Search results for: spacex
Although the world is awfully excited about Elon Musk’s announcement this week that he’ll be selling tickets to Mars, there are other pressing issues facing SpaceX, such as the cause of the Sept. 1 explosion that destroyed a Falcon 9 rocket and much of its launch pad. The day that SpaceX’s Falcon 9 exploded on the…
By Colin ClarkNew Army mounted system won’t play favorites when it comes to C5ISR, EW and A-PNT
The CMOSS Mounted Form Factor will facilitate tech insertion for new capabilities while co-existing with the Mounted Family of Computer Systems.
UPDATED: SMC Clarifies That Certification Is Not Indefinite. PENTAGON: Word from the Air Force is that SpaceX “remains certified” to launch the nation’s most expensive and heaviest intelligence and Air Force satellites. It took a few days, which is not surprising how politically and legally sensitive everything involving Elon Musk and SpaceX national security launch certification…
By Colin Clark
WASHINGTON: While few doubted it would happen, the news that Elon Musk’s scrappy, pushy and — yes — disruptive launch company SpaceX won certification from Space and Missile Systems Center carries enormous import for the international launch industry, for the Pentagon, the Air Force and the Intelligence Community. It’s not that Musk’s SpaceX is going…
By Colin Clark
WASHINGTON: SpaceX appears to have succeeded in cracking open the EELV program a bit in return for dropping its suit in the Court of Federal Claims against the Air Force. The agreement was announced by the Air Force and SpaceX after the stock market closed this afternoon. “The Air Force and SpaceX have reached agreement on a path forward…
By Colin Clark NATIONAL HARBOR: When will the Air Force certify SpaceX as ready to launch military satellites — if they certify the upstart startup at all? The new chief of Air Force Space Command said this morning that “hopefully” he could certify SpaceX by December 1st. Just hours later, though, the Secretary of the Air Force, Deborah…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. [UPDATED with SpaceX comment] WASHINGTON: For the first time in a decade, the Air Force has opened its primary space launch program to competition. That’s something startup rocket company SpaceX and Congress have pushed for vigorously. It’s also a long-anticipated blow for the United Space Alliance — formed by Boeing and Lockheed Martin – which has…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.CAPITOL HILL: This morning’s Senate subcommittee mark-up of the annual defense spending bill meant good news and extra money for a host of interests, from upstart rocket-maker SpaceX to the giant Boeing company. On the bitterly contentious issue of the Army National Guard’s endangered Apache helicopter fleet, however, the Senate defense appropriations subcommittee put down a…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
A new approach to speed, scale and efficiency for the industrial base
Radars, EW, EO/IR, space imagery, and microelectronics are brought under one roof for a streamlined approach to common people and factories.
COLORADO SPRINGS: SpaceX does not look likely to get what it most wants from Capitol Hill in its battle against the United Launch Alliance and the Air Force: more launches sooner. Support for competition between the two companies remains vibrant, with Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Jim Clapper, director…
By Colin Clark and Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
COLORADO SPRING: Message to Elon Musk of SpaceX: the head of Air Force Space Command is not really happy with you, and he personally supports development of a new rocket engine that would mean the United States did not have to depend on the Russians’ RD-180 rocket engine. I asked Gen. Willie Shelton, who will…
By Colin Clark
COLORADO SPRINGS: After more than a month during which upstart rocket company SpaceX defined the debate about how much America should pay to launch big satellites into space, the Boeing-Lockheed United Launch Alliance crawled out from under its own rock and let fly. Feisty CEO Michael Gass sat opposite a phalanx of defense and space…
By Colin Clark
WASHINGTON: It is shaping up as one of the great corporate brawls in the aerospace world: snappy and feisty and hungry newcomer, SpaceX, versus the titan of heavy launch, the near-perfect expression of big corporatism, the Boeing-Lockheed Martin United Launch Alliance. The focus of their competition is obscure to most Americans: the purchase by the…
By Colin Clark
WASHINGTON: Ever since the Air Force restructured its launch contracts for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program with the United Launch Alliance and SpaceX, the underdog, Elon Musk, has cried foul and is pressing his case on Capitol Hill and in the media. The stakes got higher this morning during a sparsely attended hearing of…
By Colin Clark
“Right now, you and I can go to a Cabela’s, we can buy a radio, we can go to a trade show, put it out on a table, and we can say it’s a form of resilient communication, because there’s no standard,” Samir Mehta said. “It’s time that we have a standard.”
By Aaron Mehta
Space industry analyst Todd Harrison said the $3.1 billion purchase is latest in a “shakeup” in the satellite communications landscape following the proliferation of LEO birds.
By Theresa Hitchens
