The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, has come ‘home’ to ESA’s technical centre in the Netherlands to undergo an extreme environment test in Europe’s largest thermal vacuum chamber to prepare for its journey to the outer Solar System.

Washington (AFP) May 5, 2021
SpaceX managed to land its prototype Starship rocket at its Texas base without blowing it up on Wednesday, the first time it has succeeded in doing so in five attempts. The test flight represents a major win for the hard-charging company, which eventually wants to carry crew inside Starship for missions to Mars. "Starship landing nominal!" tweeted founder Elon Musk triumphantly, after th

WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Starship prototype successfully carried out a brief suborbital flight May 5 after four previous vehicles were destroyed during or shortly after landing.

The Starship SN15 vehicle lifted off from SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas, test site at 6:24 p.m.

Media will have the opportunity to see the iconic golden mirror of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope open for the last time on Earth during a virtual briefing Tuesday, May 11, at 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT).

WASHINGTON — Blue Origin announced May 5 that it will fly people on its New Shepard suborbital vehicle for the first time July 20, and will auction off one of the seats on that launch.

The company said that, after years of test flights without anyone on board, it will start flying people on New Shepard.

SAN FRANCISCO — KSAT is rapidly installing antennas around the world to keep pace with the dramatic rise in small satellite activity.

In 2021 alone, Norway-based KSAT is on track to add 42 antennas to KSATlite, its network that supports small satellite constellations.

WASHINGTON — An unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile test launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, experienced a ground abort during the terminal countdown, the Air Force Global Strike Command said May 5.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force this month will complete a design review of a previously flown SpaceX Falcon 9 booster that flew a military GPS satellite to orbit last fall. The booster is expected to fly another GPS satellite sometime in June.

An X-ray telescope designed to search for supermassive black holes could be built using a novel 3D-printing technique called plasma metal deposition.

WASHINGTON — Loft Orbital announced May 5 it won a small business innovation research (SBIR) contract from the U.S. Space Force to support the development of an edge computer that can analyze data in space.