Astrobotic Technology's latest space-related venture won't take it far from home.

The lunar tech company is pitching a plan to build a new four-story facility next to its North Side headquarters on North Lincoln Avenue as part of a bid to "establish a new space campus for Pennsylvania."

Astrobotic outlined the basics of the proposed development in a request for $6 million in state redevelopment assistance capital grant funding.

According to its application, the North Side startup intends to demolish an existing building next to its headquarters to clear the way for the construction of the $18 million building.

Astrobotic plans to dedicate one 29,000-square-foot floor of the new facility to tenants that are engaged in space medical research, space test equipment and defense space programs. It will take 39,000 square feet in the structure, which will be connected to its current headquarters.

"Altogether, the completion of this $18 million facility project will establish a new space campus for Pennsylvania," the application stated.

Astrobotic added that it wants to build the new complex to help capitalize on the momentum generated by four missions to the moon currently under contract and to "expand into new commercial and [U.S.

In recent years, with the significant increase in space launch activities, the number of deorbited spacecraft has sharply risen, posing a serious impact on both active orbiting spacecraft and future space activities. Traditional rope net capture systems, serving as a technology for actively deorbiting spacecraft, hold vast potential in mitigating and clearing space debris.

However, rope systems face challenges such as difficulty in maintaining shape over extended periods, susceptibility to self-entanglement, energy losses, and a reduction in the effective capture area. In contrast, thin films can fold and unfold along regular shapes, offering greater flexibility and reliability compared to tethers. They emerge as an effective solution to the entanglement issue and present a promising method for space debris mitigation and removal.

In a review article recently published in Space: Science & Technology, Professor Wei Cheng's team at Harbin Institute of Technology, in collaboration with researchers from Beijing Institute of Control Engineering and Benha University, has designed a thin film capture pocket system.

Russian space officials on Wednesday acknowledged a continuing air leak from the Russian segment of the International Space Station, but said it poses no danger to its crew.

The first private U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon broke a leg at touchdown before falling over, according to company officials who said Wednesday it was on the verge of losing power.

Intuitive Machines, the company that built the lander, released new photos Wednesday, six days after the landing, that showed at least one broken leg on the six-legged spacecraft.

In a corner room of the Aerospace Engineering Sciences Building at CU Boulder, Torin Clark is about to go for a ride.

The associate professor straps himself into what looks like an intimidating dentist's chair perched on metal scaffolding, which, in turn, rests on a circular base. The whole set up resembles a carnival attraction.

Which, in a way, it is.

"Torin, are you ready to start?" calls out graduate student Taylor Lonner from in front of a monitor displaying several views of Clark. "I'm going to go to 5 r.p.m.

Bad weather conditions on the launch corridor for a human spaceflight from Kennedy Space Center have prompted a two-day delay, so SpaceX took the opportunity to roll out and try and shoehorn a launch without humans from nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday.

The Crew-8 mission set to take up three NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut to the International Space Station was originally targeting a liftoff just after midnight early Friday, but because of poor offshore conditions for the flight track of the Crew Dragon Endeavour including high winds and waves along the eastern seaboard, SpaceX and NASA opted to delay the launch attempt until Saturday night.

Now the Falcon 9 with the four crew of NASA's Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Roscosmos's Alexander Grebenkin is targeting 11:16 p.m. Saturday to lift off from KSC's Launch Pad 39-A.

"In the unlikely case of an abort during launch or the flight of Dragon, the wind and wave conditions must be within acceptable conditions for the safe recovery of the crew and spacecraft," reads an update posted to NASA's website.

Their mission around the moon is not expected until September 2025 at the earliest, but the four astronauts on NASA's Artemis II mission are already preparing for their splashdown return.

Over the past week, the three Americans and one Canadian chosen for the historic moon mission have been training at sea with the US Navy off the coast of California.

"This is crazy. This is the stuff of movies, and we're living it every day," said veteran NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, the mission's commander, Wednesday at the San Diego Naval Base.