United Launch Alliance has wrapped up the final testing phase on an emergency egress platform for the Boeing-built Starliner crew capsule designed to fly aboard the ULA-built Atlas V rocket for crewed missions to the International Space Station. ULA collaborated with zip line maker Terra-Nova to develop the Emergency Egress System in support of NASA’s Commercial […] More

NASA has postponed Orbital ATK‘s next cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station to address booster problems on the launch vehicle that will be used to launch a company-built spacecraft, Space News reported Wednesday. Space News’ Jeff Foust quoted Robyn Gatens, deputy director of NASA’s ISS division, as saying the investigation on the booster engine for the Cygnus OA-7 mission will push back the launch no sooner than mid-April. […] More

Raytheon and the Missile Defense Agency have updated the Standard Missile-3 IIA weapon with new software, sensors and infrared seeker designed to handle new threat data and detect hostile targets in space, Defense Systems reported Friday. MDA officials said the Raytheon-built SM-3 IIA missile worked to intercept a medium-range ballistic missile during a demonstration, Kris Osborn wrote. “We […] More

SpaceX has started to collaborate with NASA to determine potential landing sites for the firm’s Red Dragon space vehicle and future manned missions on Mars, Space News reported Monday. Jeff Foust writes Paul Wooster, spacecraft guidance, navigation and control systems manager at SpaceX, said at a symposium held Saturday in Texas that SpaceX and NASA’s […] More

Lockheed Martin has developed and tested for the U.S. Army a 60-kilowatt laser weapon system designed to help the service branch counter threats posed by drones, mortars and rockets. Lockheed has initiated preparation work to facilitate the delivery of the fiber laser platform to the Army Space and Missile Defense Command in Alabama after it […] More

Ninety-nine student teams from high schools and universities in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Brazil and other countries will participate in NASA’s three-day Human Exploration Rover Challenge that will kick off March 30 at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Alabama. NASA said Wednesday the Marshall Space Flight Center will host the competition that will require […] More

NASA aims to launch on March 19 an Orbital ATK-built Cygnus spacecraft to perform the seventh cargo delivery mission to the International Space Station. Orbital ATK’s Cygnus will have a 30-minute launch window that will start at approximately 10:56 p.m. Eastern time and will take off aboard a United Launch Alliance-made Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air […] More

NASA has started to solicit proposals from potential industry partners to develop commercial space technology systems designed to support future space missions. The agency’s space technology mission directorate will select projects worth approximately $10 million combined under the Announcement of Collaborative Opportunity program, NASA said Friday. Companies will lead the projects and NASA centers will serve […] More

Iridium Communications has inked an agreement with SpaceX to launch additional communication satellites alongside the twin satellites of a collaborative mission between NASA and the GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences. Iridium said Tuesday the launch of five Iridium NEXT satellites with the NASA/GFZ Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On payload aboard a Falcon 9 rocket in early 2018 is the company’s […] More

NASA has completed the preliminary design review of the exploration upper stage for the Space Launch System rocket designed to bring the Orion spacecraft to deep space by 2021 as part of its first crewed flight mission. “With the completion of this review, our teams will start developing components and materials for the EUS, and […] More

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has unveiled the first image taken by a Harris-built high-resolution digital camera onboard a weather monitoring satellite. Harris said Monday its Advanced Baseline Imager took a picture of Earth’s full western hemisphere with detailed cloud and water features from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-16. NASA and NOAA launched the Lockheed Martin-built GOES-16R satellite atop a […] More

Lockheed Martin has enclosed a missile warning satellite the company built for the U.S. Air Force in a protective launch vehicle fairing in preparation for a scheduled Jan. 19 launch. The third Space-Based Infrared System Geosynchronous Earth Orbit satellite went through encapsulation at Cape Canaveral, Florida, where it will be deployed aboard a United Launch Alliance-made Atlas V rocket, Lockheed said Tuesday. […] More