Virgin Galactic is making strides towards its goal of creating high-speed commercial aircraft that operates a little closer to Earth than its existing passenger spacecraft. The company revealed the initial design of the commercial passenger airplane it’s creating that’s designed to fly at speeds in excess of Mach 3 – faster than the average cruising speed of around Mach 2 that the original ...

Amazon has received approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch and operate a planned constellation of 3,236 internet satellites. That’s the backbone of Amazon’s Project Kuiper, an initiative to create a satellite-based broadband internet service designed to provide high-speed, low latency connections to U.S.-based households that currently don’t have great access to a high-speed connection. Alongside the key regulatory approval, ...

The U.S. Space Command has released details about an alleged anti-satellite weapons test it suspects Russian of conducting using an existing probe already on orbit, The Verge reports. The Russian satellite in question is the same one that made headlines back at the beginning of 2020 when it seemed to be tailing an existing orbital U.S. spy satellite. That same spacecraft appears ...

SpaceX’s  Crew Dragon capsule has been docked at the International Space Station (ISS) since its historic first crewed launch in May, but it’s getting ready to make its return trip. NASA had planned to keep the spacecraft and astronauts at ISS for a while, depending on station mission needs, but they’re zeroing in on the exact time to cap the inaugural ...

Relativity Space has a new customer for its 3D printed rockets: Established satellite maker and operator Iridium, which has picked the company for launches in 2023. To accomplish those, and other launches like them, the company is also setting up a new launch site at Vandenberg Air Base in California. “It’s obviously pretty huge news for us,” Relativity co-founder and ...

One of the new space companies that has done the most for popularizing the idea of in-space manufacturing, including use of additive technologies like 3D printing on the International Space Station, has been acquired by Redwire, a newly formed entity created by a private equity firm to roll up a number of space technology, supply and development companies. The terms ...

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. ...