Helping U.S. businesses use the unique medium of space to benefit our economy
Two days after a commercial cargo hauler exploded on its way to the International Space Station, another unrelated commercial spacecraft suffered a catastrophic failure, claiming the life of one test pilot and injuring another. Virgin Galactic’s first SpaceShipTwo vehicle, which was going through flight …
A major launch anomaly marred yesterday’s attempt to deliver the next batch of cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program. It was to be the third CRS delivery to ISS using Orbital’s Cygnus …
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker today announced that the Department’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) is awarding $1.2 million to the University of Texas at Brownsville. The EDA investment will help build a high-tech business incubation facility that will spur …
Today, NASA announced its selection of Boeing and SpaceX to transport U.S. crews to and from the International Space Station using their CST-100 and Crew Dragon spacecraft, respectively. Under contracts worth a combined total of $6.6 billion, each company will …
Commercial Crew Transportation Contracts Announced Read more »
On July 10, the U.S. Air Force Space Command’s Space and Missile Systems Center awarded an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract under the Hosted Payload Solutions (HoPS) program. The multiple-award HoPS IDIQ contract provides a rapid and flexible means for the government …
Air Force Awards IDIQ Contract for Hosted Payload Solutions Read more »
On June 5-6, the Office of Space Commercialization participated in a series of meetings in Spain to discuss U.S. space/GNSS cooperation with the European Union. The Office co-chaired a meeting of the GPS-Galileo Working Group “B” on Trade and Civil …
On May 13, 2014, the Departments of State and Commerce released a set of interim final rules that move many commercial satellites and related items from the U.S. Munitions List to the Commerce Control List. This long awaited rule change …
Revised Satellite Export Control Rules Published Read more »
On April 28, 2014, the Air Force began broadcasting civil navigation (CNAV) messages on all operational GPS satellites capable of transmitting the L2C and L5 signals. L2C and L5 are the first of several new civil capabilities being added to …
Air Force Adds Navigation Data to Modernized Civil GPS Signals Read more »
On March 25, the Office of Space Commercialization co-chaired a meeting of the GPS-Galileo Working Group on Trade and Civil Applications in Munich, Germany. It was the fifth such meeting since the group’s establishment under the U.S.-EU agreement on GPS-Galileo …
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has completed its analysis of the data collected through its “Deep Dive” survey of the U.S. space industrial base. BIS has begun publishing publicly available reports that detail findings and recommendations …
Results of U.S. Space Industry “Deep Dive” Assessment Read more »
On January 12, 2014, the astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) successfully captured the first Cygnus capsule launched as an operational, fixed-price cargo delivery service. Orbital, which developed the Cygnus spacecraft and its Antares launcher, is one of two …
On December 6, 2013, the Air Force decommissioned its Commercially Hosted Infrared Payload (CHIRP) mission after 27 months of successful operation. CHIRP launched in 2011 as a hosted payload on a commercial communications satellite and completed its initial demonstration period …