Space

A strange kind of yellow, exotic glass found across some of the world’s desert regions has finally had its mysterious origins identified – almost 30 million years after it formed on Earth. Libyan desert glass is a naturally occurring kind of glass that’s found in the eastern stretches of the Sahara desert, in eastern Libya

HELSINKI — Chinese private launch firm LandSpace has completed assembly of a liquid methane-liquid oxygen rocket engine for its new Zhuque-2 launch vehicle. Assembly of the 80-ton thrust Tianque-12 methalox engine was completed at a manufacturing base in Huzhou, eastern China, following a successful power pack test in March. The engine benefits from a modular and

Yutu 2, the Chinese rover that landed on the far side of the Moon earlier this year, just examined the first-ever samples of the Moon’s mantle. The samples are believed to have been dug out by a meteorite impact so strong that it crashed through the Moon’s crust, according to research published in the journal

WASHINGTON — While most of the debate about establishing a Space Force within the Defense Department has centered on its national security implications, a recent Senate hearing examined how it could bolster growing commercial activity in space. The May 14 hearing by Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee was an opportunity by its chairman, Sen. Ted

Scientists say that something mysterious punched gigantic, cosmic “bullet holes” in parts of the Milky Way. There’s a string of holes in a long stream of stars called GD-1 that suggests that some yet-undiscovered thing blasted its way through, according to research presented to the American Physical Society last month. Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist Ana Bonaca, the

WASHINGTON — The European Space Agency gave contracts to ArianeGroup and MT Aerospace on May 14 to develop a prototype upper stage that could lead to an advanced carbon-composite upgrade for the Ariane 6 rocket. ArianeGroup, the Franco-German company building Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket, and subcontractor MT Aerospace of Augsburg, Germany, received funding repurposed from

To receive FIRST UP Satcom, a weekly SpaceNews newsletter for satellite and telecom professionals, sign up here. TOP STORIES Singtel reported its lowest profit in 16 years, citing increasing competitive pressure in India and Indonesia. The company’s net profit was 773 million Singaporean dollars ($565 million) for the quarter ended March 31, roughly flat compared to the same three

Only 12 people have ever travelled so far as to touch the brightest object in our night sky – the Moon. All of these astronauts were male. If the very first lunar mission was a small step for man, the next shall be a giant leap for women. At the start of this week NASA

WASHINGTON — Eutelsat’s introduction of satellite broadband across Africa faced a string of deployment issues, including a government shutting off internet access during an election, wiping out revenue expectations from that new business line for the year. Eutelsat executives said the challenges getting Konnect Africa off the ground since 2016 are now largely in the

WASHINGTON — A day after NASA unveiled an amended budget request to support a human landing on the moon in 2024, the agency’s leader warned that if Congress provided less than the request it increased the risk of missing that deadline. The revised budget request, released late May 13, seeks an additional $1.6 billion for

The legislation restricts funds for the SDA and provides $15 million to further study the establishment of a Space Force. WASHINGTON — House appropriators would block funding for the Pentagon’s Space Development Agency until 90 days after the secretary of defense submits a detailed plan for the new agency. The language is included in the

We tend to think of the Moon as the archetypal “dead” world. Not only is there no life, almost all its volcanic activity died out billions of years ago. Even the youngest lunar lava is old enough to have become scarred by numerous impact craters that have been collected over the aeons as cosmic debris

This article originally appeared in the May 6, 2019 issue of SpaceNews magazine. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s future satellite constellations are likely to look far different from the current ones, particularly in low Earth orbit where small satellites of various sizes could gather targeted observations. That is one of the conclusions leaders

WASHINGTON — The White House and NASA announced May 13 that they will seek an additional $1.6 billion in funding for the agency in fiscal year 2020, a “down payment” on efforts to achieve a human lunar landing by 2024. In a tweet late in the day, President Trump announced the additional funding to support

At the University of California, Santa Barbara, researchers with the UCSB Experimental Cosmology Group (ECG) are currently working on ways to achieve the dream of interstellar flight. Under the leadership of Philip Lubin, the group has dedicated a considerable amount of effort towards the creation of an interstellar mission consisting of directed-energy light sail and

VICTORIA, British Columbia —  The Canadian government has selected MDA to design, build and deliver 10 search-an- rescue repeaters for its Medium Earth Orbit Search and Rescue system to be hosted on the U.S. Air Force’s next-generation GPS satellites. The Medium Earth Orbit Search and Rescue (MEOSAR) system repeater contract is worth 39 million Canadian ($28

