Yale University astronomy professor Dr. Debra Fischer said during the recent Exoplanets II conference that NASA is financially supporting a study that would look into the possibility of launching a space telescope using SpaceX’s upcoming BFR reusable rocket, Teslarati reported Monday. The Large Ultraviolet/Optical/Infrared Surveyor telescope, or LUVOIR, is being developed for use in the exploration and investigation of exoplanets […] More

Planet and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency have partnered in an effort to increase the process for NGA to extract and analyze commercial imagery. Manuela McCabe, NGA’s Planet CRADA program manager, said in a statement published Thursday both parties signed a cooperative research and development agreement that could yield change detection services such as object monitoring, broad area search and baseline and […] More

PlanetRisk has received a 30-month contract to support the Army Department‘s requirement for a global threat information sharing system for web and mobile platforms. The company said Monday it plans to field the Joint Analytics Real-time Virtual Information Sharing System across the Army’s enterprise by the third quarter of fiscal year 2018. Paul McQuillan, president and […] More

Lisa Pratt, recently appointed planetary protection officer at NASA, has said her near-term priorities include the Mars 2020 rover mission and InSight Mars lander mission that is set to take off May 5, SpaceNews reported Monday. Pratt, an astrobiologist and former professor at Indiana University’s department of Earth and atmospheric sciences, said she aims to […] More

PlanetRisk has secured a potential five-year, $79 million contract to help manage the Department of Homeland Security‘s cybersecurity programs. The company said it will support DHS’ National Cybersecurity Program System as well as the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation and Enhanced Cybersecurity Services programs through the contract. PlanetRisk will also provide program management services to the National Cybersecurity & Communications Integration […] More

NASA has discovered an eighth planet orbiting a Sun-like star named Kepler-90 using Google‘s machine learning tool. The space agency said Friday the machine learning platform identified the Kepler-90i planet by searching through data from the Kepler Space Telescope. Researchers Christopher Shallue and Andrew Vanderburg trained a computer, called an artificial neural network, to detect exoplanets in light readings recorded by […] More

Planet Labs’ 10 remote sensing satellites took off Tuesday aboard the Orbital ATK-built Minotaur C rocket that launched at 2:37 p.m. Pacific time from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Four Planet’s Dove satellites launched into sun-synchronous orbit approximately 350 miles above the Earth following the deployment of six SkySat spacecraft into space, Orbital ATK said Tuesday. Rich Straka, […] More

Orbital ATK is scheduled to launch Planet‘s Earth imaging satellites at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Tuesday at 2:37 p.m. Pacific time. Orbital ATK said Monday its Minotaur C rocket will carry a total of 10 SkySat and Dove remote sensing satellites, which will work to collect medium- and high-resolution multispectral Earth imagery for commercial […] More

NASA and the BoldlyGo Institute have entered into a Space Act Agreement to build and deploy a purpose-built space telescope to determine potentially habitable planets in the Alpha Centauri system. BoldlyGo said Tuesday the public-private collaboration seeks to open up opportunities for NASA personnel and staff members of the Project Blue mission to review mission designs […] More

Planet has entered a $14 million agreement with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to provide the Defense Department and the Intelligence Community with access to the company’s imagery of more than 25 regions of interest. NGA said Wednesday that the one-year subscription agreement, which was made through the company’s General Services Administration Information Technology Schedule contract, will support ongoing foundation […] More

NASA has begun to solicit proposals for a robotic planetary mission that the space agency aims to launch by the mid-2020s. The agency said Friday the future program will serve as the fourth mission under NASA’s New Frontiers portfolio that includes the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt; the Juno mission to Jupiter; and the […] More

Commercial imagery provider Planet has been awarded a $20 million introductory contract to supply small satellite imagery of Earth’s landmass to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. NGA will have access to a global imagery collection called the Planet Feed every 15 days and share the feed with the National System for Geospatial Intelligence and civil federal community, the agency said […] More