Space – Product Management Confabulation

July 3, 2024

Deep tech VC Sidney Scott explains why he’s closing his firm as this area booms

With increasing competition for what is, essentially, still a small number of hard tech and deep tech deals, Sidney Scott realized it would be a challenge for smaller funds like his.

July 2, 2024

SpaceX wants to launch up to 120 times a year from Florida — and competitors aren’t happy about it

SpaceX’s ambitious plans to launch its Starship mega-rocket up to 44 times per year from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center are causing a stir among some of its competitors. Late last month, Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance submitted comments calling on regulators to ensure minimal disruptions to other launch providers in the area, with Blue […]

July 2, 2024

Computing and shielding startups join forces to put AI-capable chips in space

Sophisticated spacecraft often run on shockingly outdated computing systems: consider that the Perseverance rover runs on a PowerPC 750, the processor famous for running on iMacs in the late 1990s. San Francisco-based Aethero is aiming to bring more powerful computing systems to orbit, and their first payload launches this month on SpaceX’s Transporter-11 rideshare mission. […]

July 1, 2024

TechCrunch Space: Star spangled

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. I hope everyone has a fantastic July 4 this week. Go eat a hot dog. Read my story from last week on the causes of Starliner’s additional delay and what it might mean for Boeing’s Starliner program. Want to reach out with a tip? Email Aria at aria.techcrunch@gmail.com […]

June 28, 2024

NASA and Boeing deny Starliner crew is ‘stranded’: “We’re not in any rush to come home”

NASA and Boeing officials pushed back against recent reporting that the two astronauts brought to the ISS on Starliner are stranded on board. The companies said in a press conference Friday that they are using “the luxury of time” to learn as much about the capsule as possible before it returns to Earth. The two […]

June 26, 2024

SpaceX scores $843M NASA contract to deorbit ISS in 2030

NASA has selected SpaceX to develop a spacecraft that will deorbit the International Space Station in 2030 — a contract valued at as much as $843 million, the agency announced Wednesday. The ISS is nearing the end of its operational life, and as plans for new, commercially-owned space stations heat up, the one that started […]

June 26, 2024

Dream Chaser spaceplane is off the manifest for ULA’s second Vulcan launch

Sierra Space said that despite the slip, its first Dream Chaser spaceplane is still on track for its maiden mission before the end of the year.

June 26, 2024

Dream Chaser spaceplane is off the manifest for ULA’s second Vulcan launch

Sierra Space said that despite the slip, its first Dream Chaser spaceplane is still on track for its maiden mission before the end of the year.

June 26, 2024

Starfish spacecraft will extend the life of an expensive GEO satellite in 2026 mission

Starfish Space and aerospace giant Intelsat have signed a new satellite servicing agreement that could permanently change the paradigm for satellite operations. Under the contract, Starfish will use its Otter satellite docking spacecraft to boost the orbit of an operational Intelsat satellite in geostationary orbit (GEO), using its onboard propulsion system to potentially provide several […]

June 25, 2024

Sift is building a better platform for analyzing hardware telemetry data

Less than a year after closing its seed round, software-for-hardware startup Sift announced a $17.5 million Series A led by Google’s venture capital arm GV to scale their platform for analyzing real-time data from hardware systems. The company is developing a platform that provides a single source of truth for telemetry data. Such data is […]