NASA announced July 9 two new directives regarding planetary protection for missions to the moon and Mars that implement recommendations of an independent review board last year. SpaceNews

DARPA's Pit Boss experiment, dubbed Sagittarius A*, is projected to launch in early 2021. SpaceNews

Program delays have forced Eumetsat to reserve a pair of Ariane 6 rockets for two European weather satellites originally anticipated to launch on Ariane 5 rockets.  SpaceNews

DoD said this agreement is to "ensure the continued viability of space surveillance capability" in the U.S. industrial base. SpaceNews

Cost overruns on three instruments for NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft led NASA to consider dropping them from the mission and ultimately requiring significant changes to some of them. SpaceNews

Of the world’s 50 satellite laser ranging stations, five fixed stations are in Shanghai, Changchun, Beijing, Wuhan and Kuming SpaceNews

Launch of a new Chinese Kuaizhou-11 commercial solid rocket ended in failure Friday resulting in the loss of two satellites. SpaceNews

Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket won’t launch until the second half of 2021, a delay of at least six months if not more, the European Space Agency confirmed July 9. SpaceNews

Congress stood up the “Program on China and Transformational Exports" which Ex-Im is now working to implement SpaceNews

The first satellite for a Chinese company planning a global system of geostationary satellites, launched July 9 on a Long March 3B rocket.  SpaceNews

As the head of NASA emphasized what he saw as bipartisan support for the agency in Congress, several Republican members of the House criticized colleagues for a fiscal year 2021 spending bill they believe inadequately funds the agency. SpaceNews

Collins Aerospace, Raytheon and Technology Advancement Group were awarded contracts to develop military GPS handheld devices. SpaceNews

The Air Force will use Descartes Labs' platform to draw intelligence from imagery collected by satellites and by autonomous aerial vehicles. SpaceNews

NASA announced July 7 that it has completed two major reviews that stemmed from Boeing’s flawed commercial crew test flight last December as the agency and company prepare for a second test flight later this year. SpaceNews

Maj. Gen. Chance Saltzman wil serve as acting staff director of the Office of the Chief of Space Operations. SpaceNews

A House appropriations bill released July 7 rejected the administration’s proposed major budget increase for NASA, instead offering the agency a flat budget for 2021 that takes particular aim at the agency’s efforts to develop lunar landers. SpaceNews

On June 10, NASA IV&V participated in the Mars 2020 Safety and Mission Success Review (SMSR) where final mission assurance conclusions were provided, culminating in an affirmative “Go” from NASA IV&V, providing concurrence for the project to move forward to the Flight Readiness Review (FRR) in July. This milestone is the culmination of years of hard work by JPL and NASA IV&V to confirm Mars 2020 mission readiness for launch currently set for July 30. SpaceNews

A potential return to operations of satellite megaconstellation company OneWeb is a new source of worry for astronomers who previously had been focused on the effect SpaceX’s Starlink satellites will have on their observations. SpaceNews

NOAA forecasters predicting an active 2020 hurricane season are refining storm track and intensity forecasts thanks to data from multiple satellites, including the second Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC-2). SpaceNews

Thales Alenia Space of France and Italy won the largest share of prime contracts the European Space Agency awarded July 1 for further development of six new Copernicus satellite missions. SpaceNews