Where no rover has gone before: how Mars helicopters enable a new era of exploration .

One of NASA’s greatest successes of the 21st century thus far came in a very unexpected form: a four-pound helicopter called Ingenuity. Ingenuity created a new Wright Brothers moment when it flew the Martian skies in 2021, pioneering an entirely new way of exploring Mars and captivating the global public’s attention. Built and delivered to the launch pad in less than 18 months for a cost of less than 3% of the rover that it accompanied to Mars, Ingenuity punched above its weight class in every respect — and made a strong case that NASA should follow up with even more helicopter missions.

The Ingenuity mission was considered a technology demonstrator, intended only to prove something could fly in the barely-there atmosphere of Mars. After accomplishing that with its first flight, it also showed that even a helicopter with no dedicated science instrumentation could conduct meaningful science. Through 72 flights, Ingenuity was Perseverance’s trusty sidekick, leading directly to collections of intriguing rock samples and helping researchers understand the winds, the movement of sand, and the shaping of the landscape on Mars.

Ingenuity has earned awards and citations in scientific journals, but its greatest legacy lies in its role as a trailblazer for future aerial vehicles. It has definitively proven that controlled flight on Mars is not just possible — it’s a game-changer. Thanks to the invaluable data gathered from Ingenuity’s flights, the next generation of Mars helicopters will be even more capable. Future vehicles will carry scientific payloads, cover greater distances, reach previously inaccessible locations and fly with unmatched precision, enabling groundbreaking science missions.

Low-cost vehicles that make heavy use of Ingenuity legacy hardware could carry more than two pounds of dedicated scientific instrumentation on daily flights of nearly a mile each. They can operate alone, collaboratively in pairs or swarms, or partnership with rovers or landers. And since they can access terrain that no rover or lander could navigate, helicopters may well give us our first close-up views into some of the most interesting and challenging places on Mars — like glacial crevasses, vertical cliff faces or skylight openings into hollow lava tubes.

The scientific potential of Ingenuity’s successors seems limitless. Last summer, researchers held two workshops dedicated to the discussion of aerial science on Mars. The “Rise of the Drones” workshop, led by Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) researcher Serina Diniega, spurred an open discussion between scientists, engineers, mission planners, and instrument developers about what new planetary science is enabled with already-existing drone technologies and applications, yielding plentiful ideas for how to carry those terrestrial technologies to Mars. A second workshop focused on a JPL concept in early development to use a more complex flying vehicle to survey the length of Valles Marineris, the grandest canyon in our solar system. With each passing scientific conference, ideas and concepts for flying vehicles on Mars keep adding up.

SpaceX launches Transporter-13 rideshare mission .

WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Falcon 9 launched more than 70 payloads in the latest in its series of dedicated rideshare missions that have reshaped the small satellite industry.

The Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 2:43 a.m. Eastern March 15 on the Transporter-13 mission. It was the second of three launches the company performed in a little more than 12 hours, after the launch of the Crew-10 mission from the Kennedy Space Center and before a launch of Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral.

SpaceX said Transporter-13 carried 74 payloads, including hosted payloads and satellites that will be deployed later from an orbital transfer vehicle by D-Orbit. SpaceX’s website listed 47 separate deployments planned over 90 minutes.

As with previous Transporter missions, this launch included a mix of new and returning customers from government and industry. Spire flew seven of its Lemur satellites on Transporter-13, while Iceye launched four more of its synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites. Iceye said one of the four was the company’s first “Gen4” satellite with an antenna double the size of the previous model and with twice the power.

Another returning customer is Varda Space Industries, which launched its third orbital processing and return capsule mission, W-3. It comes on the heels of W-2, launched on Transporter-12 in January and whose capsule landed in Australia Feb. 28. Varda said the W-3 capsule will also land in Australia after a few weeks in orbit, testing an inertial measurement unit for the U.S. Air Force.

#ESA lays foundations for the future of data transmission.

Europe’s investment in HydRON, a multi-orbit optical data relay network, signals a pivotal shift in how data is moved across Earth and beyond.

The program aims to transform satellite connectivity, bridging the gap between low Earth orbit (LEO), geostationary orbit (GEO) and terrestrial networks with blazing-fast laser links.

According to the European Space Agency, it would not only deliver a technological leap forward for optical communications, but also reshape the space economy and future-proof Europe’s role in an increasingly competitive global market.

As spacefaring nations and companies race to develop faster, more resilient connectivity, the question isn’t whether optical relays will become the new standard — it’s how quickly and at what scale.

Using lasers capable of delivering up to 100 gigabits per second (Gb/s) and potentially beyond, HydRON would enable real-time data transfer to overcome the typical delays of LEO satellites, which can take up to 90 minutes to pass over approved ground stations for communication.

The stakes are high. Operators relying on legacy systems face growing pressure to integrate with next-generation networks. Real-time connectivity will be critical for everything from Earth observation and defense to deep-space exploration and direct-to-device services.

