WASHINGTON — After months of stating that it would offer no further extensions of the Google Lunar X Prize competition, the X Prize Foundation announced Aug. 16 it was effectively giving the five remaining teams a little extra time. In a statement, the foundation, which administers the lunar landing competition, […]
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LOGAN, Utah — As the number of cubesats and other small satellites grows, experts advise that some degree of industry self-regulation will be needed to avoid collisions that could lead to more restrictive government regulations. During a panel session at the 31st Annual Conference on Small Satellites here Aug. 6, […]
WASHINGTON — An unnamed backer of Canadian Earth observation company UrtheCast’s proposed radar and optical satellite constellation has asked for UrtheCast to develop a standalone radar satellite ahead of the rest of its constellation. The customer signed a contract in “excess of one hundred million Canadian dollars” ($78.4 million) for […]
WASHINGTON – While the U.S Air Force is taking more steps to oversee nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3), the service must focus more on short-term problems than long-term issues, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says in its report, “Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications: Update on Air Force Oversight Effort […]
This article originally appeared in the July 3, 2017 issue of SpaceNews magazine. Mars 2020 is an ambitious mission. NASA plans to gather 20 rock cores and soil samples within 1.25 Mars years, or about 28 Earth months — a task that would be impossible without artificial intelligence because the rover would waste […]
North Korea’s threat to strike Guam with a salvo of ballistic missiles has raised the stakes for a U.S. missile shield some see as compromised by potentially exploitable seams in its all-important space layer. Years of program changes, delays and cancellations have created gaps in parts of the space-based layer […]
WASHINGTON — RigNet, a supplier of telecommunications services to the oil and gas industry, has pulled out of a $65 million capacity lease on Inmarsat’s Global Xpress satellite constellation, triggering a legal dispute between the two companies. In an Aug. 8 filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, RigNet […]
SANTA FE, N.M. — A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched a Dragon cargo spacecraft Aug. 14 with a diverse payload of science experiments for the International Space Station. The Falcon 9 lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:31 p.m. Eastern, and […]