Altius Space Machines Altius Space Machines Altius Space Machines is a seed-stage startup company that is developing a novel rendezvous and capture technology for uncooperative satellites. The company's products both enable, and are enabled by, the more recent lower-cost access to space epitomized by NewSpace launch companies such as SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace. In July 2011, Altius Space Machines won first place in the "2011 NewSpace Business Plan Competition" in Silicon Valley, sponsored by the Space Frontier Foundation. Altius won a contract with DARPA in July 2012 to build a composite extensible robotic boom arm for the DARPA Phoenix project. They
Virgin Samoa Virgin Australia decided to relinquish its New Zealand Air Operators Certificate with all New Zealand registered aircraft, including the Virgin Samoa branded aircraft, transferred to the Australian register. In May 2017, the Prime Minister of Samoa, Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi, wrote to Virgin Australia advising of the government’s intention to withdraw from the joint venture. This followed two years of the government's unhappiness that Samoan customers and government were not obtaining enough of the benefits from the joint venture. Virgin Australia later confirmed that services would cease on 12 November 2017. The government proposes Polynesian Airlines resume operating long distance