Space vehicles

Private companies like SpaceX treat rocket systems as platforms rather than bespoke one-off projects.

Rapidly falling launch costs and fleets of new satellites are opening up big opportunities for business.

Private space travel is just the beginning.

It learned to embrace open innovation, agility, and collaboration.

Saving money can be a creative act.

Failures happen. But if you pay attention to near misses, you can predict and prevent crises.

Twenty-five years ago today, the National Aeronautic and Space Administration made a tragic and very public error in judgment. Despite concerns that cold weather could reduce the effectiveness of the o-ring pressure seals at the joints of the space shuttle’s solid rocket motors, NASA managers approved the launch of the Challenger on January 28, when […]

The practice of posting rewards for invention goes back centuries, but the California-based X Prize Foundation upped the ante in 1996, when it offered the biggest such reward in history—$10 million—for the first successful private space flight. Today the foundation is developing prizes of up to $30 million for solutions to outsized challenges in space […]

Firms often ignore small signs that may—or may not—portend danger to their markets or reputations. Here is a systematic way to analyze and respond to weak signals.