Space

Hello and welcome back to Max Q. Happy Labor Day! Due to the scheduling of the newsletter, I’ll have finished writing this by the time NASA makes the second launch attempt of the Artemis I mission. By now, you probably already know how it all went down anyway! In this issue: SpaceX lands mor

Four months after the spectacular feat that was catching a descending rocket stage in mid-air, Rocket Lab has re-ignited one of the engines from that booster — an important step on their roadmap to fielding a fully reusable rocket. The Rutherford engine, one of nine that power the Electron launch

NASA has finalized an agreement with SpaceX to purchase five more astronaut transportation missions to and from the International Space Station, further entrenching the space company's position as the prime services vendor for the space agency. The new contract — for the Crew-10, Crew-11,

Hello and welcome back to Max Q. I’m writing to you from Florida, where NASA scrubbed Monday’s launch attempt of the Artemis I mission. In this issue: NASA’s Artemis I launch is scrubbed T-Mobile and SpaceX’s new partnership News from Astrobotic, Violet Labs and more By th

After much fanfare, including a crop of celebrity appearances and the arrival of Vice President Kamala Harris, NASA said it was scrubbing today's first-ever launch attempt of the mega moon rocket due to technical issues. The mission was scrubbed at T-40 minutes after engineers were unable to re

Fifty-three years after humans first walked on the moon, NASA is kicking off its ambitious Artemis program to return us there, starting with an uncrewed launch of a massive new rocket on Monday. The Artemis I mission scheduled Monday morning will see the first flight of the Space Launch System (SLS

T-Mobile and SpaceX have announced that Starlink satellites launched next year will be able to connect directly to the carrier’s phones over existing cellular bands. The companies hope to enable global roaming wherever satellite coverage exists, and the service may potentially be added for fr

Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic will be sending its CubeRover platform to the moon under a new award from NASA. The company will use CubeRover to test technologies for surviving the lunar night and communicating across greater distances on the moon's surface. Lunar night survival is trickier than o

Hello and welcome back to Max Q. T-minus 1 week until Artemis I liftoff. Are you going? I’ll be there! In this issue: NASA’s mega moon rocket rolls to the launch pad Skyrora’s testing milestone on Scottish soil News from Astrobotic, Blue Origin and more Space Launch System heads

U.K.-based launch company Skyrora hit a new milestone in the development of its Skyrora XL rocket with the completion of a static fire test of the second stage. The single engine, designed and manufactured by Skyrora, completed a nominal 20-second burn, bringing the company one step closer to its f

NASA engineers have completed final tests of the Space Launch System (SLS), clearing the way for the mega moon rocket to roll out to the launch pad today instead of Friday as originally planned. The space agency was able to move up the date for the rollout — when a transporte

Hello and welcome back to Max Q. In this issue: Northrop Grumman and Firefly Aerospace want to make the Antares rocket all-American How Muon Space is locking in customers News from SpaceX, OneWeb and more Northrop Grumman taps Firefly Aerospace to upgrade its Antares rocket to American-built engi

Satellite communication rivals Intelsat and OneWeb have announced an unlikely alliance to deliver multiorbit, in-flight internet connectivity to commercial airlines around the world. The deal will see Intelsat, which specializes in higher altitude geostationary (GEO) orbit satellites, leverage OneW

SpaceX just got one step closer to the first orbital test flight of its launch system Starship with the successful static fire test of a prototype Super Heavy booster late Tuesday afternoon. That booster, “Booster 7,” was rolled to the launch pad overnight last Friday. The successful test is a