NASA has awarded five companies contracts to mature sustainable lunar landing concepts as part of its Artemis program, the agency announced Tuesday.  Dynetics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Blue Origin, and SpaceX received firm fixed-price, milestone-based contracts that are worth a combined $146 million. This awards fall under the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP-2).…

Virgin Galactic has delayed its next test flight “Unity 23” with the Italian Air Force until mid-October due to a component issue.  In a statement issued Monday, Virgin Galactic said a third-party supplier notified the company of a potential manufacturing defect in a component of the flight control actuation system. Virgin Galactic does not yet…

NASA has awarded SpaceX a $152.5 million contract to launch the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-U (GOES-U) mission. The total cost includes the launch service and other mission-related costs. The GOES-U mission is targeted to launch in April 2024 on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  GOES-U is the fourth and final…

The National Oceanographic and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) has awarded Spire Global a six-month contract for commercial weather data. Spire announced Tuesday that this order represents the largest volume of commercial weather data purchased to date by NOAA under the Commercial Weather Data Buy Program. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.  Spire will provide…