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NASA recently put a crucial part of the Roman Space Telescope — the Outer Barrel Assembly — through a rigorous “spin test” designed to evaluate its resilience against the intense gravitational forces it will encounter during launch. This test, a standard procedure in aerospace engineering, typically takes place inside a massive centrifuge that mimics the […]

SpaceX has given us another angle on the epic fifth test flight of its Starship megarocket. The company made history on that Oct. 13 mission, catching Starship‘s Super Heavy first-stage booster with the “chopstick” arms of the launch tower about seven minutes after liftoff. But Starship’s 165-foot-tall (50 meters) upper stage — known as Starship, or

Intelsat has introduced a new satellite-based cellular backhaul service platform in Lagos, Nigeria, to expand its services and enhance mobile connectivity in Nigeria and surrounding West African nations. The platform at the Open Access Data Centre (WIOCC) is a significant step toward improving connectivity infrastructure across Nigeria and Africa. This move addresses the persistent challenge

SpaceX just added another batch of launches to its already-busy manifest. The U.S. Space Force announced on Friday (Oct. 18) that it has awarded SpaceX $733.6 million, in the form of two “National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1 Launch Service Task Orders.” Together, the two task orders cover seven launches for the Space

SpaceX sent yet another batch of its Starlink internet satellites to orbit tonight (Oct. 18). A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 20 Starlink craft, including 13 with direct-to-cell capability, lifted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station tonight at 7:31 p.m. EDT (2331 GMT). The Falcon 9’s first stage came back to Earth about

Sierra Space plans to launch a trash compactor to the space station in two years — and some media outlets say the machine looks like Wall-E. An International Space Station (ISS) resupply mission in 2026 will send up the Sierra Space trash compactor for testing, company officials stated in a press release on Wednesday (Oct.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has taken the first big steps toward rendezvousing with an asteroid due to make a close approach to Earth in 2029. ESA signed a contract worth €63 million (about $68 million US at current exchange rates) with OHB Italia at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) here on Thursday (Oct. 17),

The European Space Agency (ESA) is building infrastructure to support lunar exploration. ESA officially launched the Moonlight Lunar Communications and Navigation Services (LCNS) program here at the International Astronautical Congress on Tuesday (Oct. 15), with the aim of providing services for the more than 400 moon missions planned by space agencies and private companies over

Richard Branson is going back to his balloon roots. The Virgin Galactic founder made record-breaking hot-air balloon flights across the Atlantic and the Pacific in 1987 and 1991, respectively — and he’ll soon take to the winds again, serving as co-pilot on the first crewed flight by Space Perspective, a Florida-based stratospheric ballooning company. That

After collecting the first-ever samples from the far side of the moon, China is now setting its sights on even more distant destinations — Mars, asteroids and Jupiter, positioning itself as a key player in space exploration for the coming decade. The country’s plans span the moon, near-Earth asteroids, comets, obtaining the first-ever samples from