Lockheed Martin is making steady progress in a key test phase on GeoEye’s next-generation, high-resolution imaging satellite, GeoEye-2, as IKONOS, the world’s first commercial remote sensing spacecraft marks 13 years of outstanding services for GeoEye’s customers around the globe. Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company is developing GeoEye-2 under a fixed-price contract with GeoEye. The satellite…

Space Exploration Technologies has completed its first three performance milestones for NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability initiative, which is intended to lead to the availability of commercial human spaceflight services for government and commercial customers. During the company’s first milestone, a technical baseline review, NASA and SpaceX reviewed the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket…

As its digital-communications team prepares for the next redesign of NASA.gov, NASA is asking the public for thoughts on what the agency should be doing on its website. NASA has set up a forum on Ideascale to allow users to submit, comment on and vote on ideas. Opened Nov. 19, the forum already has received…

Recent engineering advances by NASA and its industry partners across the country show important progress toward Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1), the next step to launching humans to deep space. The uncrewed EFT-1 mission, launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in 2014, will test the re-entry performance of the agency’s Orion capsule, the most…

NASA, BIGELOW OFFICIALS TO DISCUSS SPACE STATION EXPANDABLE MODULE WASHINGTON — NASA has awarded a $17.8 million contract to Bigelow Aerospace to provide a new addition to the International Space Station. The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module will demonstrate the benefits of this space habitat technology for future exploration and commercial space endeavors. “The International Space…

REDONDO BEACH, Calif. – Northrop Grumman accepted delivery of the aft-optical system from teammate Ball Aerospace, marking the completion of all flight optics for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Northrop Grumman is under contract to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., for the design and development of the Webb Telescope’s optics, sunshield and…

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. – The MEXSAT Bicentenario satellite, built by Boeing partner Orbital Sciences Corporation, has completed on-orbit testing and has been accepted by the customer, the first step to establishing a space-based communications network that will markedly improve Mexico’s satellite communications capabilities. The Secretaria de Comunicaciones y Transportes (Secretary of Communications and Transportation) of…

A test version of NASA’s Orion spacecraft safely landed during a simulation of two types of parachute failures May 1. In the test, conducted in Yuma, Ariz., the mock capsule was traveling about 250 mph when the parachutes were deployed. That is the highest speed the craft has experienced as part of the test series…

NASA and the Library of Congress have announced the selection of David H. Grinspoon to be the first Baruch S. Blumberg NASA-Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology. The chair, selected through an international competition, is named for the late Nobel Laureate and founding director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, Baruch “Barry” Blumberg. Applications are solicited…