October 21 – October 27, 2019 | Colorado Space News

Blue Canyon Technologies Selected For NASA Ames Starling Demonstration Mission

October 26, 2019 – Small spacecraft manufacturer and mission services provider Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) has been selected by NASA’s Ames Research Center to support a technology demonstration mission called Starling, under NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology Program. Under the contract agreement, BCT will design, manufacture and provide engineering support during commissioning for 4 flight-qualified 6U CubeSats. Read More

UNOOSA And Sierra Nevada Corporation Announce Call For Interest To Provide Landing Site For Dream Chaser

Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Dream Chaser Cargo variant will carry 20 to 30 powered experiments into space that are provided by organizations within UN Member States, with a particular emphasis on developing and emerging countries. Image Credit: Sierra Nevada Corporation

October 26, 2019 – The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) announced the opening of a Call For Interest (CFI) for UN Member States to provide a landing site for the Dream Chaser on its return from a mission expected to occur around 2024. Read More

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Achieves Milestone of Successfully Withstanding Launch Stresses

A view of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope five-layer sunshield deployment at Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, California. Image Credit: Northrop Grumman

October 24, 2019 – At Northrop Grumman Corporation in Redondo Beach, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope successfully validated its ability to perform key deployments for the first time since its post environmental testing of the Spacecraft Element (SCE) and integration of the SCE and Optical Telescope Element/Integrated Science Instrument Module (OTIS). Read More

MUOS Secure Communications Satellite System Ready For Full Operational Use

An artist’s rendition of MUOS. Image Source: Lockheed Martin

October 24, 2019 – A new global, military, satellite-based cellular network designed to revolutionize secure communications for mobile forces is now ready for full operational use in warfighting environments. Read More

Blue Canyon Technologies Partners With NASA To Deploy CubeSat Autonomous Navigation

October 24, 2019 – Small satellite manufacturer and mission services provider Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) today announced it has been selected for a $4.9 million contract award from NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate to develop a groundbreaking technology that allows BCT’s spacecraft buses to perform autonomous navigation on-board, without any additional hardware. Read More

New Telescope At Academy To Be Largest Available For Public Viewing In Colorado

A part of a 5,000-pound Ritchey-Chretien reflecting telescope is lowered by crane through the roof of the Observatory at the U.S. Air Force Academy, October 2019. Workers from the 10th Civil Engineer Squadron and the Austrian telescope manufacturer company completed the first stage of a project to install the telescope into the facility. Image Credit: Devin Della-Rose

October 24, 2019 – Scientists at the Air Force Academy said a $1.25 million project to install a telescope in the school’s observatory should be complete by springtime. Read More

SwRI-Led Lucy Mission Completes Critical Design Review

With the successful completion of NASA’s critical design review, the SwRI-led Lucy mission is on track to launch in 2021 to explore the enigmatic Trojan asteroids, an ancient population of objects that orbit in tandem with Jupiter. Image Credit: NASA/Soutwest Research Institute

October 24, 2019 – The Lucy mission led by Southwest Research Institute is one step closer to its 2021 launch to explore the Trojan asteroids, a population of ancient small bodies that share an orbit with Jupiter. With the successful completion of its critical design review last week, the Lucy spacecraft is on track to begin a 12-year journey of almost 4 billion miles to visit a record-breaking seven asteroids — one main belt asteroid and six Trojans. Read More