Information Technology

Orbital Sciences' Antares space launch vehicle is now eligible to carry NASA payloads under the current NASA launch services (NLS II) contract.

Virgin Galactic has announced reinvigorated plans to launch small satellites into orbit using its WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft, a unique Scaled Composites-built aircraft designed to ferry SpaceShipTwo to suitable altitude before launch into suborbital space.

SpaceX has conducted the first full duration test fire of a more efficient and more powerful engine to power future Falcon-9 and Falcon-9 Heavy flights.

The wireless and fibre-optic links that make up the internet use electromagnetic waves to carry data as a series of pulses at a specific frequency. It is possible to increase the amount of data transmitted at a given frequency by twisting light beams in different ways. Each beam has a different angular momentum and acts as an independent channel in a larger, composite, beam.

The European Space Agency's ATV (Automated Transfer Vehicle) robotic resupply ship may live on beyond its last planned mission to the International Space Station in 2014 - by funnelling technology into a service module for the Orion manned capsule being developed for NASA astronauts or even a free-flying habitat.

Boeing and NASA have completed the system requirements review (SRR) and system definition review (SDR) for the cryogenic stages of Space Launch System (SLS), the super-heavy launch vehicle designed to launch crewed flights into deep space.

From the International Space Station to orbital science and deep-space exploration, European, Russian and US space programmes represent the bulk of regular launch and operations activity. But new and rising space players are starting to shape their own agendas, with ambitious plans for scientific and commercial missions, supported by indigenous launcher and spacecraft development. Our sister site Flight GLobal's Zach Rosenberg surveys the main nations to watch in the coming decade.

The US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which builds and operates US spy satellites, has donated two spare, unused telescopes to NASA. With a 2.4m (7.9ft) aperture, they are almost identical to the celebrated Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990, but are smaller and provide a wider field of view, earning them the nickname "stubby Hubbles".

Orbital Sciences' Pegasus launch vehicle has received final approval to launch NASA's nuclear spectroscopic telescope array (NuSTAR), scheduled for 13 June.

A SeaLaunch Zenit launch vehicle experienced an 'unusual' event during the 31 May launch of Intelsat 19. Despite reaching its assigned transfer orbit, the Space Systems Loral LS-1300-based satellite fully deployed only one of its two solar arrays.