Elon Musk just gave us the first look at his rocket company’s bold plan to bring ultra-high-speed internet to the entire world. Musk tweeted out an image of 60 satellites packed into SpaceX’s Falcon rocket on Saturday, along with fresh details about the global satellite networking gambit. SpaceX currently plans to launch the rocket on

WASHINGTON — An incident involving a test of parachutes for one commercial crew vehicle has heightened awareness of the challenges involved in developing those systems, as well as determining what constitutes an anomaly. During a line of questions at May 8 hearing of the House space subcommittee, a top NASA official said that the parachute

NROL-68 is the second of three missions awarded to ULA under the Launch Vehicle Production Services contract. WASHINGTON — The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center on Thursday awarded United Launch Alliance a $149 million contract modification for a Delta 4 Heavy launch of the National Reconnaissance Office mission NROL-68, the second of three

FREDERICKSBURG, Virginia — The majority of Inmarsat’s shareholders voted May 10 in favor of a $3.3 billion acquisition offer by a consortium of buyers. Some 77 percent of London-based Inmarsat’s shareholders voted in favor of the takeover proposed by private equity firms Apax and Warburg Pincus and Canadian pension firms CPPIB and OTPP. Those shareholders

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,

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,

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

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

This op-ed originally appeared in the May 6, 2019 issue of SpaceNews magazine. Satellite communications are everywhere, but all too often remain invisible to the general public. This is both an indication of their successful integration into the overall telecommunication market, and sometimes an obstacle to a proper understanding of their vital importance for an

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

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

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

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

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 — 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 — Senators voted overwhelmingly to confirm three nominees for the board of the Export-Import Bank May 8, giving the bank the ability to approve large deals, including for the space industry, for the first time in years. In a series of votes, senators confirmed the nomination of Kimberly Reed to be president of the

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

Bruno: In Phase 2, there are more reference orbits, the masses are often larger, and the orbits and higher energy and more difficult to reach. WASHINGTON — The national security space launch competition the Air Force kicked off last week will challenge providers to dramatically improve their vehicles’ performance in order to meet more demanding

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 — Satellite electric propulsion startup Apollo Fusion is expanding its product line through an agreement with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, giving it access to advanced Hall thruster technology. The Silicon Valley-based company said May 7 that it signed a deal that gives it an exclusive worldwide commercial license for JPL’s Magnetically Shielded Miniature, or

WASHINGTON — Malaysian satellite operator Measat on May 6 said it selected Airbus Defence and Space to build a single satellite that will replace two aging satellites it has in geostationary orbit. European satellite manufacturer Airbus Defence and Space will build Measat-3d, a new communications satellite that will “progressively replace” the 13-year-old Measat-3 and the 10-year-old

Never heard of the Eta Aquarid meteors? 2019 offers a good chance to check out this normally obscure meteor shower. This year offers an especially good chance to spy these fast-moving meteors. First off, the peak for this shower arrives on the morning of Monday, May 6 less than 40 hours after the New Moon.

Two new satellites dubbed SpainSAT NG 1 and SpainSAT NG 2 will replace the existing SpainSAT and Xtar-EUR WASHINGTON — Spain’s government satellite operator Hisdesat has agreed to buy two satellites from Airbus to replace aging military communications spacecraft. The contract, whose value was not disclosed, was awarded to a consortium of Airbus and Thales

On 29 April, 2027, a terrible and world-changing event occurred. A 60-metre (200-foot) asteroid called 2019 PDCentered Earth’s atmosphere at a shocking speed of 19 kilometres per second (43,000 mph) and impacted over New York’s Central Park. Up to 20 megatons of energy were released in the airburst – 1,000 times the energy of the

WASHINGTON — Small launch vehicle developer Relativity announced May 6 it has signed an agreement with Spaceflight for a series of smallsat rideshare launches. The launch services agreement between the two companies includes an order for one launch of Relativity’s Terran 1 rocket in the third quarter of 2021, with an option for an unspecified

Thanks to recent groundbreaking observations, we now know that two colliding black holes produce gravitational waves – ripples in the fabric of space-time. It was thought that the waveform (or shape) of the signal produced by these events was too complex to be calculated, but now a theoretical astrophysicist has done just that. In a

The letter says the Space Force will “develop military space culture and ethos.” WASHINGTON — A group of 43 former Defense Department, Air Force and intelligence officials signed an open letter that expresses “strong support for establishing the U.S. Space Force.” The letter was sent to news organizations on Sunday and is being distributed to