Space News reports, “Astrolab’s first lunar rover will carry four NASA payloads on a mission planned to launch later this year. Astrolab announced May 18 that it had reached agreements with four NASA centers to fly payloads on its FLEX Lunar Innovation Platform, or FLIP, rover scheduled to launch on Astrobotic’s Griffin-1 lander late this year.”
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Tag: payloads
Space Force Considers Boosting Wallops Launch Cadence to Meet Commercial Demand
Defense Daily reports, “While the Space Force has used NASA’s site at Wallops Island, Va., to launch niche missions, including small-satellite orbital and sounding rocket hypersonic suborbital launches, the service may need to ensure that it is able to ramp up launches there significantly, the head of U.S. Space Command said on Thursday. Wallops “has been an amazing story over the last decade,” Space Force Gen. Stephen Whiting told a Senate Armed Services Committee.”
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Rocket Lab Successfully Launches HASTE Vehicle with Payloads for MDA and DIU
Defense Daily reports, “Rocket Lab [RKLB] on Tuesday announced the successful launch of a suborbital mission using its HASTE launch vehicle with missile defense technology payloads operating for the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and Defense innovation Unit (DIU). The company said the launch took place at its Launch Complex 2 on Wallops Island, Va., on the morning of Nov. 18.”
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NASA Aims to Work with Private Sector for Lunar Landings
Aviation Week reports, “NASA soon intends to lift the curtain on a whole new strategy of turning to America’s private sector for the launch of a lunar lander with science and technology payloads in an effort to break new ground in the space domain.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)