Under the CST-100 Starliner fixed-price contract, Boeing is responsible for development and remediation cost overruns.

Orbital Reef and Starlab are commercial space station concepts being developed for the post-ISS market.

During the June 2024 Crew Flight Test, the CST-100 Starliner experienced multiple thruster degradation issues and helium leaks in its service module.

The International Space Station is scheduled for retirement and deorbit by 2030.

NASA and Boeing engineers are investigating how the CST-100 Starliner’s thruster seals degraded under thermal stress.

NASA returned the CST-100 Starliner to Earth without a crew after the June 2024 Crew Flight Test.

NASA’s commercial crew strategy depends on dissimilar redundancy through two independent commercial spacecraft capable of launching American astronauts.

The CST-100 Starliner operates under a fixed-price contract with NASA.

Boeing has absorbed over $1.5 billion in cumulative out-of-pocket losses on the CST-100 Starliner program.

NASA and Boeing have not committed to a firm launch date for the CST-100 Starliner’s next flight.

The CST-100 Starliner’s June 2024 Crew Flight Test docked with the International Space Station.

OHB plans to raise up to €510.7 million.

OHB will use the capital increase to support new industrial investments, fund acquisitions, and back Rocket Factory Augsburg.

European Spaceflight reported that the first tranche of OHB’s capital increase was almost fully placed.

Rocket Factory Augsburg is developing launch vehicles for the small-satellite market.

Rocket Factory Augsburg is a subsidiary of OHB.

JPL’s Dynamics and Real-Time Simulation Laboratory created a high-fidelity virtual environment that replicated ERNEST’s real-world behavior.

JPL ran thousands of hours of ERNEST simulations in a single weekend on a high-performance computing cluster.

The ERNEST team tested 11 different active suspension configurations using lunar regolith simulant at varying slope angles before selecting a final design.

Work on ERNEST began in 2022 with JPL internal research and development funding.

Hardware for the current ERNEST version was completed in September 2024.

Caltech in Pasadena, California manages JPL for NASA.

ERNEST can switch between active and passive suspension modes to balance terrain capability and energy efficiency.

ERNEST successfully navigated an obstacle course of sand ripples, rubble piles, steps, and steep slopes in JPL’s Mars Yard entirely on its own after months of virtual training.

The ERNEST team built two earlier prototypes about 2 feet (0.6 meters) long before selecting the current design.

ERNEST uses an active suspension system instead of the rocker-bogie suspension used on every NASA Mars rover since Sojourner.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed the ERNEST rover prototype, which stands for Exploration Rover for Navigating Extreme Sloped Terrain.

ERNEST’s two powered front joints articulate a gimbal that enables gaits including squirming, wheel-walking, and obstacle-climbing.

ERNEST is currently supported by NASA’s Mars Exploration Program and the Exploration Science Strategy and Integration Office within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

JPL engineers used reinforcement learning to develop ERNEST’s autonomous capabilities.

ERNEST is a compact four-wheeled rover prototype designed for robotic autonomy and terrain mobility for future Moon and Mars missions.

Aerospace-grade fasteners include titanium bolts, A286 iron-based superalloy screws, Inconel studs, and locking inserts used in launch vehicles and satellite buses.

A constellation program producing 30 satellite buses per month may require several thousand flight-certified fasteners per vehicle across dozens of NAS and MS part numbers.

The Government Accountability Office has corroborated concentration risks in Department of Defense acquisition program supply chains.

Flight-certified fasteners must meet National Aerospace Standards, Military Standard, or prime contractor specifications and often require lot traceability and heat-treat or surface-treatment certifications.

The 2024 AIA and PwC study identified nine categories of specialized components where production capacity represents a serious program risk.

In 2003, a fire at a Western Precision Forgings facility in Chatsworth, California disrupted titanium fastener and fitting supply across multiple aerospace programs.

The Defense Contract Management Agency has documented single-source and sole-source conditions across multiple flight-critical component categories in supplier risk assessments.

Proposals for orbital data center constellations total over one million satellites.

Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg are already straining under congestion, infrastructure coordination failures, and regulatory friction.

The Commercial Space Federation commissioned Rational Futures’ report "SCRUBBED: America’s Launch Capacity Challenge."

Rational Futures was co-founded by Dr. Akhil Rao and Dr. Tom Colvin.

Dr. Tom Colvin previously served as a Senior Policy Advisor at NASA.

Dr. Tom Colvin has a Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford.

Dr. Tom Colvin is Managing Partner and Chief Technologist at Rational Futures.

LA-08 is the final planned flight of an Atlas V rocket with a 5-meter payload fairing.

United Launch Alliance rolled the fairing for the 29 Amazon Leo satellites to SLC-41 for stacking atop Atlas V.

United Launch Alliance stacked the payload fairing with 29 Amazon Leo satellites for LA-08 on an Atlas V rocket.

The remaining Starliner flights do not use an Atlas V payload fairing.

LeoLabs tracked the release of the satellite from China’s Reusable Experimental Spacecraft.