One of the largest single items is $255 million to launch two GPS 3 satellites SpaceNews.com

While the National Space Council has laid out a clear path to a prosperous American future in space and NASA leadership have embraced ambitious goals with quick and efficient plans, the NASA Authorization Act of 2020 would return American spaceflight beyond low Earth orbit to governmental control. SpaceNews.com

Engineers plan to use the robotic arm on its InSight Mars lander to push a heat flow probe into the surface, acknowledging that they have “few alternatives” if that effort fails. SpaceNews.com

Satellite builders booked more commercial orders in 2019 than the prior two years combined, but the industry remains in flux. SpaceNews.com

SpaceX has revived plans to develop a launch vehicle manufacturing facility at the Port of Los Angeles, a little more than a year after it abandoned its original agreement there. SpaceNews.com

Airbus Defence and Space will shed about 7% of its workforce because of  weak sales, Airbus Group said Feb. 19.   SpaceNews.com

Intelsat on Feb. 19 urged the FCC to give the company at least $1 billion more of $9.7 billion in proposed compensation for clearing C-band spectrum for 5G networks and to treat the C-Band Alliance Intelsat formed with rivals SES and Telesat as essentially dead.  SpaceNews.com

Building a military space culture may not require mass transfers of Army, Navy units to the Space Force SpaceNews.com

Vice President Mike Pence said in a Feb. 19 speech that the administration’s budget proposal for NASA to support a human return to the moon by 2024 has bipartisan support, a claim echoed by NASA despite criticism about some proposed cuts in the bill. SpaceNews.com

The “United States Space Force Vision for Satellite Communications” was approved by Gen. John Raymond on Jan. 23. SpaceNews.com

Spaceflight Industries’ decision to sell its rideshare launch services company, Spaceflight, to two Japanese firms will benefit both Spaceflight and its parent company, executives of the two companies say. SpaceNews.com

China launched a Long March 2D rocket from its inland Xichang launch center Wednesday, marking a return to activity following the Chinese New Year. SpaceNews.com

The Colorado Springs Chamber & EDC kicked off a $350,000 national public relations campaign. SpaceNews.com

Lockheed Martin says it lost $410 million on the first three commercial satellites built on its new LM2100 platform, including the JCSAT-17 satellite Arianespace launched Feb. 18 on an Ariane 5 rocket. SpaceNews.com

The head of NOAA’s space weather office used a recent hearing to caution that a failure of an aging spacecraft in the next few years could leave the agency “hurting a little bit” in its ability to monitor solar activity. SpaceNews.com

With just a week before the first scheduled launch in DARPA’s responsive launch competition, the agency is tweaking the rules to allow the sole remaining company to perform both launches from the same spaceport. SpaceNews.com

Arianespace completed its third launch of the year Feb. 18, sending a Japanese communications satellite and a South Korean weather satellite into geostationary transfer orbits.  SpaceNews.com

Radio-frequency-mapping startup Kleos Space on Feb. 18 said it received a $3.4 million loan from Dubai-based Winance to keep the company “well funded” while it awaits the launch of its first satellites.  SpaceNews.com

Space Adventures announced Feb. 18 that it has an agreement with SpaceX to fly a dedicated Crew Dragon mission that would send four space tourists on a mission to a relatively high Earth orbit. SpaceNews.com

In a recent SpaceNews Op-ed, Louis Friedman, co-founder and executive director emeritus of The Planetary Society, argues that the U.S. should pursue “a policy more directed to Mars and away from commercial participation. With all due respect to Friedman, I totally disagree. Focusing NASA programs on distant (in space, time, and money) goals can only ensure that U.S. space policy remains empty talk with no action. SpaceNews.com