A group of researchers in Japan built the first satellite made of wood and are getting ready to launch it later this year to test its capabilities in Earth orbit.
It was a topsy-turvy month in spaceflight, with yet another lunar lander falling over and an upsetting new view showing NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter missing a rotor blade, among other memorable moments.
Astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) are about to make a new cyborg friend in the form of two short mechanical arms that will do their bidding in the cold, dark vacuum of low Earth orbit.
Breaking up is hard to do, especially when there’s a commercial space station on the line. Northrop Grumman is abandoning its plans as a solo contractor to develop a replacement for NASA’s International Space Station, and is instead partnering with Voyager Space to work on Starlab.
NASA’s plans to retire the International Space Station and replace it with commercial projects are not kaput, they’re just changing. Wrinkles are now appearing in Blue Origin’s plans for Orbital Reef, while Northrop Grumman’s unnamed space station project might not even happen.
The International Space Station (ISS) has been orbiting Earth for 24 years, hosting crews of astronauts and running experiments in the microgravity environment. By 2030, however, the space station’s reign in low Earth orbit must come to an end and NASA is figuring out exactly how to do that.
Colorado-based company Voyager Space is collaborating with Europe’s Airbus to build a commercial space station in low Earth orbit that will succeed the International Space Station (ISS) following its retirement.
In Vast’s quest to build a space station complete with artificial gravity, the private space company has acquired startup Launcher in order to take a step toward making its plans a reality. Despite the news of the acquisition, both companies remain tightlipped on Vast’s plans for the space station.