Posts by Lesley Conn

Editor’s Note: This article is part of The Space Report 2021 Q4. To read additional articles about space station development, 2021 launch and payload analysis, space tourism, and other space industry analysis, purchase quarterly editions here. To learn more about subscribing to our digital site, with 15 years of content and data resources, subscribe here.…

By Tom Roeder troeder@SpaceFoundation.org Vice President Kamala Harris opened the first meeting of the reconstructed National Space Council on Wednesday with calls to make climate data from satellites more available, grow the aerospace workforce by bolstering educational opportunities, and increase international cooperation with new treaties to govern conduct in orbit. Earlier Wednesday, President Joe Biden…

The NASA asteroid researching mission “Lucy” —selected by NASA in December 2016 — launched Oct. 16, 2021 at 5:34am ET from Cape Canaveral, Florida.  The space probe is currently on a 12-year long mission and will be performing multiple gravity assisted boosts (see image) in the following years to gain enough momentum to follow its…

By Zoe Hobbs zhobbs@SpaceFoundation.org Blue Origin continued its streak of successful New Shepard landings as the NS-18 crew capsule safely touched down at 14:59 UTC on Oct. 12, 2021. The mission lasted 10 minutes and 17 seconds, reaching an apogee of 347,539 feet (nearly 66 miles) above ground level[1], which crossed the Kármán line, considered…

By Dennis Thompkins For the first time in space history, an all-civilian crew is traveling in Earth’s orbit without command and control from a government space agency. The SpaceX Inspiration4 launch on Sept. 16 marked the first orbital flight with no professional astronauts on board. It also set as precedent the first time an onboard…

“The Space Report 2021 36th Annual Space Symposium Special Edition” found that the global space economy, which reached $447B in 2020, was 176% greater than in Space Foundation’s first economic analysis in 2005. Nearly 80% of this total in 2020 was commercial revenues. Other findings from the special edition: Infrastructure and Support Industries grew the most, by…

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The first half of 2021 marked the highest January-June launch tempo in five years, with 61 launches attempted. That puts the year on track to become the most prolific launch year since the 1980s. Of the 2021 launches, only two failed, putting this year on track for the lowest failure rate since 2018. The first…

Introduction | Half the world is gearing up for warm, sunny weather as the Northern Hemisphere heads into summer. The comfort and eye protection provided by sunglasses make them a staple for many. However, most people might not realize that the technology that supplies us with durable, protective lenses — now used by several eyeglass…

The global space economy reached a new high of nearly $447 billion in 2020, an increase of 4.4% from a revised 2019 figure of $428 billion. Commercial space revenue continued to total nearly 80% of this year’s space spending.  Commercial revenue is divided into two sectors: Products and Services and Infrastructure and Support Industries. For…