But with cutting-edge technology comes new challenges: cybersecurity risks, regulatory hurdles and cost barriers that could slow adoption.

WASHINGTON — Italian smallsat developer Argotec has unveiled a new modular satellite bus design that it believes provides flexibility in accommodating a wide range payloads.

The company announced the Hawk Plus satellite design March 11 during the Satellite 2025 conference. The design uses modular panels that can be swapped out using a plug-and-play architecture to accommodate different mission needs.

“What we are introducing is one flexible platform which, on one hand, is standardized enough to offer a high level of industrialization, but on the other hand, is designed to accommodate flexibility and to evolve over time in order to cope with different missions,” said Emilio Fazzoletto, head of product management at Argotec, during a presentation about Hawk Plus.

The design uses a series of modular panels hosting different subsystems, such as power and communications, that can be reconfigured to meet different mission needs. That design builds on the heritage of the satellites Argotec is building for the IRIDE Italian Earth observation constellation.

One advantage of the design, he said, is that it decouples the payload from the bus. “You can install the payload at a later stage,” he said. “It also means that payload integration can happen at later stage, also at facilities other than ours. So, for example, we can let our customers integrate classified payloads at their facilities.”

Argotec opted for a modular approach rather than try to develop a family of buses of different sizes and capabilities to meet customer needs. “They want something that already exists, but it’s hard to have something that already exists with almost no NRE [non-recurring engineering] and fit their unique payload into it,” said Corbett Hoenninger, U.S. managing director of Argotec, in an interview.

The company plans to produce the Hawk Plus modules at its new SpacePark headquarters and production facility in Turin, Italy, that it opened last October, with the option to also produce them in the United States at a facility it is developing Florida. That opens up what Hoenninger called “hybrid” approaches, where the bus modules are produced in Italy and shipped to the U.S. for final assembly and payload integration.

Where are we on the journey to a lunar economy?


Former NASA Administrator and LogiQ co-president Mike Griffin framed it best: “the question about the vision for space exploration boils down to whether we want to incorporate the solar system in our economic sphere or not.” To live off the land within the solar system, not depending on Earth for the necessities of life, requires in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). Some moons of Saturn and Jupiter may be candidates but, with current propulsion technologies, remain off-limit for commercial round trips. For accessible ISRU, we draw a line in the vicinity of Mars and the Main Belt asteroids. Mars is a settlement project self-funded by governments and individuals, with opportunities for privateers. At the other end of the inner solar system, excluding Mercury, Venus may be habitable in its upper atmosphere.

But it is in between that we might have a business case in the making: Greater Earth, comprising of Earth orbits, cislunar space, the moon, and near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), is the piece of real estate that enables propellant depots, with logistical and industrial opportunities. This cislunar perimeter is meant to act as an ISRU hub toward the Solar System. Public funding of lunar political commitment stems from such common sense understanding. Private sector contracts and investors are working hard to make it happen: Intuitive Machines was among the top four best performing space stocks of 2024. But is a cis/lunar economy even a thing at all, if meant as a sustainable market economy on the moon, in its vicinity, and the cislunar space that starts beyond the currently occupied Earth orbits? In a nutshell, we aren’t there yet. What follows is a pathway for what it would take to get there.
Cis/lunar commercial development: a clear and pragmatic vision

The moon is the closest planetary body on which to practice ISRU, which would allow humanity to build value chains within the greater Earth perimeter. Moving beyond Flags and Footprints missions, establishing Antarctic-style research stations, producing propellant and setting up industrial pilots would enable a market based on manufacturing and trading industrial goods and consumables, all while developing space habitats in various locations. For the industrialization of space the investment and trade in high-value goods for Earth markets is paramount: dumping unprocessed raw materials from space back on Earth makes no economic sense. Over time, mineral resources from NEAs may be integrated in these Greater Earth value chains. Cis/lunar closed systems and power generation may be used to solve terrestrial environmental issues. This does take decades. Yet, self-sustaining lunar stations may emerge post-2050, invested by international civil and commercial stakeholders with sustained political will and sustainable resources. The biggest market opportunities are cis/lunar transportation, infrastructures, habitat and ISRU, with various power generation options (such as solar and nuclear). Next come essential supporting activities such as communications, agrifood production and consumable supplies.
From speculation to validation

Potentially extractable lunar resources include volatiles such as ice water and oxygen (to be used for propellant, life support systems and radiation shields) and platinum group metals (valuable to tech markets). Helium-3 recently made a comeback with a use case as a cooling device for quantum computers, rather than for the elusive albeit increasingly invested-in nuclear fusion. A first principle of resources extraction economic realism is to go through the motions of increasing geological (or here, selenical) confidence from resources to reserves: from inferred to indicated to measured mineral resources, it is crucial to precisely quantify mineral reserves, or the techno-economically mineable part of these carefully measured resources — the ground truth. We don’t have lunar ground truth yet, so we need to explore, map, measure and extract. That’s a lot of missing data, but that is only a first step.

