Washington DC (UPI) May 15, 2025
Norway became the 55th nation to sign the Artemis Accords during a ceremony in Oslo Thursday, agreeing to a pact designed to promote international cooperation in space exploration. "The United States and Norway have a longstanding relationship in space," a release from the U.S. State Department said. "Collaboration stretches back to 1962, when NASA supported the first suborbital rocket

Los Angeles CA (SPX) May 15, 2025
Rocket Lab has achieved a rapid turnaround of two Earth return missions within just two months, successfully delivering Varda Space Industries' W-3 capsule back to Earth. This marks the third overall success in Varda's W-series missions, highlighting Rocket Lab's growing expertise in hypersonic re-entry logistics. The latest mission saw the W-3 capsule return at 02:07 a.m. UTC on May 14, f

Los Angeles CA (SPX) May 15, 2025
York Space Systems (York), the Denver-based aerospace firm specializing in rapid mission deployment, has confirmed its Bard mission is ready for launch. The mission will test the Polylingual Experimental Terminal (PExT), a cutting-edge communications system developed in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and NASA's Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Pro

London, UK (SPX) May 15, 2025
Space Forge, a leader in space-based advanced materials manufacturing, has secured Pounds 22.6 million (approximately $30 million) in Series A funding, marking the largest such investment in UK space technology history. The funding round was led by the NATO Innovation Fund, with participation from the National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF), World Fund, and the British Business Bank

Los Angeles CA (SPX) May 15, 2025
Reflect Orbital has secured $20 million in Series A funding to accelerate the deployment of its satellite constellation designed to deliver sunlight on demand. The round was led by Lux Capital, with additional backing from Sequoia Capital and Starship Ventures. The company is focused on creating a network of satellites capable of reflecting sunlight to Earth for large-scale lighting and en

Sydney (AFP) May 16, 2025
An Australian aerospace firm said Friday it has scrubbed a historic attempt to send a locally developed rocket into orbit, citing a glitch in the nose cone protecting its payload - a jar of Vegemite. An electrical fault erroneously deployed the opening mechanism of the carbon-fibre nose cone during pre-flight testing, Gilmour Space Technologies said. The nose cone is designed to shield

Boston MA (SPX) May 15, 2025
At this moment, there are approximately 35,000 tracked human-generated objects in orbit around Earth. Of these, only about one-third are active payloads: science and communications satellites, research experiments, and other beneficial technology deployments. The rest are categorized as debris - defunct satellites, spent rocket bodies, and the detritus of hundreds of collisions, explosions, plan

Los Angeles CA (SPX) May 15, 2025
New findings from NASA's Magellan mission suggest that Venus may experience ongoing tectonic activity, driven by hot, buoyant plumes of molten material rising from its mantle. Unlike Earth, which has large, mobile tectonic plates, Venus has a single, continuous crust that deforms under internal forces. Researchers focused on structures known as coronae, vast circular features believed to form wh

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Image: The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission brings us this cloud-free view of Svalbard, a remote Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean.