Government/Military

The White House has named Chirag Parikh as executive secretary of the National Space Council. Parikh is the senior director of Azure Space at Microsoft, and was previously the director of space policy for the National Security Council from 2010-2016 during the Obama administration.  The National Space Council is under the White House, and it...

The U.S. Government Accountability Office on Friday denied protests from companies affiliated with Jeff Bezos that NASA wrongly awarded a lucrative astronaut lunar lander contract solely to Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The complaints were filed by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Leidos’ subsidiary Dynetics. “NASA did not violate procurement law or regulation when it decided to make only one award...

The Russian Satellite Communications Company (RSCC) new Director General Alexey Volin gave some of his first public remarks this week since taking the helm of Russia’s state-owned satellite operator. Volin spoke at the Territory of Meanings All-Russian Youth Educational Forum, and said RSCC’s principal challenge now is to provide access to the internet throughout Russia....

There is a remarkable silence in Washington D.C. political circles surrounding a question that nobody expected to be asking in late July — Why hasn’t U.S. President Joe Biden nominated a permanent leader to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)? What’s the hold-up? It has been more than six months since President Biden’s inauguration, and even...

Space and digital engineering solutions provider Redwire successfully demonstrated the ability to simulate hybrid space architectures in support of advanced mission planning for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, the company announced Thursday. Redwire demonstrated its solution, the “Hybrid Architecture Laboratory Operational Environment (HALOE),” as part of an Air Force Research Laboratory AFWERX contract it...

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) awarded an Indefinite-Delivery / Indefinite-Quantity (IDIQ) contract to ground based mobile satellite technology developer Kymeta to provide its u8 terminal and Kymeta Connect service in a combined open architecture for use across all military services. The new contract could earn Kymeta up to $950 million. The terms of the...

SES Government Solutions (GS) has won a new deal with the U.S. Space Force in Greenland, the company announced July 19. The operator’s U.S.-based government business will support the Thule Air Base in Greenland with critical communications capabilities, in a contract worth close to $15 million. Thule Air Base is the U.S. Space Force’s northernmost...

Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace has been boosted by a new contract win that will see the company deliver technology to the new Radar Observation System for Europe (ROSE) satellite as part of the Copernicus Program – the European Union’s Global Monitoring for Environment and Security program. Thales Alenia Space, prime contractor for the ROSE program,...

Spire Global will continue to participate in NASA’s Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition (CSDA) program after signing a $6 million contract extension. Spire announced the contract on July 14.  The CSDA allows NASA to acquire commercial Earth Observation (EO) data that supports its Earth science research. Spire was one of the original vendors of the CSDA...

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged the Momentus special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), its sponsor, the sponsor’s CEO, the company, and founder Mikhail Kokorich for misleading claims about Kokorich that have troubled the company since it announced the deal to go public.   The SEC announced July 13 that the SPAC, Stable Road Acquisition...