Plus: A $2 billion contract for Boeing
Welcome to our roundup of top SpaceNews stories, delivered every Friday! This week, NASA's inspector general issued a warning about spaceport capacity, Boeing won a $2 billion Space Force contract and more.
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OUR TOP STORY
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By Jeff Foust A report by NASA’s inspector general is the latest to highlight the problems that the increasing number of launches is posing to spaceports.
NASA’s Office of Inspector General released a report June 22 on NASA launch infrastructure at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. It concluded that those spaceports are not equipped to handle the growing demand for government and commercial launches.
“NASA’s launch infrastructure is dated and lacks the capacity to meet the growing demands of the agency and government and commercial partners,” it stated. “Based on current launch projections, Kennedy and Wallops are expected to operate near capacity in the 2028 to 2029 time frame.”
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CIVIL
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Four NASA exploration projects that the agency stopped earlier this year as part of changes to its Artemis lunar exploration campaign had suffered overruns that meant their costs more than doubled. More than $1 billion in additional increases are expected.
China is set for the debut flight of its Long March 10B rocket in July and an attempt to recover the first stage at sea.
NASA’s safety advisers say that while the agency and Boeing continue to make progress in addressing problems with the CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle, it could be up to a year before it flies again.
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MILITARY
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Boeing won a contract worth as much as $2 billion to build two next-generation military communications satellites for the U.S. Space Force. The company prevailed over Lockheed Martin in a competition to extend the life of one of the Pentagon’s most heavily used satellite networks.
The U.S. Space Force is launching a new competition for mobile satellite-control antennas, formally restarting a program it canceled after abandoning a $1.7 billion contract with AeroVironment and shifting toward a more commercial procurement strategy.
The House Appropriations Committee on June 24 advanced a fiscal 2027 defense appropriations bill providing $1.07 trillion for the Pentagon, a $234 billion increase over enacted 2026 funding. For the Space Force, the bill allocates about $55.5 billion, including $35.3 billion for research and development, $9.6 billion for procurement, $8.8 billion for operations and maintenance and $1.78 billion for military personnel. |
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COMMERCIAL
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German space company OHB will raise about half a billion euros through a stock sale to allow the company to expand facilities and pursue potential acquisitions.
Jio Platforms, which owns India’s largest telco, is looking to lease broadband capacity from global satellite constellations to jumpstart its own sovereign low Earth orbit network in the country.
At least nine SpaceX partners and customers tell SpaceNews that SpaceX is not accepting Transporter reservations beyond late 2028 or early 2029, and the manifest for the next couple of years is nearly full. |
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FROM SPACENEWS |
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