Payload
• Jacqueline Feldscher
The U.S. Office of Space Commerce (OSC) says it will function as a one-stop shop for licensing novel space missions, with an anticipated rollout this summer. The move aims to streamline approvals for new mission concepts as the commercial space sector scales beyond traditional mission models.
SpaceNews.com
• Jarosław Adamowski
By SpaceNews.com: Poland — Polish space company Eycore has launched Eycore-1, an Earth observation satellite equipped with the company’s synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technology.
NASA Spaceflight
• Ryan Weber
By NASA Spaceflight: Over six months after the end of Flight 11, the old design, Pad 1, was demolished, and conversion to the newer pad design, like Pad 2, is underway. In that time, crews have made impressive progress, with excavation of the trench about to start.
SpaceNews.com
• Sandra Erwin
By SpaceNews.com: NVER — Data and intelligence providers, along with governments, are outsourcing the construction and operation of Earth-observation constellations, favoring access to data and analytics over owning the satellites and ground systems that produce them.
Space.com
• Chelsea Gohd
By Space.com: Blue Origin's MK1 moon lander has passed its tests in the vacuum chamber as NASA continues to develop the hardware needed to return astronauts to the moon.
SpaceNews.com
• Jeff Foust
By SpaceNews.com: Artemis 2 was a success in more ways than one. The mission, lasting just over nine days, demonstrated that the Orion spacecraft could safely support a crew on a trip around the moon.
Space.com
• Andrew Jones
By Space.com: Two private companies are partnering up to establish a repeatable debris removal service for low Earth orbit, and they want to debut it in 2027.
European Spaceflight
• Andrew Parsonson
By European Spaceflight: ESA has awarded Thales Alenia Space a €26.1 million contract to develop six optical telescopes for its €1 billion LISA mission.
Space.com
• Andrew Jones
Via Satellite
• Rachel Jewett
