Raytheon has entered full-rate production of its Standard Missile-6 rocket for the U.S. Navy at the company’s Redstone Arsenal production facility in Alabama. “Full-rate production allows us to significantly ramp up production and deliver to the U.S. Navy the quantities it needs to further increase operational effectiveness,” Mike Campisi, SM-6 senior program director at Raytheon, said Wednesday. The SM-6 […] More

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory has received the go-ahead to start building NASA’s Solar Probe Plus spacecraft following a critical design review of its full mission plan by an independent agency panel. The plan includes how the SPP team will perform construction and testing of the spacecraft tasked to study the outer atmosphere […] More

Iridium Communications CEO Matt Desch announced that the company has rescheduled the launch of the first two Iridium NEXT satellites to October to give an additional four months for payload-software validation, SpaceNews reported Monday. Peter de Selding writes Iridium has confirmed with launch providers SpaceX and Russia’s Kosmotras their readiness for an accelerated launch schedule between October 2015 and late […] More

Lockheed Martin will work with Alaska Aerospace to launch the latter firm’s small- and medium- lift missions from the Kodiak Launch Complex with Lockheed’s Athena rocket. Alaska Aerospace will collaborate with Lockheed to upgrade the rocket and launch pad in preparation for government and commercial payload launch operations, Lockheed said Monday. “Upgrading Athena and the KLC will give government and […] More

Ball Aerospace & Technologies and NASA will fly a set of experimental Defense Department scientific payloads on the planned Green Propellant Infusion Mission for 2016 under a $3.4 million payload integration contract. The company said Wednesday the DoD Space Experiments Review Board selected the Integrated Miniaturized Electrostatic Analyzer Reflight, Small Wind and Temperature Spectrometer and Space Object Self-tracker payloads to be part of the GPIM […] More

Boeing has chosen aerospace engineering firm Dynetics to provide a thrust vector control exhaust gas heat exchanger and three structural simulators for the NASA Space Launch System program. Dynetics said Wednesday it will manufacture the flight hardware and simulation platforms for the SLS core stage at its Huntsville, Alabama facility, and then deliver the systems […] More

NASA launched a SpaceX cargo ship on Sunday to deliver approximately 5,000 pounds of science experiments, technology and crew supplies to the International Space Station. The SpaceX Dragon capsule launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida aboard a Falcon 9 rocket at 1:52 a.m. Eastern Time, NASA said Sunday. Dragon’s cargo package includes […] More

Jim Reagan, chief financial officer at Vencore, brings nearly two decades of financial leadership to his role at the technology services contractor and oversees the company’s fiscal support functions. Vencore, formerly known as The SI Organization, closed its potential $165 million purchase of QinetiQ’s U.S. services and solutions group in May and announced the new name of “Vencore” […] More

The Orbital Sciences-built Cygnus spacecraft has returned from its voyage to the International Space Station, where the cargo ship delivered 3,669 pounds of supplies for the ISS crew. Cygnus unberthed from the orbiting laboratory Friday after staying 31 days there and reached Earth’s atmosphere Sunday at around 9:15 a.m. Eastern Time, Orbital Sciences said Monday. […] More

Orbital Sciences Corp. has launched three satellites into space in an effort to help the U.S. Air Force gain situational awareness of man-made objects in Earth orbit. Two satellites took off aboard a Delta IV rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida on July 28 as part of the Air Force’s Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program, […] More

An Orbital Sciences-built spacecraft took off Sunday from Wallops Island, Virginia for the International Space Station, carrying nearly 3,300 pounds of technology and scientific cargo. Orbital and NASA launched a Cygnus cargo capsule aboard an Antares rocket at the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility at 12:52 p.m. Eastern time, NASA said Sunday. The Sunday launch marks […] More

Linde will supply NASA with approximately 360,000 tons of liquid nitrogen and 64,000 tons of liquid oxygen to support the operations of six research and space flight centers across the U.S. The company said Monday the agency uses nitrogen for pressurization, purging, inerting and pneumatic actuation, while oxygen is used as oxidizer for cryogenic rocket engines. The research and space […] More