Eyeing some of the components that enabled the rover to get safely to the Martian surface could provide valuable insights for future missions.

PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter recently surveyed both the parachute that helped the agency’s Perseverance rover land on Mars and the cone-shaped backshell that protected the rover in deep space and during its fiery descent toward the Martian surface on Feb. 18, 2021. Engineers with the Mars Sample Return program asked whether Ingenuity could provide this perspective. What resulted were 10 aerial color images taken April 19 during Ingenuity’s Flight 26.

PARIS (ESA PR) — Crew Dragon spacecraft Freedom, carrying ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti and her NASA colleagues Kjell Lindgren, Robert Hines and Jessica Watkins, docked to the International Space Station at 01:37 CEST Thursday 28 April.

The docking marks the start of Samantha’s second space mission, known as Minerva.

HOUSTON (NASA PR) — NASA astronauts Mission Commander Kjell Lindgren, Pilot Bob Hines, and Mission Specialist Jessica Watkins, and Mission Specialist Samantha Cristoforetti of ESA (European Space Agency) now are aboard the International Space Station following Crew Dragon’s hatch opening about 9:15 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, April 27.

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

Maritime Launch Services has debuted on the NEO Exchange, become the latest space company to go public on a stock exchange without any revenues (losses, actually) while avoiding the “rigmarole” (Richard Branson’s words, not mine) associated with a traditional initial public offering (IPO).

In addition to a lack of revenues and a crowded launcher market, there’s another question hanging over the company that nobody can answer right now: exactly what are they going to launch from the spaceport they’re building in Nova Scotia? The Cyclone 4M booster they plan to use is built in Ukraine, which has been invaded by Russia.

WASHINGTON (Commerce Department PR) — Today, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo announced that Richard DalBello, a venerable figure in government and the private-sector satellite industry, has been appointed to be the new director of NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce (OSC), the coordinator of space commerce policy activities within the U.S. Department of Commerce. DalBello officially will begin his duties on May 9.

OSC’s key mission is to foster the conditions for the economic growth and technological advancement of the U.S. commercial space industry, issuing, enforcing and maintaining operating licenses for private remote sensing space systems and positioning the nation as a leader in space. OSC is also responsible for modernizing and managing the U.S. systems for space situational awareness.

DalBello has more than 30 years of public and private sector commercial space experience. In his previous position as Virgin Atlantic’s Vice President of Global Engagement, he managed international business development for the company’s fleet of carrier aircraft and space vehicles.

BEIJING (Luokung Technology Corp. PR) — Luokung Technology Corp. (NASDAQ: LKCO) (“Luokung” or the “Company”), a leading spatial-temporal intelligent big data services company and provider of interactive location-based services (“LBS”) and high-definition maps (“HD Maps”) in China, recently announced the launch of its remote sensing holographic spatial-temporal portfolio of products and services (the “Luokung Remote Sensing Offerings”) offered by its affiliate, Luokung Remote Sensing Co., Ltd., for natural resource monitoring and carbon sink accounting at the recently held Second Spatial Information Smart Application for High Quality Development in the New Era Summit (the “Summit”), hosted by the China Association of Remote Sensing Application.

TASS reports that Roscosmos could deepen ties with the Chinese space program in the areas of satellite surveillance and communications constellations as the nation’s invasion of Ukraine drives a deeper wedge in its relations with the West. “Cooperation between Glonass and Beidou [China’s satellite navigational system] can quite spread to communications and surveillance clusters,” Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin said during a forum on Tuesday. Roscosmos has ordered airlines to […]

“For space to support sustainability on Earth, there needs to be sustainability in space.  And, to be blunt, we are moving in the wrong direction here.” — Rajeev Suri, CEO Inmarsat

LONDON (Inmarsat PR) — Rajeev Suri, Chief Executive Officer of Inmarsat, the world leader in global, mobile satellite communications, issued a stark warning today that unmanaged space sector expansion could exacerbate environmental damage, stifle innovation and undermine the long-term capability of satellites to help combat climate change.

Addressing the Royal Aeronautical Society’s conference ‘Towards a Space Enabled Net Zero Earth’, Mr Suri focused attention on major factors threatening long-term environmental and economic sustainability.

The Inmarsat CEO told the conference: “Space is increasingly important for the creation of a sustainable world. While the role of new players – with new investment and innovations – is to be welcomed, space is too important an asset to be driven by short-term thinking. To protect our shared future, there must be a common approach and common rules that protect the space environment too.

The solid rocket motor manufacturer will use the investment to advance R&D and scale its production capacity to meet growing customer demand

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (Adranos PR) — Adranos, Inc, the West Lafayette, Indiana-based startup that manufactures next-generation solid rocket motors, today announced a $20 million Series A funding round with participation from Bob Bishop and other principals at Impala Asset Management LLC and several other entities, including Explorer1 Fund, Elevate Ventures, and Specific Impulse Capital. This round brings the total capital raised by the company to date to over $25 million.

HONOLULU (Hawaiian Airlines PR) – Hawaiian Airlines today became the first major airline to announce an agreement with Starlink to provide complimentary high-speed, low-latency broadband internet access to every guest onboard flights between the islands and the continental U.S, Asia and Oceania. Hawai‘i’s largest and longest-serving carrier will equip its Airbus A330 and A321neo aircraft, as well as an incoming fleet of Boeing 787-9s, with Starlink’s industry leading satellite internet connectivity service.

Space radiation management company will confirm survivability of revolutionary composite while exposed to the vacuum of space

ATLANTA (Cosmic Shielding Corporation PR) — Cosmic Shielding Corporation (Cosmic Shielding), the leading space radiation management company and creator of Plasteel™ technology, today announced an agreement with European in-space manufacturing tech start-up Space Forge to test Cosmic Shielding’s radiation shielding technology aboard Space Forge’s new small class vehicle. The ForgeStar-0 will be launching on Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne this summer from Spaceport Cornwall.

WASHINGTON, April 26, 2022 (NASA PR) — NASA has selected three investigation teams to join the agency’s Geospace Dynamics Constellation (GDC) mission science team in studying Earth’s upper atmosphere, as well as five additional investigations that will be under consideration for inclusion in the mission.

GDC is a coordinated group of satellites that will provide the first direct global measurements of the dynamic and complex region of space enveloping Earth – known as the ionosphere and thermosphere (I-T) region. The constellation’s ability to simultaneously study processes operating across a range of temporal and spatial scales will provide an unprecedented level of understanding of this region. GDC will fundamentally advance scientists’ understanding of this interface to Earth’s space environment much like early weather satellites did for global weather systems. The three GDC investigations selected for flight have a combined budget of $149 million to design and deliver their instruments to the mission.