Category: spaceflight

Billionaire space barons want to build ‘mixed-use business parks’ in low Earth orbit

The Space Race is no longer a competition between the global superpowers of the world — at least not the nation-states that once vied to be first to the Moon. Today, low Earth orbit is the battleground for private conglomerates and the billionaires that helm them. With the Mir Space…

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Suing your way to the stars

Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review! I’m back from a very fun and rehabilitative couple weeks away from my phone, my Twitter account and the news cycle. That said, I actually really missed writing this newsletter, and while Greg did a fantastic job while I was out,…

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Astra targets first commercial orbital launch for August 27

Astra’s last test launch went better than expected, nearly achieving orbit — kind of a stretch goal for that specific mission. The company at the time said that it would only need to tweak software to reach an orbital destination, and now we know when it’s going to get the…

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Japanese startup ispace raises $46M to support planned moon missions

Japanese startup ispace has raised $46 million in a fresh round of Series C funding as it looks to complete three lunar lander missions in three years. The funding will go toward the second and third of the planned missions, scheduled for 2023 and 2024. The first mission, which ispace…

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US government watchdog rejects Blue Origin’s protest over lunar lander contract

Blue Origin’s protest to a U.S. governmental watchdog over NASA’s decision to award SpaceX a multi-billion dollar contract to develop a lunar lander was rejected. The Government Accountability Office said Friday that it was denying both Blue Origin’s protest and a separate challenge filed by Dynetics, a defense contractor that…

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Varda Space Industries closes $42M Series A for off-planet manufacturing

Varda Space Industries has raised a $42 million Series A to bring to manufacturing a key capability that can only be found off-world: microgravity. The eight-month-old startup is looking to establish its first manufacturing facility in space as early as 2023, and by doing so, bring back to Earth advanced…

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