GovPlanet, IronPlanet’s online marketplace for used government equipment, has completed its second year of work to provide equipment to federal, state and municipal clients. The marketplace also launched an expanded platform designed to extend its offerings to customers in Europe as GovPlanet enters its third year, GovPlanet said Monday. “Our growth both geographically and through our product offerings […] More

OGSystems will team with Planet to build a location-based intelligence platform that combines commercial remote sensing, big data and cognitive analytics. The companies said Monday the BlueGlass platform will work to offer real-time insights delivered through situational awareness, anomaly alerting and reporting on activities that could lead to potential risks to user operations. “OGSystems’ vision for BlueGlass was born out of our […] More

IronPlanet will continue to manage and sell the Defense Logistics Agency’s surplus trucks, heavy equipment and other assets after DLA exercised the first option year under a six-year contract. The exercised option comes after DLA awarded the Commercial Venture 4-Rolling Stock contract to the company in July 2014, IronPlanet said Monday. Jeff Holmes, senior vice […] More

The University of Massachusetts Lowell Center for Space Science and Technology has concluded its Planet Imaging Coronagraphic Technology Using a Reconfigurable Experimental Base exoplanet research mission following its return from space. PICTURE-B features a 22-inch-diameter silicon carbide primary mirror built by Northrop Grumman‘s AOA Xinetics subsidiary, Northrop said Tuesday. The mirror worked to support PICTURE-B’s mission to observe the Rigel […] More

Northrop Grumman company AOA Xinetics has completed delivery of the primary mirror for University of Massachusetts, Lowell’s Picture B mission. The goal of Picture B, short for Planet Imaging Coronagraphic Technology Using a Reconfigurable Experimental Base, is to accelerate UMass Lowell’s exoplanet research through accurate dust and debris measurements from nearby stars, Northrop said Thursday. […] More

NASA has discovered the first exoplanet with a repurposed version of the Ball Aerospace-developed Kepler spacecraft. Lead researcher Andrew Vanderburg studied data collected by Kepler in February during a K2 mission test in which the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo’s HARPS-North spectrograph took measurements that confirmed the new find, Ball Aerospace said Thursday. “Kepler may well deliver the first […] More

NASA has launched the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory-built Balloon Observation Platform for Planetary Science into space in order to study solar system objects. The spacecraft took off from the Fort Sumner, New Mexico-based NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Research Facility on Thursday and will work to detect organic elements on objects in the solar system, NASA said Thursday. BOPPS […] More

IronPlanet has unveiled an online marketplace for users to buy and sell surplus Defense Department assets. The first online auction of surplus trucks, trailers, generators, wheel loaders, cranes, crawler tractors and other government equipment on the GovPlanet marketplace is scheduled for Nov. 19, IronPlanet said Wednesday. “GovPlanet is a compelling new platform for fast and efficient disposal of government surplus equipment […] More

Hong Kong-based Deep Knowledge Ventures has invested in space development firm Transplanetary to help develop the Space Program Ontologically Computed Knowledge program to guide DKV through its investment decisions in the space sector. Deep Knowledge Ventures said Wednesday SPOCK is a machine learning program that uses publicly-available data on the global space ecosystem from commercial, government and academic space organizations. DKV will analyze data to draw a road […] More

TeleCommunication Systems will supply Planet Labs with the X/Y Tracking Antenna Systems to help track the Flock-1 Earth-imaging satellite constellation. TCS said Wednesday that features of the tracking antennas for the low-Earth orbit satellites include uplink satellite command and imaging data reception. “Capturing these high-resolution views of the earth at significant volume is a major milestone in the space industry,” […] More

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commercial Data Program seeks to determine the availability of new vendors that can address the requirements under the Radio Occultation Data Buy II multiple award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract and has issued a request for information for the effort. Capable vendors would be added to the RODB-2 IDIQ pool and would […] More

NASA has selected nine companies to conduct a total of 12 studies on the feasibility of using commercial services, such as payload delivery, payload hosting, communications relay and surface imaging, to support future science missions to Mars. The Mars Exploration Commercial Services research program focuses on four categories: small payload delivery and hosting services, large […] More