There are few things that tether us more to Earth than the food we eat and the air we breathe. Today, humans have the engineering willpower to travel to the Moon and possibly beyond, but when our planet recedes behind us and we slip beyond the reach of human aid, then what? In the absence

WASHINGTON — The European Space Agency’s April launcher agreement that convinced ArianeGroup to start mass production of the Ariane 6 also provided missions for the Avio-led Vega C rocket. Giulio Ranzo, CEO of Avio, the Colleferro, Italy, company that builds the Vega and future Vega C, said the ESA council session included missions for both

Our first picture of a black hole was a huge moment for science. But we can’t stop there. We need better pictures that deliver more information. That’s how we’ll learn even more about these strange, rule-breaking behemoths. Now a group of astronomers from the Radboud University in the city of Nijmegen, Netherlands, along with the European Space

“Foust Forward” appears in every issue of SpaceNews magazine. This column ran in the May 6, 2019 issue. After a little more than a year in office, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has demonstrated his willingness to talk about the agency to diverse audiences. Over the course of a few days in late April, for example,

On Thursday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin presented its plans to reach the Moon, including a brand new design for its “Blue Moon” lander. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk then took to Twitter to crudely imply that Bezos was building unwarranted hype for a plan that wasn’t going anywhere — a move that

SAN FRANCISCO – Virgin Galactic plans to move its spaceship, carrier aircraft and flight operations personnel this summer from Mojave, California, to New Mexico’s Spaceport America, company executives announced May 10. The move will occur after The Spaceship Company, a firm owned by Virgin Galactic, completes the cabin interior for the SpaceShipTwo vehicle VSS Unity,

WASHINGTON — The governments of the United States and Luxembourg, two of the biggest proponents of space commercialization, signed an agreement May 10 that could lead to greater cooperation between the two countries on a variety of space initiatives. At a ceremony in Luxembourg, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Luxembourg Deputy Prime Minister Étienne

SAN FRANCISCO — Maxar Technologies reported a decrease in quarterly revenues May 9 due to lackluster geostationary communication satellite sales, completion of a radar satellite constellation and the loss of the Worldview-4 high-resolution imaging satellite. The firm reported revenues of $504 million for the quarter ended March 31, compared with $557.7 million for the first

Jeff Bezos’ private space company Blue Origin revealed its long-awaited plans to go to the Moon at a mysterious press event today. Bezos showed off a brand new design of its “Blue Moon” lander, which is designed to carry 6.5 tons (5.9 tonnes) to the surface of the Moon. According to Bezos, the Blue Origin

Shanahan joined the administration in April 2017 after a 30-year career at Boeing. WASHINGTON — Since Congress in late 2017 put him in charge of restructuring the military’s space organizations, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has led the charge to make President Trump’s Space Force a reality. Trump informed Shanahan on Thursday that he wants

DoD spokesman: “The establishment of the United States Space Force is a small investment to ensure American leadership in space.” WASHINGTON — The Defense Department is disputing the analysis by the Congressional Budget Office on the long-term costs of the space organizations that the Trump administration has proposed. According to the May 8 CBO report,

The Universe didn’t begin as we see it today, glittering with light. For the first 500 million or so years, it was a murky, neutral hydrogen-filled darkness. Then something started exciting the hydrogen with radiation, ionising it – and lo, there was light. We don’t know what ultimately caused that first ultraviolet light to shine.

WASHINGTON — A test of parachutes for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft did not go as planned last month, NASA and SpaceX confirmed May 8. During a hearing of the House Science Committee’s space subcommittee on NASA’s exploration plans, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) quizzed agency officials on the testing of parachutes for commercial crew vehicles, zeroing

WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin’s Verge ground station network should have coverage for satellites passing over the continental United States next year, with the timeline for a global build out determined by what antenna technology the company chooses next. Joseph Portale, a senior program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, said the company plans to have

WASHINGTON — Startups in the burgeoning small launch vehicle market acknowledge that only a handful of vehicles will survive a likely shakeout, driven more by commercial rather than government demand. A panel session at the Satellite 2019 conference here May 8 featured three startups that expect to perform first launches of their small launch vehicles

The faint, flickering distortions of space-time we call gravitational waves are tricky to detect, and we’ve only managed to do so in recent years. But now scientists have calculated that these waves may leave more persistent traces of their passing – traces we may also be able to detect. Such traces are called ‘persistent gravitational

For a satellite industry torn between traditional geostationary comsats and LEO megaconstellations, GEO smallsats are emerging as a happy medium This article originally appeared in the May 6, 2019 issue of SpaceNews magazine. When Swedish broadband service provider Ovzon began shopping around for a small communications satellite that would work in geostationary orbit, the designs

A violent collision between two neutron stars 4.6 billion years ago showered the as-yet-unformed Solar System with heavy elements, new research has found. As much as 0.3 percent of Earth’s gold, platinum and uranium (along with other heavy elements) could have been forged in the fire of a merger 1,000 light-years away, when the Solar

WASHINGTON — SpaceX’s first launch to carry a large number of Starlink broadband satellites is scheduled for May 15, according to a company executive. Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer, said the launch will carry “dozens of satellites,” adding more prototypes to the two currently in low Earth orbit. “This next batch of

WASHINGTON — The World Economic Forum (WEF) has selected a consortium of companies, universities and agencies to develop a system to rate the sustainability of space systems, one that its backers hope will encourage good behavior in space. WEF announced May 6 that a team from the European Space Agency, together with one led by