Aria Alamalhodaei

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. Last week, NASA held its annual day of remembrance to commemorate all those who lost their lives in the pursuit of human space exploration – including the crews of Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia. The day is a sobering reminder of the...

Ingenuity, the small helicopter that’s been buzzing around the Red Planet for almost three years, has taken its final flight. NASA announced today that at least one of the helicopter’s carbon fiber rotor blades was damaged during its last mission, grounding it for good. To say that Ingenuity had a...

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. What a week! For the second week in a row, we have lunar lander news to report on. Plus, a final update on Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, news on the Artemis program and the first crewed launch of the year. Want to reach out...

Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander is still operating on orbit, with the company saying there is “growing optimism” that the spacecraft could survive in space longer than the current estimate. The Pittsburgh-based startup has been releasing a series of updates to social media platform X since the spacecraft’s launch in the...

Follow the space industry long enough and you’ll notice that an outsized number of catastrophic failures of satellites or launch vehicles can be traced to a physically small but ubiquitous part: valves. Valves play a critical role in the spacecraft’s architecture, regulating the flow of pressurents, like helium, and propellants....

Hello and welcome back to Max Q. By the time you read this, United Launch Alliance will have hopefully launched its Vulcan Centaur rocket for the first time, and Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander will be on its way to the moon. More on the mission below. Other than the same-old news...

Hello and welcome back to Max Q! Quick heads up: We’ll be taking a brief break for the next two weeks due to Christmas and New Years, respectively, but we’re excited to dive back in with you in 2024. In this issue: AstroForge reviews setbacks — and successes — during first...

Hello and welcome back to Max Q! In this issue: OurSky’s new funding News from DARPA, the FAA and more A developer platform for the…sky? That’s the vision of OurSky, a startup founded last year that’s aiming to make space observational data more accessible via a software platform and global telescope network. The company announced...

Hello and welcome back to Max Q! In this issue: Why space parachutes are so hard A new lawsuit alleging safety issues at Blue Origin News from Loft Orbital, Relativity Space and more SpaceX is known for its vertical integration, but one component it’s been outsourcing is parachutes — until earlier this month, when...

Hello and welcome back to Max Q! For my American readers, I hope you had a restful Thanksgiving with loved ones. In this issue: Venturi Astrolab’s first moon rover mission News from OneWeb India and more It turns out a NASA contract isn’t the only way to fund a mission on the moon. Lunar...