The Italian Space Agency and Thales Alenia Space Italia are at work for the American lunar exploration program Artemis.

ROME (Italian Space Agency PR) — Italy is taking its first steps towards the Moon. The country system is preparing for the great leap on the surface of our natural satellite also thanks to the international relations between Italy and the United States and between the respective space agencies ASI and NASA, which have recently intensified on the basis of the mutual interest in collaborating on the program of Artemis exploration.

Within this strategic framework, a contract was born between the Italian Space Agency and Thales Alenia Space Italia, (JV between Thales 67% and Leonardo 33%) dedicated to the feasibility study and preliminary design (phases A / B) of a multi-purpose module linked to NASA’s Artemis mission which provides a human crew on the Moon.

The NASA Office of Inspector General released this snap shot of the space agency’s Artemis program to land astronauts on the moon. Total projected cost through fiscal year 2025: $85.7 billion. Only $35.2 billion has been obligated. An addition $50.5 billion has been requested.

David Godwin remains Chairman of the Board and will focus on corporate development

AUSTIN, Texas & EL SEGUNDO, Calif.–(Slingshot Aerospace PR)–Slingshot Aerospace, Inc., a leader in situational awareness technology, announced today that the company’s Co-founder Melanie Stricklan has been named Chief Executive Officer effective immediately as the company gets laser-focused on space. Co-founder and former CEO David Godwin will remain active within the company as Chairman of the Board where he will focus on expanding corporate development activities.

“We are honored to have gained such amazing traction in the space industry by securing contracts with customers like the U.S. Space Force and NASA that are not only paragons of the domain, but are critical to our nation’s defense, progress, and way of life,” said Stricklan. “We have an extraordinary team, including a number of space domain experts, and we look forward to putting an even greater focus on the industry across public and private sectors to make a bigger impact on the world.”

LITTLETON, Colo. (NASA PR) — With less than a year to launch, NASA’s Lucy mission’s third and final scientific instrument has been integrated onto the spacecraft.

The spacecraft, which will be the first to explore the Trojan asteroids — a population of small bodies that share an orbit with Jupiter — is in the final stages of the assembly process. Just five months ago, at the beginning of the Assembly, Testing and Launch operations (ATLO) process, the components of the Lucy spacecraft were being built all over the country. Today, a nearly assembled spacecraft sits in the high bay in Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado.

PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — NASA is inviting the public to take part in virtual activities and events as the agency’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover nears entry, descent, and landing on the Red Planet, with touchdown scheduled for approximately 3:55 p.m. EST Thursday, Feb. 18.

Live coverage and landing commentary from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California will begin at 2:15 p.m. on the NASA TV Public Channel and the agency’s website, as well as the NASA App,  YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitch, Daily Motion, and THETA.TV.

HOUSTON (NASA PR) — NASA has assigned two crew members to launch on the agency’s SpaceX Crew-4 mission – the fourth crew rotation flight of the Crew Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station.

NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren and Bob Hines will serve as spacecraft commander and pilot, respectively, for the Crew-4 mission. Additional crew members will be assigned as mission specialists in the future by the agency’s international partners.

HOUSTON (NASA PR) — NASA will provide live coverage on NASA Television, the agency’s website, and the NASA app of the launch and docking of a Russian cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station beginning at 11:15 p.m. EST Sunday, Feb. 14.

The unpiloted Russian Progress 77 is scheduled to launch on a Soyuz rocket at 11:45 p.m. (10:45 a.m. Monday, Feb. 15, Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

TIME Studios & Known to Produce with “30 for 30” Creator Connor Schell as Executive Producer for the Groundbreaking Project

(New York, NY — February 11, 2021) TIME’s Emmy award-winning television and film division TIME Studios has partnered with the studio division of Emmy & Peabody award-winning marketing firm Known to acquire the competitive documentary rights to Inspiration4, the first all-civilian mission to space.

Announced last week and featured at this year’s Super Bowl, the Inspiration4 mission will be commanded by Jared Isaacman, the 37-year-old founder and chief executive officer of Shift4 Payments and an accomplished pilot, philanthropist and adventurer. Isaacman is donating the three mission seats alongside him to members of the public who best exemplify the humanitarian pillars of the mission. Two of these seats are currently open to the public through a fundraising contest and an online competition using Shift4’s new ecommerce platform, Shift4Shop.com.

Virgin Galactic had planned to fly from Spaceport America in New Mexico as early as Saturday. The company has said there are open dates for the rest of February. The suborbital flight will include two pilots and a load of microgravity experiments in the passenger cabin. It will be a repeat of a flight that was aborted in December after VSS Unity‘s computer lost contact with the ship’s hybrid engine. […]

Provides for Reduction of Company’s Debt by More Than Half, from Nearly $15 Billion to $7 Billion

MCLEAN, Va., February 12, 2021 (Intelsat PR) – Intelsat S.A. (OTC: INTEQ), operator of the world’s largest and most advanced satellite fleet and connectivity infrastructure, today announced that it has obtained the support of key creditor constituencies on the terms of a comprehensive financial restructuring that would reduce the Company’s debt by more than half – from nearly $15 billion to $7 billion – and position the Company for long-term success.

By Katherine Schauer and Karl Hille
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

GREENBELT, Md. — NASA is improving a flight software system to help create and certify essential software for the lunar Gateway.

As part of the Artemis program, NASA will send astronauts to the Moon and establish a sustained lunar presence by the end of the decade. The Gateway will provide a waypoint for lunar exploration and allow astronauts to live and work in lunar orbit as well as host science instruments and experiments.

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. (NASA PR) — NASA commercial cargo provider  Northrop Grumman is targeting 12:36 p.m. EST Saturday, Feb. 20, for the launch of its 15th resupply mission to the International Space Station. Live coverage of the launch from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia, will air on NASA Television, the agency’s website and the NASA app beginning at 12 p.m. EST Saturday, Feb. 20, with a prelaunch event Friday, Feb. 19.