Jon Campagna, former chief financial officer of Virgin Galactic, has been appointed to the same position at San Francisco-based Earth observation satellite operator Capella Space. He brings more than two decades of financial work experience at public and private companies to Capella Space, the company said Wednesday.

United Launch Alliance has shipped its Atlas V vehicle to the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida ahead of launching a Lockheed Martin-built satellite that will join a constellation of missile-warning spacecraft. An Atlas V 421 rocket will send the Space-Based Infrared System Geosynchronous Earth Orbit 5 satellite to orbit on behalf of the Space and Missile Systems Center, ULA said Thursday.

Jacobs has partnered with NASA to develop orbital trajectory approaches for spacecraft in uncrewed and crewed missions including the agency's Artemis I mission to the moon. Jacobs said Monday the team will use the Copernicus tool that works to help establish spaceflight trajectory designs through computer coding techniques.

Rocket Lab has agreed to help BlackSky launch geospatial intelligence satellites to space across multiple missions in 2021. The launch vehicle provider said Thursday its Electron launch vehicle will send eight of BlackSky's 286-pound satellites to low Earth orbit across four flight missions.

SpaceX will provide NASA with space asset and debris location data that will be gathered through the global navigation satellite service receivers of the Starlink spacecraft to address conjunction and collision risks. NASA said Friday its partnership with SpaceX is aimed at ensuring that the company's Starlink satellites and the agency's spacecraft are coordinated to avoid a collision or prevent a close approach between the assets.

The Aerospace Industries Association, Commercial Spaceflight Federation and Satellite Industry Association have asked the Department of Commerce to continue to fund the Office of Space Commerce. “Retaining staff in the Office of Space Commerce to continue to carry out its work until a new Director is named is critical to the success of our industry on a variety of fronts,” the three industry groups wrote in a March 9 letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

Michael Gazarik, a vice president at Ball Aerospace, took a three-year seat at the NASA Advisory Council's technology, innovation and engineering committee in July.

Marian Joh, who holds nearly three decades of experience in the aerospace and technology industries, has been tapped by Voyager Space Holdings to serve on its board of directors. Joh will bring her experience in corporate strategy and financing to her role and advise Voyager leadership in pursuit of enabling various space exploration missions, the company said Wednesday.

Larry Rubin, Rob Singh, Tony Colucci and David Lihani, who all held executive roles at Maxar Technologies' SSL subsidiary, have been appointed to fill chief leadership roles at SpaceLink, a new Washington, D.C.-based satellite data relay system company owned by Australia-based Electro Optic Systems.

The Demonstration and Science Experiments satellite of the Air Force Research Laboratory performed the first space-to-space very low frequency transmission within three months of its launch during a coordinated experiment with the Japanese Space Agency’s Arase spacecraft. The DSX satellite launched in June 2019 to study the interactions of space plasma, radiation belts and radio waves in near-Earth space.

NASA has claimed that it made notable progress on the Moon to Mars exploration strategy, the Artemis program, scientific advancements and spaceflight capabilities in 2020. “We made history with a U.S. commercial partner, made groundbreaking discoveries, advanced science, furthered aeronautics research and technology development, and even joined in the fight against COVID-19,” said  Jim Bridenstine, NASA administrator and 2019 Wash100 Award recipient.

NASA certified SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft to transport humans to space, following the completion of a flight readiness review. The space agency said Wednesday it signed the Human Rating Certification Plan to approve Crew Dragon and the Falcon 9 rocket for manned transportation.