News

TAMPA, Fla. — Lynk Global has raised more than $85 million to expand its direct-to-smartphone satellite network, as growing momentum from SpaceX and AST SpaceMobile highlights the market’s emerging potential.

WASHINGTON — Blue Origin is laying off 10% of its workforce, or more than 1,000 employees, citing the need to restructure the company and reduce bureaucracy.

WASHINGTON — The outgoing administrator of NASA says he is “basically optimistic” about the future of the agency under the person proposed by President-elect Donald Trump to be his successor despite the strong possibility of significant changes to Artemis.

The University of Southern California Rocket Propulsion Lab (USCRPL) — which in 2019 became the first student organization ever to launch a rocket to space — sent its Aftershock II vehicle 470,400 feet (89.09 miles, or 143.38 kilometers) above Earth last month. That smashed the amateur altitude record of 380,000 feet (71.97 miles, or 115.82 km), which was set in 2004 by the Civilian Space Exploration Team.

Our galaxy’s two closest neighbors are two dwarf galaxies known as the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). Being much smaller in mass (the LMC is 10% the mass of the Milky Way, for instance), these nearby galaxies are largely at the gravitational whim of ours.

TAMPA, Fla. — AST SpaceMobile said Nov. 14 it has booked rockets from Blue Origin and others to deploy enough satellites between 2025 and 2026 to provide full text, voice, and 5G data services to standard mobile phones across the United States and other key markets.

WASHINGTON — Impulse Space has purchased three Falcon 9 launches for its Helios transfer vehicle for missions starting in 2026, including one for the Space Force.

Washington, D.C – The Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) announced the addition of its newest Associate Member, Aetherflux, a new aerospace company focused on building a commercial space-based solar power business. Aetherflux is joining CSF to help better interact with Congress and the Executive Branches as the company works to make space solar power a reality. 

WASHINGTON — Intuitive Machines suggested the need for “reformulation” of NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration campaign to accommodate budget issues and delays.

Enough commercial activity is heading to the moon in the next few months to create a traffic jam. Firefly Aerospace, ispace and Intuitive Machines are all launching commercial lunar lander missions by early 2025, all on Falcon 9 rockets. That surge of missions makes it uncertain who exactly will be launching when. At a meeting of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group in Houston Oct. 29, Firefly’s Joseph Marlin declined to offer a more specific launch date for its Blue Ghost 1 lander than some time in the fourth quarter of this year. “SpaceX is still sorting out its schedule,” he said.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration is moving ahead with a long-awaited committee to evaluate ways to improve launch licensing regulations as one executive calls for far greater changes.

BERLIN — The Exploration Company has raised $160 million to support the company’s development of a cargo spacecraft to support future commercial space stations.