Space

SEOUL, South Korea — Indian authorities are examining several pieces of suspected space debris that fell into rural western India on May 12, with the timing of the incident suggesting they could be parts of a Chinese rocket that reentered the atmosphere that day.  Local media reported that the objects crashed with “loud thuds that

TAMPA, Fla. — Israeli satellite operator Spacecom is adjusting its business to serve maritime customers as the market shows signs of recovering from the pandemic. Spacecom said May 12 it has redirected a Ku-band beam on its AMOS-17 satellite to the Indian Ocean for future growth opportunities after securing its first maritime customer. This customer

HELSINKI — A Chinese satellite electric propulsion company has secured multi-million yuan angel round financing amid a proliferation of Chinese constellation plans. Kongtian Dongli (“Aerospace propulsion”) was established in March 2022. The round was led by  Jinshajiang Hongyu and MiraclePlus, according to Chinese media reports. The company’s main products are Hall thrusters and microwave electric

The Space Systems Command plans to award a contract in August for the Tactically Responsive Space (TacRS-3) mission. WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force plans to select a small satellite launcher to fly a payload to low Earth orbit on short notice, a capability known as tactically responsive space. The Space Force’s Space Systems Command

Satellite operators are venturing into the Arctic to improve connectivity as the changing atmospheric and geopolitical climate drives demand for more bandwidth in one of Earth’s last remaining frontiers. Fledgling and established operators alike see a growing market for capacity in areas best served by satellites in non-geostationary orbit (NGSO). OneWeb and SpaceX’s Starlink, the

“We’re all hoping to move forward with a final decision as quickly as we can,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall with regard to the relocation of U.S. Space Command WASHINGTON – During a hearing May 13 of the House Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee, Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) asked Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall to lay

WASHINGTON — Space technology company Redwire said that while it still sees the commercial sector as its biggest prospect for long-term growth, volatility among its customers may cause delays. Redwire, which went public through a SPAC merger last year, reported revenue of $32.9 million in its first quarter earnings release May 12. The company had

WASHINGTON — While operations of the International Space Station continue without “serious interruptions,” sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine are starting to have an effect on some activities, NASA’s safety advisers said. At a May 12 meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), members reiterated past comments by agency officials that the

TAMPA, Fla. — Inmarsat is seeking permission from Greece to move a ground station there from the Netherlands, which wants to sell the C-band spectrum the site uses for maritime safety services to 5G wireless operators. The British satellite operator previously argued that moving out of the northern Netherlands village of Burum was unnecessary because

WASHINGTON — The private astronauts who spent two weeks on the International Space Station in April said they tried to pack too much into their schedules while on the station, putting a strain on both themselves and the professional astronauts there. At a May 13 news conference, the four people who flew on Axiom Space’s

HELSINKI — An orbital launch attempt by Chinese startup iSpace suffered failure early Friday, following on from two failures last year. The fourth Hyperbola-1, a four-stage solid rocket, lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert at 3:09 a.m. Eastern May 13.  Apparent launch footage appeared on a Chinese social media

WASHINGTON — Astra disclosed details about its new launch vehicle that will be capable of carrying heavier payloads and flying more frequently. At its “Spacetech Day” event at its Alameda, California, headquarters May 12, company executives offered some details about what it calls Launch System 2.0, a system that includes a new rocket called Rocket

A new study provides mathematical evidence that dark matter could be much older than we thought and we’ve found a weird glitch in a neutron star. Host: Hank Green SciShow has a spinoff podcast! It’s called SciShow Tangents. Check it out at http://www.scishowtangents.org ———- Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scishow ———- Huge

WASHINGTON — Boeing says it is considering redesigning the propellant valves on future CST-100 Starliner commercial crew spacecraft as a long-term solution to the corrosion problem those valves suffered last year. At a May 11 briefing about the upcoming Orbital Flight Test (OFT) 2 mission, Boeing’s manager for the program said that while a solution

WASHINGTON — Despite a widening loss in the first quarter, Virgin Orbit executives said they believe they have enough financial runway for their air launch business to gain altitude this year. In its first quarter financial results released May 11, the company announced a net loss of $62.6 million and an adjusted earnings before interest,

TAMPA, Fla. — British microlauncher startup Orbex unveiled a full-scale prototype May 11 of what it hopes will be the first-ever vertical rocket launched to orbit from British soil. The 19-meter two-stage Prime orbital rocket was successfully integrated and delivered to its dedicated pad on the north coast of Scotland, paving the way for tests

