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 ...

At the International Astronautical Congress in Washington, D.C. today, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos announced a new “national team” that will join forces in order to help return humans to the Moon via NASA’s Artemis program. They’ll focus on developing the Human Landing System that will be used to achieve this goal. Blue Origin  will serve as lead contractor for this ...

NASA  astronauts Christina H Koch and Jessica Meir will make history this morning, as they take part in the first ever spacewalk in the agency’s history featuring only women. The two astronauts will be venturing outside of the International Space Station in order to effect a repair on a failed power controller for the station, with coverage beginning at 6:30 AM ...

SpaceX  CEO joined NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine at SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne today to provide an update on the commercial crew launch program that the company is working on with the agency. During the remarks, which detailed the current state of the program and next steps, Musk reiterated twice that the intellectual property it’s developing in working with the agency is free ...

NASA  Administrator Jim Bridenstine was at SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne, Calif. on Thursday, delivering an address alongside NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, who will launch aboard SpaceX’s  commercial Crew Dragon capsule, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. Bridenstine kicked off with some brief remarks about the importance and priority of the crew launch mission, which he said both he and Musk are ...