Lockheed Martin – Spaceflight Now

Alpha rocket anomaly prevents deployment of Lockheed Martin tech demo satellite

April 26, 2025 Will Robinson-Smith

The rocket, designated FLTA006 by Firefly Aerospace, carried a technology demonstration for Lockheed Martin’s LM400 Technology Demonstration (Tech Demo) satellite bus. The mission, dubbed ‘Message in a Booster,’ lifted off at the beginning of the Tuesday launch window at 6:37 a.m. PDT (9:37 a.m. EDT, 1337 UTC).

NASA leaders, Artemis contractors argue importance of architecture continuity for returning to the Moon

February 7, 2025 Will Robinson-Smith

Representatives from NASA, Boeing and Lockheed Martin argued that the United States shouldn’t skip past the Moon in favor of Mars when it comes to crewed deep space exploration. The discussion came up during a panel at the SpaceCom conference concerning the forthcoming Artemis 2 mission.

Firefly Aerospace announces contract with L3Harris for up to 20 launches on Alpha rocket

August 7, 2024 Will Robinson-Smith

The deal comes roughly two months after Firefly inked a deal with Lockheed Martin for up to 25 launches in a similar timeframe. The first Alpha launches under this new contract would launch no earlier than 2027.

NASA awards Blue Origin $3.4 billion Artemis moon lander contract

May 19, 2023 William Harwood

Blue Origin, the rocket company owned by Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos, has won a $3.4 billion NASA contract to build an Artemis lunar lander that will provide a downstream alternative to the Starship variant already being developed by SpaceX, the agency announced Friday.

NASA blames recent Hubble woes on aging hardware

March 31, 2021 Stephen Clark

Hardware problems that cropped up earlier this month on the Hubble Space Telescope, now approaching the 31st anniversary of its launch, are the latest signs the observatory is showing its age.

U.S. Space Force’s next missile warning satellite arrives at Florida launch base

March 26, 2021 Stephen Clark

A billion-dollar missile warning satellite built by Lockheed Martin for the U.S. Space Force arrived at Cape Canaveral earlier this month to kick off final preparations for launch May 17 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter camera spots Perseverance rover after landing

March 5, 2021 Stephen Clark

A high-resolution camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted the Perseverance rover after landing on the Red Planet last month, showing the nuclear-powered robot sitting on the Martian surface with its supersonic parachute and other landing system components scattered nearby.

SpaceX planning launch of two Falcon Heavy missions in summer and fall

February 15, 2021 Stephen Clark

SpaceX plans two Falcon Heavy launches this year for the U.S. Space Force in July and October, and United Launch Alliance has four national security space missions on its 2021 schedule, according to a military spokesperson.

NASA gives up on salvaging InSight Mars lander’s ‘mole’

January 19, 2021 Stephen Clark

NASA managers tried for the last time earlier this month to coax the InSight lander’s long-stuck subsurface heat probe into the Martian soil, but after seeing no more progress, ground teams decided to end their efforts and focus on the mission’s other science objectives.

NASA mission extension enables first flybys of Jupiter’s moons in 20 years

January 11, 2021 Stephen Clark

In a pair of mission extensions, NASA has cleared the way for more seismic observations on Mars with the robotic InSight lander and approved plans for the Juno spacecraft to alter its orbit and perform close flybys of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, Ganymede, and the volcanic moon Io.