By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: the space SPAC resurgence continues, itemizing the Space Force's commercial data purchases, NASA's next space telescope nears launch and more.
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Top Stories
Another space company is going public through a SPAC deal. Singapore-based Astrum Space announced plans Thursday to merge with a publicly listed blank-check company in a deal valuing the satellite direct-to-device (D2D) venture at about $1 billion. The transaction would combine Astrum with Black Spade Acquisition III Co., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) sponsored by Black Spade Capital, the private investment arm of casino magnate Lawrence Ho. The SPAC has $172.5 million in trust. Chinese property investor and Astrum founder Zhou Qingzhi has separately committed up to $168 million to support the company, according to regulatory filings, including development and launch of Neastar-1, the small geostationary satellite ordered last year from Swissto12. Neastar-1 would use L-band spectrum to provide low-bandwidth multimedia and mass notification services across Asia, in addition to basic connectivity for remote networks, with a launch planned by early 2029. [SpaceNews]
A European court has annulled a decision by the European Defence Agency (EDA) to award a contract for satellite communications to Telespazio, while leaving the contract itself intact . The European Union's General Court ordered EDA, the European organization that coordinates defense across member nations, to pay 4.32 million euros in damages to Airbus Defence and Space and Marlink Events, the consortium partners behind a rejected bid that brought the case against the agency. That amount is the estimated profit on the contract. The ruling was based on the court's assessment that the consortium would have had a 95% chance of winning the 2023 contract over Telespazio had the procurement been handled correctly, as Telespazio's original bid didn't meet specific requirements. However, the contract remains in force and EDA can continue placing orders with Telespazio under it. An EDA spokesperson said the agency is evaluating how to respond to the judgment. [SpaceNews]
The Pentagon is testing technologies outside established military programs in Golden Dome live-fire exercises. Army Lt. Gen. Brian Gibson, the deputy head of Golden Dome, said at a conference this week that two live-fire tests conducted at different locations in the United States over the past eight months included technologies supplied by industry that were not part of existing Pentagon programs of record. That illustrates how the program is trying to combine established missile defenses with technologies that have not gone through the military's traditional acquisition process. Gibson said the exercises were designed to validate software and new links between sensors that detect and track threats and the weapons assigned to engage them. [SpaceNews]
The U.S. Space Force spent nearly $124 million through its commercial data marketplace in less than three years. A GAO study released Thursday said the purchases through the Global Data Marketplace from January 2023 to September 2025 supported missions ranging from tracking satellites in orbit to detecting GPS interference and supplying commercial imagery and analysis to combatant commands. More than half of the purchases were by the Joint Commercial Operations Cell, which uses unclassified commercial data and analysis to augment military sensors and provide information that can be more easily shared with allies and other partners. The report found that the Pentagon has yet to fully organize how it buys, shares and reuses commercial data, with some concerns within the Space Force about data rights and long-term access. [SpaceNews]
The Office of Space Commerce's space traffic coordination system is adding users while remaining in a pilot phase. In a presentation at the Small Satellite Conference this week, the acting manager of the Traffic Coordination System for Space, or TraCSS, said the service now has more than 70 satellite operators as users, along with 10 national governments. TraCSS is in a pilot phase, although it is providing data that some users are using in satellite operations. There is no firm schedule for moving TraCSS into full operations, in part because of budget uncertainty. [SpaceNews]
Northstar Earth and Space will install space tracking sensors on Kepler Communications data-relay satellites. The two Canadian companies announced an agreement Thursday where Northstar will add 11 optical space domain awareness sensors on future Kepler spacecraft. NorthStar plans to announce a manufacturer later for the payload sensors that are slated to deploy across two separate launches in 2028 for Kepler's next-generation relay spacecraft. The sensors will replace four Northstar spacecraft launched in 2024 that later failed in orbit. [SpaceNews]
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Other News
An Ariane 6 launched a European weather satellite Thursday. An Ariane 62 lifted off from Kourou, French Guiana, at 4:11 p.m. Eastern, deploying the MTG-I2 satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit 36 minutes later. MTG-I2 is the third satellite in the Meteosat Third Generation program developed by ESA and Eumetsat, and will provide images of Europe and North Africa every 2.5 minutes to aid weather forecasting. The launch was the fourth launch of an Ariane 6 so far this year. At a prelaunch briefing last week an Arianespace executive said the company still expected to perform seven to eight launches this year. [SpaceNews]
ESA awarded contracts Thursday to three European launch startups. The contracts, with a combined value of 543.6 million euros ($632.9 million), went to Isar Aerospace, PLD Space and Rocket Factory Augsburg as part of the European Launcher Challenge. The contracts will support the companies as they introduce their new launch vehicles and work on upgrades. The contracts require the companies to perform an orbital launch by the end of 2027. A fourth award, to MaiaSpace, remains in contract negotiations. [SpaceNews]
NASA's next flagship space telescope is scheduled for launch Sunday morning. A Falcon Heavy is set to lift off from the Kennedy Space Center carrying the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The $4.3 billion mission is designed to survey the universe with a wide-field infrared camera to support studies of cosmology and exoplanets. It will take about 100 days for Roman to reach its destination, the Earth-sun L-2 Lagrange point, with science operations expected to begin shortly thereafter. [SpaceNews]
Shanghai has begun construction on a wharf intended to connect a planned commercial rocket manufacturing hub to sea-launch operations. The Linzang Road wharf in Shanghai's Minhang district will handle rocket rollout, dockside loading and river-sea transfer once complete in 2027. The development is a piece of Minhang's planned "Rocket Star City," a 9.3-square-kilometer commercial space cluster announced in January. The plan targets 80 rockets and 200 satellites in annual production by 2027, rising to 150 rockets and 500 satellites by 2030. The facility will allow companies to build rockets there and ship them either to other spaceports or for launch from offshore facilities. [SpaceNews]
Infleqtion won a $20 million contract to continue work on a quantum gravity sensor. The Colorado-based quantum technology company said Thursday that NASA awarded the contract to work on the Quantum Gravity Gradiometer Pathfinder (QGGPf), a mission led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Infleqtion will work through 2027 to build an initial sensor head and electronics engineering development unit and perform testing. Quantum sensors have the potential to improve measurement of Earth's gravitational field. QGGPf is slated to launch no earlier than 2030. [SpaceNews]
NASA astronaut Jonny Kim is leaving the agency to return to military service. Thursday was the last day in the astronaut corps for Kim, who was part of the agency's 2017 astronaut class. He spent eight months on the International Space Station in 2025. Kim, a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander who served as both a Navy SEAL and doctor, is returning to the Navy to complete his military career in naval aviation training. [NASA]
It turns out there is another Starbase in Louisiana. On Tuesday, SpaceX and the state government announced plans to develop a massive spaceport for SpaceX's Starship launch vehicle that the company called "Starbase Louisiana." The announcement prompted a statement from the U.S. Air Force, noting it has a program called "STARBASE Louisiana" that is a STEM learning initiative. The Air Force said it was "aware of recent inquiries regarding a potential affiliation" between its program and the spaceport. "The operations and planning for Starbase Louisiana by SpaceX are not affiliated with STARBASE Louisiana," it added. [KATC-TV Lafayette, La.]
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Mars Rock
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"I'm content now that there's no real conflict between studying whether there's life in the universe and playing guitar in a jazz band. They're really the same impulse, just pointed in two directions."
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– Scott Hubbard, a former NASA official best known as the "Mars Czar" leading the agency's Mars exploration program. He is also a guitarist whose band, The Space Rangers, recently released an album called "Launch Fever". [CultureSonar]
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