As Elon Musk’s plan to take over Twitter ignites free speech debates on and off the social media hub, satellite operators face similar editorial questions amid Russia’s war in Ukraine. Musk describes himself as a “free speech absolutist” and has put social media next on the list of markets to disrupt after transforming launch with

The IG determined that the basing decision “complied with Federal Law and DoD policy and that the process was reasonable” WASHINGTON — After a year-long investigation, the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General concluded that the January 2021 recommendation to relocate U.S. Space Command headquarters from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama, was reasonable and not

Gen. David Thompson said the Space Force will invest in digital technology for virtual testing and training, as well as facilities WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force in a vision document calls for the service to invest in infrastructure and a skilled workforce to support the testing of new satellite designs and other systems.  In

The launch from Spaceport Cornwall will be the first commercial rocket to lift off from the U.K. WASHINGTON – The U.S. National Reconnaissance Office and the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense will launch a joint mission this summer on Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket, U.K. defense procurement minister Jeremy Quin announced May 10. The launch from

WASHINGTON — The Canadian government announced May 9 that it is joining the United States in banning tests of destructive direct-ascent antisatellite weapons as a step toward norms of responsible behavior in space. In a tweet, the Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations in Geneva announced that Canada would abide by the non-binding

SEOUL, South Korea  — South Korea’s newly elected president Yoon Suk-yeol will take office May 10 with a set of ambitious space projects aimed at making the country a major space power by 2035. They include establishing an independent aerospace agency offering integrated management of civil and military space programs in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province,

WASHINGTON — In-space transportation company Momentus has secured all the regulatory approvals for its first mission, set to launch later this month. The company announced May 5 it passed a payload review by the Federal Aviation Administration required for the commercial launch of its orbital transfer vehicle on SpaceX’s Transporter-5 mission, scheduled for launch in

WASHINGTON — NASA officials say they believe the latest effort to shut down an airborne observatory is more likely to be successful because of the endorsement of doing so by last year’s decadal survey. NASA’s fiscal year 2023 budget proposal called for shutting down the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a Boeing 747 with

Avio has successfully carried out the first test of the new M10 liquid oxygen-liquid/methane engine, the first of its kind to be successfully tested in Europe. The M10, which will be a new generation green engine, will provide 10 tons of thrust and it is manufactured with extensive use of additive layer manufacturing technologies (ALM).

HELSINKI — A Chinese launch startup sent a small rocket test stage up to an altitude of one kilometer Friday before a performing a powered descent and vertical landing. Deep Blue Aerospace, founded in 2017, conducted the test May 6 with the Nebula M1 test article at a facility at Tongchuan, Shaanxi Province, landing within

WASHINGTON — Two federal agencies in a turf battle over commercial spaceflight investigations say they are now talking with each other to better define their roles and responsibilities. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) triggered the debate when it published a notice of proposed rulemaking in November 2021 to codify the role it would take

There’s still a lot we don’t know about the moon! ———- Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scishow ———- Dooblydoo thanks go to the following Patreon supporters — we couldn’t make SciShow without them! Shout out to Bryce Daifuku, Kevin Bealer, Justin Lentz, Mark Terrio-Cameron, Patrick Merrithew, Accalia Elementia, Fatima Iqbal, Benny, Kyle

WASHINGTON — Small launch vehicle developer Astra says it is ready to perform a series of launches for NASA once it receives a license for those missions. In a May 5 earnings call, Astra executives said they were ready to perform the first of three launches of its Rocket 3.3 vehicle from Cape Canaveral Space

NROL-85 was moved to the West Coast at no extra cost to the government and in exchange the NRO agreed to fly a reused first stage WASHINGTON – The National Reconnaissance Office’s NROL-85 mission launched April 17 by SpaceX was originally scheduled to fly from Cape Canaveral, Florida. But just 12 months before the launch,

WASHINGTON — Virgin Galactic is again postponing the start of commercial service of its SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane from late 2022 to early 2023, blaming the latest delay on supply chain and labor issues. In the company’s first quarter earnings release May 5, Virgin Galactic said it expected to start commercial flights of its VSS Unity

TAMPA, Fla. — Increasing costs and delays have forced Telesat to downsize plans for 298 low Earth orbit satellites by a third to keep within its $5 billion budget. The Canadian satellite operator plans to order just 188 satellites plus 10 in-orbit spares from Thales Alenia Space, Telesat CEO Dan Goldberg said during the company’s

