Government/Military

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rolled out a new rule on Thursday that it says takes a new, streamlined approach for commercial spaceflight.  The biggest change is that it allows launchers to use a single license for multiple launches and reentries, from multiple launch sites, valid up to five years. It allows for early review...

NASA has chosen 14 companies for contract awards to develop technologies for Artemis operations on the Moon, including about $260 million to a group including Lockheed Martin, United Launch Alliance (ULA), and SpaceX to develop cryogenic fluid management. The awards, announced Wednesday, have an expected combined award value of more than $370 million. For cryogenic...

Last week, the movers and shakers within the Russian space industry gathered virtually at SatComRus to talk about the future for satellite in Russia, and what the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will have on this landscape. Oleg Dukhovnitskiy, Head of the Federal Communications Agency (FCA) in Russia said that satellite communications plays a big...

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Telesat a further contract worth $18.3 million to develop and test it’s Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation as part of DARPA’s Blackjack program. This builds off a Telesat/DARPA contract awarded in 2018 for system engineering and interface definition. Blackjack is a program to leverage commercial LEO technology for...

For Americans looking toward the heavens, space has always been the final frontier, a fascination that triggered a global space race and launched NASA. Since NASA was formed in 1958, space exploration has been a hallmark of government innovation and public-private partnerships. Today, the United States continues to lead the world in the newest era...

Accion Systems will host its propulsion system, TILE 3, onboard a NanoAvionics rideshare mission. Accion Systems procured this flight as part of a U.S. government-sponsored propulsion program, and launch is expected in late 2021. The nanosatellite for the rideshare mission is based on the NanoAvionics M6P bus and will include several customer payloads that can...

Boeing and the U.S. Space Force revealed Wednesday that the Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS)-11+ communications satellite successfully completed the Preliminary Design Review (PDR). This was the first all-digital PDR, which concluded on July 1. Boeing is now ready to proceed to the final design phase, with production beginning next year at the company’s El Segundo...

The UK Space Agency launched its first ever UK Space Census on Wednesday to survey the diversity of the U.K. space sector and inform future space policy. The census will collect anonymous information from space sector professionals to provide a broad picture of the U.K. space job market including demographics including age, gender, race, and...

SES’s relationship with Microsoft continues to deepen. Last year, the operator reached a deal with Microsoft to become an ExpressRoute partner and to offer cloud-enabled video playout services. Now, SES is becoming the Medium-Earth Orbit (MEO) connectivity partner for Microsoft Azure Orbital, Microsoft’s new managed service enabling network operators to communicate and control their satellite capacity, process...

The Space Development Agency (SDA) has awarded L3Harris Technologies and SpaceX contracts worth a total of  $342.8 million for the development of the Wide Field of View (WFOV) program to build satellites to help in the warning and tracking of advanced missile threats, including hypersonic missiles. L3Harris received an almost $193.6 million contract, and SpaceX...