That NASA intends to collect a sample from Mars and return it to Earth is well known — they’ve said so many times. But how would they go about scooping up soil from the surface of a distant planet and getting it back here? With a plan that sounds straight out of sci-fi. Described by the project’s lead scientist in ...

Internet of things satellite connectivity startup Myriota has raises a $19.3 million Series B funding round, led by Hostplus and Main Sequence Ventures, with additional funding from Boeing,  former Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull, Singtel Innov8 and others. The company has now raised $37 million in Funding, and has four satellites on orbit already, with a plan to expand that to 25 by ...

SpaceX  is readying for its first flight with astronauts on board – Demo-2, which is technically the last demonstration mission that is required before the Crew Dragon capsule is officially certified to start flying regular missions. Demo-2’s mission scope has been adjusted somewhat so that astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will be actually doing some shift work on the International ...

Astronaut Christina Koch made the return trip from the International Space Station (ISS) early on Thursday, along with ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov. The three boarded a Soyuz capsule docked at the ISS at around 12:50 AM EST, and had a safe landing as planned at around 4:12 AM EST (3:12 PM local time) in Kazakhstan. ...

SpaceX  and NASA have shared an official target launch date for the all-important in-flight abort test of Crew Dragon, their commercial crew spacecraft. The in-flight abort test is a required component before NASA astronauts can climb on board and take their first trip aboard the Crew Dragon. NASA and SpaceX are currently targeting Saturday, January 18 for this milestone system test. The in-flight ...

The European Space Agency (ESA) launched a satellite early this morning, aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket that took off from the Guiana Space Center in French Guyana. Atop the Soyuz is the so-called “Characterizing Exoplanet Satellite” (CHEOPS for short) that will deploy to orbit around Earth, where it’ll have a better view of nearby stars that we’ve previously determined have ...

Imaging is one of the key markets in the emerging space tech industry, and for good reason – there’s a proven and robust demand for imaging and Earth observation data among government, private and other clients. Orbital satellites satisfy some of this demand, and companies like Planet have grown sizeable businesses on building satellites that can provide this kind of ...

Virgin Galactic has begun its ‘Astronaut Readiness Program’ this week, which is being run out of Under Armour Global HQ to start. Under Armour is Virgin Galactic’s partner on its official astronaut uniforms, which its first paying space tourists will don on the company’s initial trips beyond Earth. The Astronaut Readiness Program is a preparatory course that all of Virgin ...

NASA has a new app (or web-based game, if you’re on desktop) that provides a simplified simulation of what it’s like to plan and run a commercial crew mission — meaning one of the planned varieties of mission that will actually take place aboard the SpaceX  Crew Dragon and Boeing Starliner once they begin flying crews next year. The app takes you ...

Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic wil find out what the public markets think of its ambitious plan to make commercial space tourism a reality on Monday. The company’s shareholders have approved a merger announced earlier this year with Chamath Palihapitiya’s special Social Capital Hedosophia holding company, and that will take effect Friday with adequate on the NYSE for the newly merged ...