TechCrunch Space: quickly responsive space stations!?

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While there are few details about the mission profile, I can’t help but feel ultra- intrigued by this news from space station developer Gravitics, which has been selected to develop orbital platforms to enable rapid response space missions.

Gravitics co-founder and chief marketing officer Mike DeRosa clarified in an email that the company does not install a module on a rocket for a tactically responsive launch. Instead, the mission aims to develop “platforms enabling a new type of tactically responsive space mission,” he said.

Image credits: Gravity

Defense and space startup True Anomaly has laid off about 25% of its staff and canceled its summer internship program, TechCrunch has learned.

Although TechCrunch could not confirm the total headcount before these layoffs, True Anomaly had more than 100 employees as of December 2023, it told the Denver Business Journal. Nearly 30 people were cut from the workforce, according to a post on LinkedIn by one of those fired.

I learned a lot from this in-depth study by SpaceNews’ Sandra Erwin and Debra Werner, who explored how the Space Force’s push for a proliferated satellite constellation reveals weaknesses in America’s industrial base.

Image credits: TechCrunch

On May 1, 1961, the great Alan Shepard became the first American to enter space by piloting his capsule on a 15-minute suborbital flight. (If his name sounds familiar, that’s because Blue Origin’s suborbital rocket is named after him!)

Image credits: NASA (Opens in a new window)