SAN FRANCISCO – York Space Systems announced plans May 18 to establish a “mega manufacturing facility” in Denver to quadruple the number of small satellites in production at once.

In the new facility, York will be able to produce as many as 80 satellites simultaneously, compared with York’s current production plant where employees can build 20 satellites at a time, York CEO Dirk Wallinger told SpaceNews.

Like an infant adjusting to the new world, ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet is relearning how to move around the weightless environment of space. His cradle is a familiar place though – this is Thomas’s second mission to the International Space Station, the orbiting lab where he where he broke records for science during his first six months in orbit.  

Tsukuba, Japan (SPX) May 13, 2021
Most of us have imagined how free it would feel to float around, like an astronaut, in conditions of reduced gravity. But have you ever considered what the effects of reduced gravity might have on muscles? Gravity is a constant force on Earth which all living creatures have evolved to rely on and adapt to. Space exploration has brought about many scientific and technological advances, yet manned

Birmingham UK (SPX) May 18, 2021
Scientists have succeeded in dating some of the oldest stars in our galaxy with unprecedented precision by combining data from the stars' oscillations with information about their chemical composition. The team led by researchers at the University of Birmingham, surveyed around a hundred red giant stars, and were able to determine that some of these were originally part of a satellite gala

Washington DC (UPI) May 17, 2021
California-based launch company Rocket Lab has blamed a possible engine problem for the loss Saturday of its Electron rocket and commercial satellite payload. The rocket fell safely into the Pacific Ocean off the company's launch site in New Zealand due to an automatic shutdown triggered by safety systems, according to the company. It was the 20th mission for Electron and the sec

Sydney, Australia (The Conversation) May 18, 2021
In December 2020, the Indonesian government had offered the Papuan island of Biak, home to some 100,000 inhabitants, to the centibillionare Elon Musk as a potential launch site for the SpaceX Mars-bound expedition. SpaceX, an aerospace corporation founded in 2002 by Musk, is arguably the world's most leading-edge technological project. It aims to enable humans to travel to and live on Mars

Houston TX (SPX) May 18, 2021
NASA has assigned Kayla Barron to serve as a mission specialist for the agency's SpaceX Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station, which is targeted to launch as early as Oct. 23. This will be the first spaceflight for Barron, who became a NASA astronaut in January 2020 after completing two years of training. She will join NASA astronauts Raja Chari and Tom Marshburn, as the missio

Washington DC (UPI) May 18, 2021
The most powerful telescope ever built, the James Webb Space Telescope, is fully booked to peer at other planets and the origins of the universe for more than a year after its planned launch in October. About 400 studies that could reveal secrets about the oldest galaxies, inhabitable planets and even the dawn of the universe already are scheduled, scientists said. "It's a totall