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Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander will end its mission today with an Earth reentry. The company confirmed Wednesday that the spacecraft, crippled by a propellant leak shortly after launch 10 days ago, will reenter at about 4 p.m. Eastern over the South Pacific, several hundred kilometers south of Fiji. The company said it performed maneuvers to put the spacecraft on a course for a safe reentry. The propellant leak, likely caused when a valve failed to close and overpressurized an oxidizer tank, kept the spacecraft from going into lunar orbit as planned and attempt a landing next month. Peregrine carries 20 payloads, including five for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. [SpaceNews]
A Japanese lunar lander is making final preparations for a landing on Friday. The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) maneuvered this week into a 600-kilometer orbit around the moon, from which it will descend to the surface for a landing Friday at about 10:20 a.m. Eastern. SLIM launched in September and went into an initial elliptical orbit around the moon last month. The Japanese space agency JAXA developed SLIM to demonstrate precision landing technologies. If SLIM is successful, it will make Japan the fifth country to softly land on the moon after the former Soviet Union, United States, China and India. [SpaceNews]
The Defense Department plans to reduce classification of space programs that has been an obstacle to closer cooperation with allies and the commercial space industry. John Plumb, assistant secretary of defense for space policy, said Wednesday that Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks signed a memo last year to remove "legacy classification barriers" for space programs. This does not mean classification is going away, he said, but it indicates that the Pentagon is taking a hard look at where secrecy might have gone overboard. Plumb also said his office is developing a new strategy for integrating commercial space capabilities into defense programs, one that is intended to complement the Space Force's own commercial integration plan. [SpaceNews]
A House committee said it continues to support NASA's Artemis lunar exploration program despite its latest delay. NASA announced last week that the Artemis 2 and 3 missions would be delayed by nearly a year to correct safety issues with Orion and provide more time for development of a lunar lander and spacesuits. Members of the House Science Committee said in a hearing Wednesday that they were disappointed in the delay, and sought details on cost and schedule issues with the program, but added they continued to back the program. One witness, former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, argued that Artemis is poorly designed and offered an alternative architecture for returning humans to the moon, but members did not seem interested in pursuing a revamp of Artemis. [SpaceNews]
Astroscale has revealed details about a refueling spacecraft it is developing under a Space Force contract. The Astroscale Prototype Servicer for Refueling, or APS-R, will carry and transfer hydrazine to its client spacecraft in geostationary orbit. APS-R will get its hydrazine from a fuel depot operated by another company, Orbit Fab. Astroscale won a $25.5 million contract from the U.S. Space Force in 2023 to develop a refueling vehicle as part of a public private partnership agreement. [SpaceNews]
SpaceX postponed the launch of a private astronaut mission to the International Space Station by a day Wednesday. SpaceX announced less than six hours before the scheduled launch of the Ax-3 mission for Axiom Space that it was delaying the launch a day to give engineers more time to analyze parachute straps called energy modulators in the Crew Dragon spacecraft. The energy modulators did not perform as expected on a cargo Dragon mission last month, although the overall parachute system operated safely. The launch has been rescheduled for 4:49 p.m. Eastern Thursday. [NASA]
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China launched a cargo spacecraft to its Tiangong space station Wednesday. A Long March 7 spacecraft lifted off from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center at 9:27 a.m. Eastern and placed the Tianzhou-7 spacecraft into orbit. That spacecraft docked with the Tiangong station a little more than three hours later. The Tianzhou spacecraft is designed to carry up to 7,400 kilograms of cargo, such as crew supplies and equipment, for the three-person crew on the station. [Space.com]
Rocket Lab has delayed its next Electron launch by more than a week. The company had planned to launch Electron early Thursday from its New Zealand spaceport, but announced Wednesday it was delaying the launch to no earlier than Jan. 27 for "final pre-launch checkouts" and to avoid an incoming storm. The Electron is carrying four space situational awareness satellites built by Spire for NorthStar Earth and Space. [X @RocketLab]
A report calls on the Defense Department to increase its activities in cislunar space. The report Wednesday from the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said the U.S. military should step up collaboration with NASA and support the development of infrastructure for scientific and economic activities in cislunar space, citing the threat of competition from China. That infrastructure would include communications, navigation and space domain awareness capabilities. The report recommended an additional $250 million a year for DoD cislunar space activities. [SpaceNews]
Impulse Space plans to develop a high-energy kick stage. The company on Wednesday announced Helios, a large kick stage fueled by liquid oxygen and methane designed to send payloads weighing several tons from low Earth orbit to geostationary orbit in less than a day. Impulse Space argues that using Helios on a Falcon 9 can give that rocket two-thirds the performance of the Falcon Heavy for far less money. The first flight of Helios is planned for early 2026. Helios is intended to complement Mira, the company's existing orbital transfer vehicle for smallsats and hosted payloads in low Earth orbit. [SpaceNews]
German space company OHB System has a new CEO. The company announced this week that it has appointed Chiara Pedersoli as CEO. She succeeds Marco Fuchs, who will join the company's supervisory board. OHB, which announced plans in August to go private through a deal with KKR, said it projects 1.3 to 1.4 billion euros in revenue in 2024. [OHB]
Astronomers have discovered the oldest black hole yet. Observations by the James Webb Space Telescope have detected what astronomers believe is a supermassive black hole, 1.6 million times the mass of the sun, in the heart of a galaxy called GN-z11. The galaxy dates back to just 400 million years after the Big Bang, making it the oldest black hole yet detected. Classical models of galaxy formation can't explain the presence of such a large black hole so soon after the Big Bang, leading to speculation that the supermassive black hole could have formed from the combination of several smaller black holes. [NPR]
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Issa: "The questions could go on again and again but I'd probably really would have to bring a slide rule if I was going to calculate all the overruns."
Lucas: "It would be fascinating watching you use a slide rule."
Issa: "I've got a whole bunch in my collection if you want me to bring one."
– Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), discussing the costs of NASA's Artemis program during a hearing Wednesday of the House Science Committee.
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