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NASA awarded the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, a contract to support all phases of current and future planetary protection missions to ensure compliance with planetary protection standards. The SETI Institute will work with NASA’s Office of Planetary Protection (OPP) to provide technical reviews and recommendations, validate biological cleanliness on …

NASA has released two NASA Interim Directives (NIDs) updating the agency’s requirements for robotic and human missions traveling to the Earth’s Moon, and human missions traveling to Mars. The first, NID 8715.128, addresses the control of forward terrestrial biological contamination associated with all NASA and NASA-affiliated missions intended to land, orbit, or …

Psyche, the NASA mission to explore a metal-rock asteroid of the same name, recently passed a crucial milestone that brings it closer to its August 2022 launch date. Now the mission is moving from planning and designing to high-gear manufacturing of the spacecraft hardware that will fly to its target …

exactEarth, a provider of Satellite-AIS data services, announced an expanded alliance agreement with one of its existing channel partners. All financial figures are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated. The Amended Agreement extends the current agreement between the companies by three-and-a-half years through to December 2023. exactEarth estimates that this Amended Agreement …

iRocket announced that the company signed a Phase II RAPID Other Transaction Agreement contract with the U.S. Air Force, on the heels of the phase I contract where iRocket partnered with Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) in Albuquerque, N.M., and Air Force Research Lab at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, …

Virgin Galactic has announced that it will be revealing the interior design of SpaceShipTwo’s cabin. The virtual event will be streamed live on 28 July, 2020. To celebrate this milestone, Virgin Galactic will also be announcing plans to bring immersive experiences of Virgin Galactic’s spaceflight and cabin interior to aspiring astronauts …

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and the European Space Policy Institute, we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and briefs. This is ESPI Briefs No. 42: ‘C-Band, Satellites and 5G’, originally published in June 2020. 1. The U.S. C-band story – transitioning the use of C-band from satellite to …

NASA selected 409 technology proposals for the first phase of funding from the agency’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. The contracts will provide approximately $51 million to 312 small businesses in 44 states and Washington, D.C. “NASA depends on America’s small businesses for …

The Department of the Air Force and the United States Space Force have finalized the new service’s organizational structure for echelons below the headquarters, reflecting the newest branch of the armed forces’ guiding principles of being a lean, agile and mission-focused organization. The USSF field organization will consist of three …

In-Space sets sights on next phase of Faraday programme after devastating loss of Faraday-1 satellit. In-Space Missions has vowed to continue its Faraday satellite programme after the extreme disappointment of losing their maiden satellite Faraday-1. The nanosat was launched on a Rocket Lab Electron rocket yesterday evening (4th July) from …