The U.S was the first nation to test Anti-Satellite (ASAT) weapons in 1958 with bomber-launched ASATs, and three other nations have demonstrated the ability to destroy orbiting satellites — Russia, China, and, most recently, India, with a test in March last year. Officials from the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Space Force have largely confined…

NASA has chosen 14 companies for contract awards to develop technologies for Artemis operations on the Moon, including about $260 million to a group including Lockheed Martin, United Launch Alliance (ULA), and SpaceX to develop cryogenic fluid management. The awards, announced Wednesday, have an expected combined award value of more than $370 million. For cryogenic…

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Telesat a further contract worth $18.3 million to develop and test it’s Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation as part of DARPA’s Blackjack program. This builds off a Telesat/DARPA contract awarded in 2018 for system engineering and interface definition. Blackjack is a program to leverage commercial LEO technology for…

Accion Systems will host its propulsion system, TILE 3, onboard a NanoAvionics rideshare mission. Accion Systems procured this flight as part of a U.S. government-sponsored propulsion program, and launch is expected in late 2021. The nanosatellite for the rideshare mission is based on the NanoAvionics M6P bus and will include several customer payloads that can…