WASHINGTON — Switzerland formally signed the Artemis Accords April 16, becoming the latest nation to join an agreement about sustainable space exploration. In a ceremony at NASA Headquarters, Swiss Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin, the country’s minister for economic affairs, education and research, signed the accords alongside NASA Administrator Bill Nelson […]
Space
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WASHINGTON — NASA documents show how the agency balanced cost, capabilities and experience in its selection of three companies to continue work on an Artemis lunar rover. NASA selected proposals led by Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost and Venturi Astrolab for its Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) Services program April 3. Each […]
WASHINGTON — Military satellites for decades have been built like a giant toolbox with all the functions crammed into one unit. But this type of monolithic design makes it expensive, complex and less adaptable. The Space Force is now “disaggregating” satellites, breaking down the toolbox into smaller, specialized toolkits. The […]
WASHINGTON — NASA will seek “out of the box” ideas in a bid to reduce the costs and shorten the schedule for returning samples from Mars. In an April 15 briefing, agency officials announced they would solicit proposals from NASA centers and from industry on “innovative designs” to reshape its […]
TAMPA, Fla. — Six-year-old European small satellite maker Aerospacelab has bought AMOS, a Belgian company that has provided optics for spacecraft and ground-based telescopes for more than four decades. The companies did not disclose financial details in their April 15 announcement, but Aerospacelab chief strategy officer Tina Ghataore said the […]
Budgets are tight at NASA, especially for its science programs. NASA’s Science Mission Directorate sought an increase of nearly half a billion dollars in its fiscal year 2024 budget proposal last year, but when Congress passed a final spending bill March 8, it instead got a cut of the same […]
In September 2023, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) proposed a new rule for the disposal of upper stages after commercial launches. In short, for most launches to LEO and GTO, operators will either be required to conduct controlled reentries or move their stage to a higher disposal orbit. As a […]
HELSINKI — China continued construction of a commercial constellation of remote sensing satellites early Monday with the launch of the SuperView-3 (01) satellite. A Long March 2D rocket lifted off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 12:12 a.m. Eastern, April 15 (0412 UTC). The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation […]