The Smallsat Show-me Era
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 14:54
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The derivative impact on the smallsat industrial base is also clear: smallsat space hardware and launch companies that have built a track record can capitalize on this shift, driving growth and expanded moats, while newer entrants may find it increasingly difficult to carve out a defensible niche.
From Customization to Standardization
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 14:53 Write a comment
Smallsats need standardizing now more than ever
The post From Customization to Standardization appeared first on SpaceNews.
BlackSky buys five Electron launches
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 14:20 Write a comment
BlackSky, one of Rocket Lab’s biggest launch customers, has bought an additional five Electron launches for its next-generation imaging satellites.
Vyoma orders pilot satellites for debris-monitoring constellation
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 14:11 Write a comment
German startup Vyoma has ordered two pilot satellites for its proposed space debris-monitoring constellation from EnduroSat, the eight-year-old Bulgarian cubesat specialist.
NASA's ComPair balloon mission readies for flight
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:46 Write a comment
A team in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, is preparing to fly a balloon-borne science instrument called ComPair, which will test new technologies for detecting gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light.
ComPair is slated to fly early in NASA's 2023 fall scientific balloon campaign, which opens on Thursday, Aug. 10, weather permitting.
"Lots of interesting science happens in the energy range that ComPair is designed to study," said Nicholas Kirschner, a graduate student at George Washington University in Washington and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who works on the mission. "These gamma rays are hard to capture with existing methods, so we need to create and test new ones. ComPair's flight gets us one step closer to putting a similar detector in space."
ComPair detects gamma rays with energies between 200,000 and 20 million electron volts. Visible light's energy falls between 2 and 3 electron volts, for comparison.
Supernovae and powerful explosions called gamma-ray bursts shine the brightest in this energy range.
Advanced Space selected for two NASA SBIR Phase I Awards
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25 Write a comment
Advanced Space LLC., a leading space tech solutions company, is pleased to announce that NASA has selected two of our new Phase I concepts under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.
The first project, won under the Flight Dynamics and Navigation Technologies subtopic, will support NASA's future efforts to design spacecraft trajectories for vehicles flying in cislunar spac Rocket Lab inks new deal to launch HASTE mission from Virginia
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25 Write a comment
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) has signed a new launch services agreement with a confidential customer for a HASTE (Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron) mission from Launch Complex 2 at Virginia's Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport within NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in 2024.
The contract signing with a new customer came just days after Rocket Lab successfully launched the A frosty anniversary weekend for Curiosity: Sols 3909-3911
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Earth planning date: Friday August 4, 2023: We're planning a special weekend today - Saturday is the 11th (Earth) anniversary of Curiosity's landing! I was newly graduated from high school when I watched Curiosity touch down, and it still seems surreal sometimes that I get to be part of a mission I followed with such fascination back then.
We have an exciting anniversary (or 'landiversary' InSight study finds Mars is spinning faster
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25 Write a comment
Data sent by the spacecraft before it retired last December has provided new details about how fast the planet rotates and how much it wobbles. Scientists have made the most precise measurements ever of Mars' rotation, for the first time detecting how the planet wobbles due to the "sloshing" of its molten metal core. The findings, detailed in a recent Nature paper, rely on data from NASA's InSig India's moon mission takes another big step
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25 Write a comment
The injection of Chandrayaan-3 into the lunar orbit and the subsequent moves marked a major milestone in India's ambitious $75-million lunar mission, experts said.
The Indian Space Research Organisation, or ISRO, on Sunday completed the Lunar-Orbit Insertion to put the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into the moon's orbit.
The spacecraft carrying the Moon Mission-3 is expected to land on th Ingenuity flies again after unscheduled landing
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The helicopter performed a short hop to help the team better understand why its previous flight was interrupted.
NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter successfully completed its 54th flight on Aug. 3, the first flight since the helicopter cut its July 22 flight short. The 25-second up-and-down hop provided data that could help the Ingenuity team determine why its 53rd flight ended early. Space-based quantum science lab keeps getting better
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25 Write a comment
The agency's Cold Atom Lab is getting its second major upgrade and will be using it to explore the quantum realm.
On Tuesday, Aug. 1, a major hardware update for NASA's Cold Atom Lab lifted off aboard a Northrop Grumman Cygnus resupply spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station. About the size of a small refrigerator, the lab is sometimes called the coolest place in the known Accurate measurement of Permittivity advances radio telescope receivers
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25 Write a comment
Researchers invented a novel method to measure the permittivity of insulators 100 times more accurately than before. This technology is expected to contribute to the efficient development of sensitive radio receivers for radio telescopes as well as to the development of devices for the next generation communication networks, "Beyond 5G/6G."
Permittivity is a value that indicates how electr AVS leverages optimum coverage of EUTELSAT 65 West A satellite over Brazil
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25 Write a comment
AVS, a leading Brazilian service provider and integrator in the public and private sectors, has signed multiple contracts with Eutelsat Communications (Euronext Paris: ETL) for capacity on its EUTELSAT 65 West A satellite.
This partnership has allowed AVS to deploy public channels such as TV ALEPR, TV ALESC, TV ALEPE and TV ALBA on the EUTELSAT 65 West A satellite, avoiding interference ge Astra Space optimizes workforce to support sustainable long-term business plan
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25 Write a comment
Astra Space, Inc. (NASDAQ: ASTR) has announced a strategic reallocation of its workforce from its Launch Services organization to its Astra Spacecraft Engines business to support its growing customer base and order backlog of its spacecraft engines.
Astra last announced 278 cumulative committed orders of the Astra Spacecraft Engine through March 30, 2023, representing approximately $77 mil