Charles Beames, SmallSat Alliance Chairman, in an op-ed for SpaceNews – Traditional defense prime contractors are having a tough time working within budget limitations. Commercial companies live by fixed price contracts and are only paid on delivery.

WASHINGTON — Companies developing commercial space stations want NASA to offer more opportunities to fly precursor missions to the International Space Station to help them gain experience and stimulate customer interest.

Thierry Dubois and Robert Wall, Aviation Week – Satellite operators and launch providers may rely on increasingly complex arrangements, like having a heavy launcher send relatively small spacecraft to geostationary Earth orbit or outer space.

Tameika Hollis, former CEO of Illuminate, was appointed vice president and chief information officer at The Aerospace Corp., effective Oct. 7. Aerospace said Thursday Hollis, an experienced national security executive, will have oversight of the nonprofit’s information technology, security, safety and facilities organizations.

Garrett Reim, Aviation Week – Several startups are testing electric thrusters that run on metal propellants. The companies say the materials pack a greater punch for their volume and are cheaper and easier to handle than conventional gases.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off in the early hours of Tuesday morning carrying a crew that will attempt the first commercial spacewalk and travel higher than any crewed mission in fifty years.

In a new report, Deloitte Center for Government Insights provides cybersecurity recommendations for space organizations across the government and private sector.

Aria Alamalhodaei, TechCrunch – As the global appetite for orbital launches continues to grow, the competition among new and old space companies to build bigger and better launch vehicles is firing up, including: ULA’s Vulcan, ESA’s Ariane 6, and Relativity Space’s Terran R.

The Consortium for Space Mobility and In-space Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing (ISAM) Capabilities (COSMIC) is launching an annual student challenge to design and demonstrate novel capabilities in space — COSMIC Capstone Challenge (C3).

Eric Berger, Ars Technica – SpaceX will fly the first-ever human spaceflight over the Earth’s poles. The “Fram2” mission will launch into a polar corridor from SpaceX’s facilities in Florida and fly directly over the north and south poles.