WASHINGTON — NASA expects to be ready to perform another countdown rehearsal of the Space Launch System in early June as it pushes back the first launch of the vehicle to at least August. At a May 5 briefing, NASA officials said they had made progress on two problems with the SLS and its mobile

TAMPA, Fla. — Echostar says satellite builder Maxar Technologies won’t deliver its long-awaited Jupiter-3 satellite in time for its end-of-year launch on a Falcon 9 rocket. The head of EchoStar’s Hughes Network Systems said in a May 5 earnings call that the satellite, which it badly needs to relieve broadband capacity constraints in the Americas,

SAN FRANCISCO — Adding microwave sounders to its constellation will not push back the timeline for startup Tomorrow.io to begin gathering weather data via satellite. By the end of 2024, the Bostin-based startup plans to have a constellation in orbit acquiring radar and microwave observations. Tomorrow.io announced plans in March to add microwave sensors to

WASHINGTON — Senators overwhelmingly voted against a motion May 4 that would have dealt a setback in NASA’s efforts to select a second company to develop an Artemis lunar lander. The motion, sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), would have instructed senators participating on a conference committee with the House on the United States Innovation

AFRL asked companies to explain how they would launch a small spacecraft to a high energy orbit with only days or weeks’ notice WASHINGTON — The Air Force Research Laboratory’s rocket propulsion arm is asking space companies to help identify technologies and capabilities the military will need to launch missions on short timelines.  The organization

TAMPA, Fla. — Astroscale said May 4 it made another close-approach rendezvous between its two ELSA-d spacecraft last month but ongoing thruster problems continue to hold up a capture demonstration delayed from January.  Astroscale’s ELSA-d servicer spacecraft, a 175-kilogram satellite designed to demonstrate orbital debris removal technologies, lost the use of four of its eight

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean startup NaraSpace Technology said May 3 it had raised 10 billion won ($7.88 million) in a Series A financing round to pursue the development of optical remote-sensing nanosatellites.  Including 3.5 billion won ($2.76 million) raised in pre-Series A in August 2020, the Busan-based company has raised 13.5 billion won

Raymond: Space Force is pivoting from ‘very exquisite, very expensive satellites to an architecture that’s more diversified’ WASHINGTON – Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee pressed Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Chief of Space Operations Gen. John “Jay” Raymond on the Space Force’s plans to acquire next-generation technologies and develop the future workforce.

We could quite possibly catch solar winds as a means for endless energy, and though it sounds like science fiction, we have the materials to do this now. The first 1000 people to use the link will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: https://skl.sh/scishowspace06211 Hosted by: Hank Green SciShow has a spinoff podcast!

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean rocket startup Innospace announced May 3 that it will conduct its first suborbital test launch of flight hardware in December from the Alcântara Space Center in Brazil, carrying a Brazilian military payload. The 16.3-meter, single-stage test rocket is a precursor to the company’s planned commercial satellite launcher Hanbit-Nano, a

SpaceWERX deputy director Gabe Mounce: This project reflects a ‘sense of urgency’ about space sustainability WASHINGTON — SpaceWERX, the technology arm of the U.S. Space Force, has selected 125 industry teams for the initial phase of the Orbital Prime program, an effort to develop technologies for orbital debris cleanup and other space services. Each team

WASHINGTON — Rocket Lab declared success in its effort to catch an Electron booster in midair after launch May 2, even though the helicopter had to release the booster moments later. The Electron rocket lifted off from the company’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 6:49 p.m. Eastern after a brief hold in the

Get your gasmasks ready because we’re taking a trip to Titan! Reid Reimers tells us all about the mysterious moon. Hosted by: Reid Reimers ———- Dooblydoo thanks go to the following Patreon supporters — we couldn’t make SciShow without them! Shout out to Justin Ove, Chris Peters, Philippe von Bergen, Fatima Iqbal, John Murrin, Linnea

TAMPA, Fla. — German startup Vyoma said April 28 it has partnered with European IT giant Atos to build a database of tiny space objects that it plans to track with its own satellites from next year.  Their partnership aims to develop solutions for delivering space situational awareness (SSA) data to satellite operators to help

WASHINGTON — A senator and former astronaut said he did not expect Russia to perform another test of an antisatellite weapon because of the debris that posed a risk to that country’s own satellites as well as others. At a panel session of the McCain Institute’s Sedona Forum April 30, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), chair