Government/Military

Kratos Defense and Security Solutions was awarded a follow on Task Order (TO) by the U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (NAWCTSD). Valued at approximately $15.1 million, it was issued against a U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) sole-source, three-year, single award Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to provide training-related products and services in...

The C-Band Alliance (CBA) put up a fight for its 5G spectrum allocation plan at a U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing yesterday, as critics cast doubt on the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) legal authority to implement a private auction. At the hearing, titled “Our Wireless Future: Building a Comprehensive Approach...

What’s the proper dividing line between what government does and what business does? This is not a political question — it is meant in the context of the space industry. There used to be a pretty bright dividing line. There was NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and other space agencies in civilian space, and...

NASA awarded a $73.7 million contract to Made In Space to demonstrate the ability of a small spacecraft, called Archinaut One, to manufacture and assemble spacecraft components in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The in-space robotic manufacturing and assembly technologies could be important for America’s Moon to Mars exploration approach. Archinaut One is expected to launch on a...

Spire Global Luxembourg will launch its open source Data Lake. The Spire Data Lake is accessible free of charge to all start-ups, research institutes, and public agencies in Luxembourg. These entities will be provided with sets of proprietary data for research and non-commercial product development activities. This collaborative initiative is co-funded by the Luxembourg Space...

The mission critical design review (M-CDR) of NASA‘s Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) space-based astrophysics observatory was recently completed at Ball Aerospace‘s Boulder, Colorado, facility. The IXPE mission is led by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, with support from Ball Aerospace, the Italian Space Agency (ASI), Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at University of Colorado Boulder, and...

Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) was selected by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Small Spacecraft Technology program and NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley — in collaboration with the University of Florida and MIT — to provide multiple 3U spacecraft for its CubeSat Lasercom Infrared Crosslink (CLICK) flight demonstration missions. The cubesats will be used...

Lockheed Martin revealed that its second, next-generation GPS III satellite is ready for its planned July 25 launch. On June 26, Lockheed Martin Space and United Launch Alliance (ULA) technicians completed encapsulating GPS III Space Vehicle 02 (GPS III SV02) in its launch fairings at the company’s Astrotech Space Operations facility, where the satellite has undergone...

Amazon is seeking government permission to launch 3,236 broadband satellites that would cover nearly all of the United States and much of the rest of the world. Amazon subsidiary Kuiper Systems filed its application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday last week, saying it intends to cover all of the US except most...

Northrop Grumman was awarded an $82 million contract by the U.S. Air Force to facilitate military satellite communications in the Earth’s north polar region through its Enhanced Polar System Recapitalization (EPS-R) Control and Planning Segment (CAPS) program. Northrop Grumman is the provider for all three major components of the EPS-R CAPS program. The U.S. Air...