From the Magazine
Op-ed | A space-based survey, not luck, must be our plan against hazardous asteroids
Luck is not a plan. Yet up to now Congressional appropriators and senior NASA officials are mostly relying on luck to keep us safe from catastrophic fatalities resulting from the surprise impact of an unseen asteroid.
Is Space Sensor Layer the Pentagon’s next major space program?
Defense officials have been sounding alarms about what they describe as a glaring national security vulnerability — a new class of ultrafast weapons being developed by China and Russia that would overpower U.S. missile defenses.
Blue Origin’s anticlimactic victory and Aerojet’s Plan B
ULA finally selects BE-4 engine for Vulcan, marking an anticlimactic victory for Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin (and another disappointment for Aerojet Rocketdyne).
Foust Forward | The moon bounces back
At this year's just-concluded International Astronautical Congress in Bremen, Germany, human Mars exploration was eclipsed by discussions about going back to the moon.
Do smallsats even need insurance?
Insurers who specialize in the space industry, seeing no quick turnaround, are starting to look beyond its traditional customers to new markets.
Satellite operators don’t know what to buy, but ESA is still helping European manufacturers get ready to sell
How does ESA decide what technology to invest in when few have confidence on what operators will want? Three experts overseeing ARTES, the European Space Agency’s Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems division, explain.
Viasat, ULA insist ViaSat-3 launch was competitively procured
United Launch Alliance and satellite operator Viasat are defending the “competed” status of a launch contract that other launch companies say they had no part in.
Is ISIS Space the new space unicorn? Probably not. But you’ve got to like their odds.
In an exhibit hall filled with metal spacecraft components, it was hard to miss the pink unicorn perched on a cubesat at the Innovative Solutions in Space booth.
What the satellite industry needs to know about where 5G stands
As governments, companies and everyone in between prepare to trade out 4G wireless infrastructure for 5G, questions linger about what the transition will entail.
Op-ed | Commercial space startups should be wary of some foreign investment
It should be no surprise that space startups are aggressively pursued by global investors. Properly valuing potential foreign investments requires parsing more than exchange rates.
ESA’s leader gets extra time for his vision of European space
European Space Agency Director General Jan Woerner spoke with SpaceNews about his extension, the agency’s activities, and its relationship with others, from the EU to NASA.
Where no commercial satellite bus has gone before
If all goes as currently planned, sometime in 2022 a rocket will lift off carrying a payload that at first glance will look familiar. This payload, though, won’t be destined for geostationary orbit. Instead, the spacecraft will head to cislunar space.
Op-ed | Toward a robust space economy
It is evident we need to examine how to build a robust space economy and infrastructure, one built to accommodate future growth.
Government agencies prepare for piggyback flights, secondary payloads
Ten years after then-U.S. Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne called for maximizing use of secondary payload adapters to launch small satellites on large rockets, the Air Force, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are working together to make that happen.
Op-ed | Military satcom evolving to meet resiliency requirements
As the military sometimes must operate in contested environments, they will need more resilient communications system to overcome any intentional interference.
Foust Forward | Putting a price on the search for life beyond Earth
How much is it worth to answer one of humanity’s biggest questions? That’s a topic that astrophysicists, NASA and Congress will have to grapple with in the next few years.