Next, ISRU needs to not only work but scale up at a reasonable level of industrial production for commercial exploitation. That depends on technology readiness in-situ, not with a prototype on Earth. The subsequent requirement is affordable shipping of a marketable output to a customer in space or on Earth. With capital expenditures, cis/lunar shipping, and the cost in treasure and human health, if the commercial invoice math doesn’t add up, you’ve built yourself a white elephant.

China opens 2028 Mars sample return mission to international cooperation .

HELSINKI — China is inviting interested parties to submit proposals to join the country’s pioneering Mars sample return mission, due to launch in late 2028.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) published an announcement of opportunities March 11, officially opening the Tianwen-3 Mars mission to international cooperation.

Tianwen-3 aims to collect samples from Mars and, for the first time ever, deliver them to Earth. The primary scientific goal is the detection of potential biosignatures and answering a fundamental question: has life ever existed on Mars?

“This opportunity is open to the global community. International partners are welcome to collaborate with the TW-3 Mission at the system or payload level,” the CNSA statement reads. The call offers new insights into the mission in terms of mission scheduling and domestic payloads.

Teams can propose piggyback payloads requiring support from the Tianwen-3 spacecraft or independent scientific instruments. CNSA has made up to 15 kilograms of mass available for international collaboration projects on the mission’s Earth return orbiter (ERO) spacecraft and a further 5 kg on the Mars orbiter (MO).

Proposals must align with the mission’s overarching scientific objectives or provide complementary or extended value, with strong innovation in science and engineering.

Tracking #DOGE’s impact on space and the federal workforce .The White House and the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency have spent the first weeks of Donald Trump’s new administration looking to reduce the number of federal workers and shrink spending.

The cuts have followed roughly the same formula from agency to agency. What does that mean for space? It’s challenging to track every corner of the federal workforce that works on space, making it difficult to determine exactly how many jobs have been lost.

Below are the latest developments for each department, including what we don’t know. #SpaceNews reporters are on Signal and welcome tips.

U.S. #military spaceplane completes 7th mission, including advanced orbital maneuvers .

The secretive X-37B military spaceplane touched down at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on March 7, concluding its seventh mission after spending more than 434 days in orbit, the U.S. Space Force announced.

Designated Orbital Test Vehicle-7 (OTV-7), the autonomous spacecraft launched on December 28, 2023, marking several firsts for the program – including its first flight aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket and operations in a highly elliptical Earth orbit (HEO).

“Mission 7 broke new ground by showcasing the X-37B’s ability to flexibly accomplish its test and experimentation objectives across orbital regimes,” Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said in a statement following the landing.

The Space Force considers the mission particularly significant for its demonstration of aerobraking maneuvers — a technique that uses atmospheric drag during multiple orbital passes to change the spacecraft’s trajectory while conserving fuel. This capability provides tactical advantages that align with the Space Force’s growing focus on space domain awareness and orbital agility.

The Trump administration has suspended U.S. satellite imagery support for Ukraine, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency confirmed March 7.

The decision cuts off Ukraine’s access to the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency’s (NGA) commercial satellite imagery platform, which since 2022 provided Ukraine electro-optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery from multiple commercial remote sensing satellites.

“In accordance with the Administration’s directive on support to Ukraine, NGA has temporarily suspended access to the Global Enhanced GEOINT Delivery system, or GEGD, which is the primary portal for access to U.S. government-purchased commercial imagery,” an NGA spokesperson said in a statement.

Space Force chief observes Starship test launch, signaling military interest.


Gen. Chance Saltzman, the U.S. Space Force’s chief of space operations, visited SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica this week, and attended the sixth test flight of SpaceX’s Starship rocket on Nov. 19.

Saltzman watched the Starship launch alongside SpaceX founder Elon Musk, President-elect Donald Trump and a number of lawmakers.

A Space Force spokesperson confirmed Saltzman was invited by SpaceX to observe the test flight and participated in two days of program reviews.

“The Department of the Air Force and the U.S. Space Force are monitoring Starship’s progress and look forward to potentially leveraging its capabilities in the future,” the spokesperson said.

The flight test marked a key step in SpaceX’s ambitious plans for the fully reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle.
https://twitter.com/DanScavino/status/1858995829014753522

Starship, when fully assembled with its Super Heavy booster, stands an imposing 400 feet tall. The vehicle is designed to transport both crew and cargo to destinations ranging from Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars.

While no immediate commitments have been made to integrate Starship into military operations, Saltzman’s presence signals military interest in the technology.

The Space Force depends heavily on SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets for national security satellite launches. But Starship, with its massive payload capacity, has the potential to support military logistics and space operations.

One of the most intriguing possibilities under evaluation is using Starship as a rapid global transport system. The Space Force and the Air Force are exploring concepts where Starship could replace traditional military airlift platforms like the C-17 Globemaster III, potentially delivering personnel and cargo to any point on Earth in under an hour.

One potential scenario involves using Starship as a mass transportation platform to launch satellites into low Earth orbit, with subsequent orbital transfer vehicles taking the payloads to their final destinations.