– 30,000 square-foot facility (2,787 square meters) is housed in world’s largest satellite factory where Boeing builds advanced space and communications systems for commercial and government customers
– Powered by Boeing subsidiary Millennium Space Systems, virtually every aspect of satellite manufacturing will be accomplished in the new production facility

EL SEGUNDO, Calif., March 30, 2022 (Boeing PR) — Boeing (NYSE: BA) unveiled a new high-throughput small satellite production, integration and test facility designed for efficiency and rapid delivery timelines. Housed in the world’s largest satellite factory, Boeing’s 1-million-square-foot El Segundo facility (92,903 square meters), the small satellite production line will be powered by Boeing subsidiary, Millennium Space Systems. 

DENVER (Aphelion Aerospace PR) — Aphelion Aerospace, based in Denver, Colorado, USA, is establishing itself as the one-stop-shop for low-cost small satellite assembly and integration, and on-demand launch operations from practically anywhere around the world. Aphelion announced today that it has received significant investment from strategic investors including The Mercury Group of North Carolina and Founder Advisors of Colorado. These investments represent the first of several that are starting to materialize as part of Aphelion’s Series Seed which the company is running in parallel with their equity crowdfunding campaign on StartEngine.

Aphelion CEO Miguel Ayala and CTO Matthew Travis indicate that these investments will help them continue pushing forward with the development of their suborbital launch vehicle technology demonstrator. They plan to conduct low-altitude suborbital demonstration launches by the end of the year to prove out their green non-toxic, non-cryogenic propulsion technology in flight.

Full-scale static test concludes qualification testing for Orion spacecraft abort motor.

PROMONTORY, Utah (Northrop Grumman PR) – Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) and Lockheed Martin successfully performed the final full-scale ground test of the abort motor for NASA’s Orion spacecraft Launch Abort System (LAS) at Northrop Grumman’s Promontory test facility. The 17-foot-tall abort motor is one of three motors comprising the LAS that sits atop the Orion spacecraft aboard NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and is designed to increase astronaut safety on the pad and through initial ascent.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. (NASA Update) — Teams have decided to scrub tanking operations for the wet dress rehearsal due to loss of ability to pressurize the mobile launcher. The fans are needed to provide positive pressure to the enclosed areas within the mobile launcher and keep out hazardous gases. Technicians are unable to safely proceed with loading the propellants into the rocket’s core stage and interim cryogenic propulsion stage […]

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy and Associate Administrator Bob Cabana are among the agency’s speakers at the Space Foundation’s 37th Space Symposium from Wednesday, April 5 to Thursday, April 7 in Colorado Springs, Colo. Topics highlighted by NASA participants throughout the event include the agency’s Moon to Mars exploration approach including Artemis, technology, science, commercial partnerships, and more. A full agenda for the symposium is available online. The […]

LAKEWOOD, Colo. (Mars Society PR) — A group of 14 space advocacy organizations today published a joint statement urging rapid U.S. government approval of SpaceX’s Starship test flights. Commenting on the initiative, Mars Society President Dr. Robert Zubrin said: “The organizations that have come together to make this statement represent every point of view within the space community. Whether one’s priority is settling Mars, developing space commerce, exploring the Moon, […]

by Douglas MessierManaging Editor Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin said Russia will suspend cooperation on the International Space Station (ISS) with its U.S., Canadian, European and Japanese partners due to sanctions imposed over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. How and when was left unspecified. The announcement throws the future of the decades-old ISS program into uncertainty. Roscosmos and NASA are the two lead agencies in the partnership. Russia launches crews and […]

by David Bullock
Staff Writer

Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket launched two BlackSky remote sensing satellites into orbit on Saturday from the company’s Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula.

The “Without Mission a Beat” flight carried the BlackSky Global-14 Gen 2 and BlackSky Global-15 Gen 2 satellites. The spacecraft were placed into a circular 430 km orbit.

WASHINGTON (Commerce Department PR) — The Department of Commerce released its updated Strategic Plan for 2022-2026. Strategic Objective 1.7 of the plan is to “Advance U.S. leadership in the global commercial space industry.” Strategic Objective 1.7 cites the following five strategies: Coordinate regulatory functions across domestic and international stakeholders to promote competitiveness, and increase legal certainty for U.S. commercial space businesses; Grow the customer base for U.S. commercial space goods […]

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

Jeff Bezos and the billionaire founders of other human spaceflight companies like to talk about how sending the rich and famous and just plain rich to space will change the world. On Friday, it did. But, not in the way the Amazon founder thought.

“We want to thank Jeff Bezos for going up to space, because while he was up there, we were organizing a union,” ex-Amazon worker Christian Smalls said after workers at a Staten Island fulfillment center voted to form the company’s first union.

The vote came two years almost to the day that Smalls led a walkout of the warehouse on March 30, 2020, to protest what he and other workers called inadequate measures to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. Smalls was fired for his effort, and later led the unionization drive.

by David Bullock
Staff Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, Fla., April 1, 2022 — A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 40 payloads as part of the company’s Transporter-4 dedicated smallsat rideshare mission.

The rocket launched into a sun-synchronous orbit at 12:24 p.m. EDT. The mission manifest included the first satellite orbited by Pixxel of India, Kleos Space’s Patrol Mission, and 12 Spacebee communications satellites. A list of payloads is below.

• Siemens’ Xcelerator portfolio of software and services is central to Sierra Space’s plans for its next-generation digital engineering platform.
• Dream Chaser® spaceplane, the world’s only winged commercial spaceplane is being designed, engineered, built and tested using Siemens’ Xcelerator portfolio.
• LIFE™ habitat to provide commercial habitation and science platform to be developed in a Digital Twin approach.

PLANO, Texas (Siemens Digital PR) — Siemens Digital Industries Software today announced that Sierra Space, a leading commercial space company at the forefront of creating and building the future of space transportation and infrastructure for Low Earth orbit (LEO) commercialization, has implemented Siemens’ Xcelerator portfolio of software and services as the foundation of its next-generation digital engineering program.  The company is implementing Xcelerator to establish a fully digital environment from engineering to manufacturing through sustainment, which will help realize goals to develop the future of space transportation, commercial space destination and infrastructure, and create enabling technologies that will build a vibrant, growing and accessible commercial space economy.