Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said U.S. Space Command should not be confused with Space Force. SpaceNews.com

Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) has won NASA approval to begin full-scale production of its Dream Chaser cargo spacecraft scheduled to make its first flight in about two years. SpaceNews.com

45th Space Wing Commander: “We are now working with General Thompson’s folks and SpaceX to see whether we can launch tomorrow." SpaceNews.com

Legislation reforming the national security space enterprise received broad bipartisan support in the House last year, so it will be interesting to see how Democrats treat the issue. Is their support for these reforms predicated on whether or not they’re endorsed by President Trump? SpaceNews.com

Earth observation company Planet plans to acquire Boundless Spatial Inc., a geospatial software specialist “to accelerate the adoption by government and enterprise customers of commercial geospatial information services,” said Robbie Schingler, Planet co-founder and chief strategy officer. SpaceNews.com

A privately funded Israeli lunar lander originally built for a prize competition is now complete and ready for launch in early 2019. SpaceNews.com

Lord said Virgin Orbit is "an example of the type of companies I think we need to cultivate.” SpaceNews.com

When the world watched Neil Armstrong take that one small step onto the lunar surface almost 50 years ago, no one could have dreamed how space would one day become an integral part of daily life on earth. SpaceNews.com

Blue Origin plans to conduct the next test flight of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle Dec. 18 as the company moves closer to flying people into space. SpaceNews.com

Swedish startup Ovzon, which in October bought a Falcon Heavy launch from SpaceX, has now purchased a satellite for that mission from Maxar Technologies’ Space Systems Loral division. SpaceNews.com

As the Commerce Department works on plans to take over civilian space traffic management responsibilities, the U.S. Air Force is making more data available on the positions of military satellites. SpaceNews.com

The Air Force has not determined when it might allow reused hardware instead of brand-new Falcon 9 Block 5 rockets. SpaceNews.com

A Rocket Lab Electron rocket successfully launched a group of cubesats Dec. 16 on a mission funded by NASA as the company looks ahead to more frequent launches in the next year. SpaceNews.com

The NASA Advisory Council has recommended that NASA review its existing planetary protection guidelines to balance the needs of science and exploration, an effort that could set the stage for a similar revision at the international level. SpaceNews.com

While some question whether Virgin Galactic’s latest SpaceShipTwo test flight actually went into space, a number of government officials and industry organizations have few doubts that it did. SpaceNews.com

Business Finland, a Finnish trade and economic development agency, awarded a 10 million Euro ($11.36 million) grant to radar satellite operator ICEYE. SpaceNews.com

With a first flight to the edge of space under the company’s belt, Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson believes commercial flights of SpaceShipTwo could begin some time next year. SpaceNews.com

A DARPA team will “inventory the DoD space-based command-and-control capabilities, identify critical gaps, deficiencies and inefficiencies in our existing architectures." SpaceNews.com

Greg Wyler, OneWeb’s founder, said the company will need only 600 satellites or so instead of 900 after ground tests of the first satellites demonstrated better than expected performance. SpaceNews.com

The first GPS 3, known as SV01, is the first of an entirely new design of GPS satellite that has three times better accuracy and up to eight times improved anti-jamming capabilities, according to Lockheed Martin. SpaceNews.com