements and connection between the […] More

A NASA spacecraft with a Ball Aerospace & Technologies-built camera is scheduled to arrive at Pluto on July 14. Ball Aerospace said Wednesday the 23-pound Ralph camera will work to gather images of the planet as the New Horizons spacecraft performs flybys within 7,000 miles of Pluto. “We know so little about Pluto that we expect the mission […] More

IBM has deployed an analytics-based data network on the cloud in an effort to help law enforcement departments produce case leads and share police records with other agencies. The company said Monday its IBM i2 COPLINK on Cloud platform has geospatial mapping functions designed to help police officers generate maps associated with burglaries, arson and […] More

IBM has partnered with The Weather Company and its division WSI to introduce an analytics-based platform intended to provide weather forecasts and help with responses of public sector agencies to natural disasters. Under the strategic alliance, IBM will incorporate WSI’s algorithms and 15-day tropical forecast into its Intelligent Operations Center for Emergency Management in an effort to provide data […] More

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates has been awarded an $8.95 million contract to develop new camera systems for the Canadian Space Agency’s mobile servicing system onboard the International Space Station. The camera systems will be designed to capture visiting spacecraft and aid in ISS maintenance and inspection work, MDA said Thursday. “The technology will be applicable […] More

Ball Aerospace & Technologies and Arizona State University have teamed up to develop a thermal imaging tool that seeks to aid NASA in its mission to study whether a Jupiter moon is capable to support life. The company said Thursday the thermal emission imaging technology, dubbed E-Themis, is one of the nine instruments to board a […] More

Lockheed Martin has kicked off environmental tests on NASA’s InSight Mars spacecraft after the company completed system assembly work. InSight Mars will be subjected to a thermal vacuum test in the spacecraft’s cruise configuration, reverberant acoustic, separation and deployment shock, and electromagnetic interference and compatibility testing at Lockheed’s facilities near Denver, the company said Wednesday. Lockheed […] More