WASHINGTON — The final major element of the first Space Launch System rocket arrived at the Kennedy Space Center, but NASA’s acting administrator says it will be “challenging” to launch the rocket before the end of this year.

WASHINGTON — Space industry startup Ursa Major Technologies has named former Air Force procurement official Will Roper to its the board of directors, the company’s CEO said April 28.

Ursa Major is a venture-funded maker of rocket engines for small and medium launch vehicles.

The E in ESG is getting another boost as the United States rejoins the climate change fight, and space promises to play a central role.

A rising number of companies have already added ESG scorecards to their annual reports, detailing the progress they are making toward environmental, social and corporate governance goals.

ESG, which stands for environment, social and governance, is a set of nonfinancial criteria that community-minded and bottom-line investors alike are increasingly using to value businesses.

Companies are adding ESG targets and updates on reaching them to their financial statements, where they also record revenues and profits, to help guide socially conscious investors.

On April 23, SpaceX launched a crew of international astronauts to the Space Station. This marks the third human spaceflight success for the firm’s Crew Dragon Capsule, developed under NASA’s Commercial Crew program. The amazing accomplishments of this program and of its predecessor, Comercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS), which funded development of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and the cargo version of Dragon, depended not only on great engineering by SpaceX and other NASA vendors, but also upon the power of system redundancy and market competition.

Once every two years, asteroid experts around the globe meet up and pretend an asteroid impact is imminent. Why? To prepare for the likely – but plausible – scenario in which this comes true.

TAMPA, Fla. — Serial entrepreneur Max Polyakov has made the next step in his vertically integrated space strategy, acquiring South African small satellite specialist Dragonfly Aerospace for an undisclosed sum.

Dragonfly mainly builds high-resolution cameras for spacecraft but plans to produce small satellites that could be launched by Firefly Aerospace, which Polyakov owns through his Silicon Valley-based investment vehicle Noosphere Ventures Partners.