ULA is now able to compete to launch future NASA missions on its Vulcan Centaur rocket, which is currently in development. On April 15, NASA announced that it had awarded ULA a Launch Services (NLS) II contract.  The NLS II is a contract vehicle under which NASA places orders from commercial providers for launch services…

Blue Origin conducted a successful launch of its New Shepard rocket and crew capsule on Wednesday, as a verification step for the vehicle and operations before it will fly astronauts. Before liftoff, Blue Origin personnel stood in for astronauts and entered the crew capsule. They demonstrated climbing the launch tower, buckling into the seats and…

Rideshare launch services provider Exolaunch has rolled out a new "space tug" program that will use orbital transfer vehicles (OTVs) to both send satellites to custom orbits and install modular payloads. The company said that testing and flight qualification on the new service will begin in 2022 on SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare missions. Exolaunch's new…

Rocket Lab will take another big step to launch vehicle reusability next month, when it makes its second attempt to recover an Electron rocket. The mission, dubbed 'Running Out of Toes,' involves an Electron launch from Rocket Lab's Complex 1 in New Zealand, the deployment of two Earth Observation satellites for BlackSky, re-entrance into Earth's…