WASHINGTON — Raytheon received a $228 million contract to continue development of a ground system for Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, the Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center announced April 30.

The contract is for work on the operational control system for the newest version of GPS 3 satellites made by Lockheed Martin.

WASHINGTON — With four flights now complete, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter will transition from being strictly a technology demonstration to a test of its ability to work in cooperation with the Perseverance rover.

Ingenuity performed its fourth flight April 30, staying aloft for 117 seconds.

TAMPA, Fla. — The space market is at a watershed moment as private and public investments continue to surge.

Boutique research and advisory firm Quilty Analytics recorded $5.7 billion in investments for the first quarter of 2021, a 356% increase from $1.2 billion in the same period last year.

Updated 3:10 p.m. Eastern with NASA statement about stop-work order on HLS award to SpaceX.

WASHINGTON — NASA should have revised its approach to the Human Landing System (HLS) program or withdrawn the solicitation entirely once it was clear the agency didn’t have the funding to support two companies, one of the losing bidders argues in its protest of the award.

We’ve all been there. Either as a child, in the back of your parents’ car, probably squashed between two obnoxious siblings or, as a parent of a restless toddler, 15 minutes into a four-hour road trip, the question always arises, “Are we there yet?”

In an alternate reality playing out at this year’s international Planetary Defense Conference, a fictional asteroid crashes over Europe, 'destroying' a region about 100 km wide near the Czech Republic and German border. The scenario was imagined, but the people who took part are very real, and the lessons learnt will shape our ability to respond to dangerous asteroids for years to come.