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Both NASA and Intuitive Machines have declared the IM-1 lunar lander mission a success. The company said Wednesday that it expected to conclude operations of the lander later in the day as the sun moved out of view of the lander's solar arrays. Despite a hard landing that broke at least one lander leg and caused the spacecraft to tip over to about 30 degrees off the ground, the company said it was able to operate most of the payloads on the lander. That included all five active NASA payloads, the agency said. A student-built payload, intended to eject from the lander and take images of it, did deploy Wednesday but was not able to return any images. The company said it will try again in a few weeks to make contact with the lander to see if its batteries and electronics survived the cold conditions of the two-week lunar night. [SpaceNews]
The Space Force's top acquisition issue says he is closely watching how Blue Origin and ULA scale up to meet military launch needs. Frank Calvelli, the assistant secretary of the Air Force in charge of Space Force acquisitions, said at the Defense and Intelligence Space Conference this week that he wants to see how ULA can ramp up the Vulcan launch rate, which in turn depends on Blue Origin's ability to deliver BE-4 engines for the rocket. Asked to make a prediction about the launch industry and the next National Security Space Launch contract competition, Calvelli said, "I would like to see a whole bunch of competitors, and prices go down." [SpaceNews]
NASA is monitoring an increase in an air leak in the Russian segment of the International Space Station. At a briefing Wednesday, NASA said the leak, in a portion of the Zvezda service module, recently doubled to more than 0.9 kilograms per day. It's not clear what is causing the leak, but that part of the module, which hosts a docking port, is currently sealed off from the rest of the station. NASA added the leak does not pose a safety risk even at its elevated level. That part of Zvezda has suffered small air leaks since 2019. [SpaceNews]
Elve, a startup making millimeter-wave amplifiers for space and ground applications, has raised $15 million. The Series A round will allow the company to increase its manufacturing capability and expand its space business. Investors in the company say the technology could help enable cost-effective and resilient communications both in space and on the ground. [SpaceNews]
India is planning three uncrewed test flights of its Gaganyaan spacecraft before flying a crewed mission. ISRO Chairman S Somanath said that the first uncrewed orbital test flight is scheduled for July, followed by two more in late 2024 and 2025. The first crewed flight, carrying three Indian astronauts, is planned for later in 2025. India announced its initial set of four astronauts earlier this week, with one of the four potentially flying on an Axiom Space private astronaut mission to the ISS later this year. [SpaceNews]
Virgin Galactic said a pin dropped from its carrier aircraft on its most recent suborbital flight should not delay the next, and potentially last, flight of VSS Unity. In an earnings call this week, company executives said they were making "solid progress" in understanding why an alignment pin dropped from the VMS Eve aircraft after releasing Unity on the Galactic 06 flight in January. That investigation is not expected to delay the Galactic 07 mission, scheduled for the second quarter. Virgin said in November it would halt Unity flights in mid-2024 to focus its resources on development of its new Delta-class vehicles, but did not state in the earnings call if Unity would fly again after Galactic 07. [SpaceNews]
| | Other News
Russia launched a weather satellite and several secondary payloads overnight. A Soyuz-2.1b rocket lifted off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia's Far East at 12:43 a.m. Eastern. It placed into orbit the Meteor-M No. 2-4 polar-orbiting weather satellite. The rocket also deployed 18 smallsat second payloads, including one for Iran. [TASS]
Weather at abort sites will delay the launch of a new ISS crew by nearly 48 hours. NASA announced overnight it was delaying the Crew-8 launch, which had been scheduled for just after midnight Eastern time Friday, to 11:16 p.m. Eastern Saturday. The agency said poor weather conditions at abort locations on the flight path led NASA and SpaceX to delay the launch. The mission will send four people from NASA and Roscosmos to the ISS for a six-month stay. [Space.com]
Legislation introduced in Congress Wednesday would give spaceports the same bonding authority as airports and seaports. The Secure U.S. Leadership in Space Act of 2024, introduced with bipartisan support in the House and Senate, would allow spaceports to issue tax-exempt municipal revenue bonds to fund infrastructure improvements, an authority that airports and seaports already have. Proponents say the change in tax law would provide another way for spaceports to finance infrastructure work, potential more quickly and with lower capital costs. [SpaceNews]
Congress is working towards the endgame on fiscal year 2024 spending bills. House and Senate leaders announced Wednesday a deal that would bring up six spending bills, including the commerce, justice and science bill that funds NASA and NOAA, next week, passing them by March 8. The other six, including the defense bill, would be taken up by March 22. Congress will first vote on a short-term continuing resolution to avoid a partial government shutdown by the end of the week. Friday marks five months since the start of the 2024 fiscal year. [Washington Post]
SpaceX has run into a roadblock trying to bring its Starlink service to Vietnam. Discussions between the company and government officials about allowing Starlink in the country started last year but have stopped after the government refused to reduce foreign ownership limits. That has meant the suspension of tests of Starlink by Vietnam's coast guard, which used it to guide drones patrolling the South China Sea and Gulf of Thailand. [Reuters]
Former astronaut and NASA Administrator Richard Truly has died. Truly was a naval aviator who was selected as an astronaut in the 1960s for the Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program. When MOL was canceled in 1969, Truly and several others joined NASA's astronaut corps. He was pilot of the second shuttle mission, STS-2 in 1981, and commanded STS-8 in 1983. He became NASA administrator in 1989 but was fired by the Bush administration in 1992 after sparring with the White House on policy priorities for the agency. Truly was 86. [collectSPACE]
| | Scrappy Little Dude
"He's a scrappy little dude. I have confidence in Odie at this point."
– Sue Lederer, project scientist for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, discussing the performance of Odysseus, or "Odie," the Intuitive Machines lunar lander, at a briefing Wednesday.
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