As the first flight of Artemis moves ever closer from Kennedy Space Center, critics continue to raise questions around the cost of the U.S. return to the moon by pointing to private sector alternatives as more expeditious and less resource intensive.

WASHINGTON — Three space industry groups are asking the Commerce Department to commit to continued support and funding for the Office of Space Commerce.

In a March 9 letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, the Aerospace Industries Association, Commercial Spaceflight Federation and Satellite Industry Association called for the department to fund the small office at a level “reflective of its critical role” supporting the space industry.

Bay St. Louis MS (SPX) Mar 11, 2021
NASA is targeting Thursday, March 18 for the second hot fire of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket's core stage at NASA's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. After performing tests to demonstrate that a recently repaired liquid oxygen pre-valve was working, the team has continued to prepare the core stage, its four RS-25 engines, and the B-2 test stand for the second ho

Paris (AFP) March 10, 2021
The bundle of instruments known as SuperCam on board the Perseverance Mars rover has collected its first samples in the hunt for past life on the Red Planet, mission scientists said Wednesday. The return to Earth years from now of the rocks and soil it retrieves "will give scientists the Holy Grail of planetary exploration," Jean-Yves le Gall, president of France's National Centre for Space

Beijing (XNA) Mar 10, 2021
China and Russia have agreed to join hands in building and running a robotic scientific outpost on the moon or in lunar orbit, according to the China National Space Administration. The administration said in a statement on Tuesday evening that its head, Zhang Kejian, and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Rogozin, director-general of State Space Corporation Roscosmos, signed a memorandum of u

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Mar 10, 2021
When NASA's Parker Solar Probe sent back the first observations from its voyage to the Sun, scientists found signs of a wild ocean of currents and waves quite unlike the near-Earth space much closer to our planet. This ocean was spiked with what became known as switchbacks: rapid flips in the Sun's magnetic field that reversed direction like a zig-zagging mountain road. Scientists think pi

Washington DC (SPX) Mar 09, 2021
You're going at the speed limit down a two-lane road when a car barrels out of a driveway on your right. You slam on the brakes, and within a fraction of a second of the impact an airbag inflates, saving you from serious injury or even death. The airbag deploys thanks to an accelerometer - a sensor that detects sudden changes in velocity. Accelerometers keep rockets and airplanes on the

Washington DC (AFNS) Mar 04, 2021
Increasing worker knowledge, productivity, and efficiency has been a seemingly never ending quest for the military as well as commercial companies. Today, military personnel are expected to perform a growing number of complex tasks while interacting with increasingly sophisticated machines and platforms. Artificial intelligence (AI) enabled assistants have the potential to aid users as the

Edwards AFB CA (SPX) Mar 10, 2021
At one-sixth that of Earth, the unique gravity of the lunar surface is one of the many variable conditions that technologies bound for the Moon will need to perform well in. NASA will soon have more options for testing those innovations in lunar gravity thanks to a collaboration with Blue Origin to bring new testing capabilities to the company's New Shepard reusable suborbital rocket system.