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The U.S. race to the moon: Why Plan B cannot wait

Illustration representing NASA's moon-to-Mars ambitions. Credit: NASA

For years, both the Trump Administration and Congress have clearly stated that returning Americans to the moon before China in the 2028-2030 timeframe is a national priority. It is central to United States leadership in space, to global influence and to the future of human exploration.  Yet across the space community, a sobering recognition has […]

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Delivering the next generation of cloud-native, multi-orbit ground systems

As on-orbit capabilities grow more advanced, ground systems are undergoing a transformation of their own.  Ground network specialist ST Engineering iDirect, with headquarters in Herndon, Virginia, is investing in new […]

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Colliding space debris produces radio bursts, raising prospect of ‘debris weather’ alerts

The space environment is peppered with space debris, some fragments too small to see with current systems, but energetic enough to pose a severe hazard to operational spacecraft. Credit: credit: The Aerospace Corporation’s Space Safety Institute

GOLDEN, CO — A university team has found that small orbital debris could emit radio bursts as they collide or approach each other in space. The signal can be detected with large radio dishes on Earth, as well as satellites in orbit.  This new intelligence agency-funded research is focused on gauging the interaction of orbital debris […]

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Odin Space raises $3 million in seed funding

SAN FRANCISCO – British startup Odin Space raised $3 million in a seed round to begin commercializing tiny sensors to map and analyze sub-centimeter orbital debris. With its first sensor launched in 2023 on D-Orbit’s ION orbital transfer vehicle, Odin demonstrated its ability to detect debris that’s generally too small to track but still capable […]

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How multi-agent AI can strengthen space missions against the unknown

Falcon 9 streaks

Space missions are entering a new era defined by complexity: more sensors, more software-driven behavior, more tightly coupled subsystems and more interactions between spacecraft and orbital infrastructure. As these systems evolve, the number of potential failure modes grows — ranging from thermal drift and aging hardware to configuration errors, environmental disturbances, and unfamiliar system behavior. […]

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Benchmark demonstrates high-throughput ASCENT thruster in hotfire testing at Edwards Air Force Base

SAN FRANCISCO – Benchmark Space Systems’ ASCENT-fueled Macaw thruster performed a 10-minute continuous burn, clearing the way for an on-orbit application of the propulsion technology, the company announced Dec. 10. “Because ASCENT has 50% greater impulse density than other monopropellants, mission planners and spacecraft designers can get the similar delta-v [change in velocity] with less […]

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SCHOTT launches high-performance cover glass for next-generation space solar cells

schott logo square

– SCHOTT® Solar Glass exos provides enhanced radiation resistance and optical performance for simple silicon cells up to III-V multijunction satellite solar cells.– Jointly developed with Heilbronn-based AZUR SPACE Solar […]

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LeoLabs lands interagency contract to feed TraCSS and track adversarial spacecraft

LeoLabs has won an interagency contract to provide space-surveillance data for the U.S. government, supporting adversarial spacecraft monitoring and the TraCSS orbital traffic coordination platform due to enter full service early next year.

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America must stop treating China’s lunar plans as a footrace

Render of a conceptual Chinese lunar base.

It has become conventional wisdom that China’s rise is driven by a coordinated strategy across three fronts here on Earth: dominating critical industries, controlling critical resources and occupying strategically important locations. This is explicit in the Chinese Communist Party’s own planning documents, speeches and industrial policies. We now face the same strategy pointed upward. Beijing […]

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