WASHINGTON — NASA completed what appeared to be a successful static-fire test of the core stage of the Space Launch System March 18, two months after a similar test was cut short by technical problems.

The SLS core stage, mounted on a test stand at the Stennis Space Center, ignited its four RS-25 engines at 4:37 p.m.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has disrupted long-held beliefs of how the space business works and permanently expanded thinking about government contracting with industry. This impact has been felt throughout the national security, civil, and commercial space enterprises. Because of the lawsuit that it settled with the Air Force in 2015, old assumptions about the government’s launch market for national security launch services are gone.

TAMPA, Fla. — Marlink’s private equity owners have put the maritime connectivity provider up for sale, according to industry sources close to the matter.

A private equity source said Apax Partners, which bought Marlink from Airbus for an undisclosed sum in 2016, has hired bankers to explore a sale process.

WASHINGTON — The Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate announced plans to open a new facility later this year focused on space environment research. 

The Skywave Technology Laboratory will be a 3,500 square foot, $3.5 million facility located in a remote area on Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, AFRL said March 18.

TAMPA, Fla. – Astroscale expects to start performing its first end-to-end test of key technologies for in-orbit debris removal around the end of May, assuming a successful launch this month of the Tokyo-based startup’s ELSA-d demonstration mission.

A student interning at ESA will soon see her work launched into space. Meadhbh Griffin of University College Dublin has spent the last five months writing and testing software for an experiment set to fly later this year on the Hungarian-led RadCube CubeSat.  While its main mission is to probe space weather in Earth orbit, RadCube will also host a miniature experiment to test how commercial computer memories withstand space radiation.

WASHINGTON — NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is making continued progress for a launch in October as engineers close out a series of technical issues with the spacecraft but deal with one new problem.