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Satellite communications company Lynk Global has finalized plans to go public by merging with a SPAC. Lynk announced Monday it reached a deal with Slam, a SPAC led by former baseball player Alex Rodriguez, after the companies announced a non-binding letter of intent in December. The merger will guarantee Lynk at least $110 million in cash from a combination of proceeds of the SPAC itself and a private sale of shares to investors. Lynk is separately working to raise $40 million in a Series B round. Lynk currently has three operational satellites to providing messaging services directly to phones but expects to grow that constellation to 74 by the end of 2025. The company has not recorded any revenue yet but forecasts $41 million in the fourth quarter of 2025. [SpaceNews]
Synthetaic, a startup that uses artificial intelligence to analyze data from space and air sensors, has raised $15 million. The company announced the Series B round Tuesday led by Lupa Systems and TitletownTech, with participation from IBM Ventures and Booz Allen Hamilton. The company made headlines last year when it used AI and Planet Labs' satellite imagery archive to independently track the Chinese spy balloon's path across the United States before it was shot down. The company's technology can rapidly identify images or items in images that would otherwise require a significant amount of human hours, and can be used on satellite and aerial imagery. [SpaceNews]
Virgin Galactic said Monday it notified the FAA of an issue on its most recent suborbital flight. The company said an alignment pin dropped from its VMS Eve aircraft after the VSS Unity spaceplane separated on the Jan. 26 "Galactic 06" flight. The pin is used to assist in mating of Unity to Eve in preflight operations and for transferring loads in flight, but is not used after Unity separates. Virgin said it notified the FAA last week of the issue and it working with the agency to review the incident. The company has at least one more flight of Unity planned in the second quarter before the vehicle is retired from commercial service so the company can focus on its next generation of vehicles. [SpaceNews]
Intuitive Machines confirmed Monday a launch next week of its first lunar lander mission. The company said its IM-1 lander is scheduled to launch shortly before 1 a.m. Eastern Feb. 14 on a Falcon 9 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The company had previously stated it was targeting a launch window in mid-February but declined to give a specific date. SpaceX said earlier Monday that it will conduct a fueling test known as a wet dress rehearsal Wednesday to test the ability to load liquid oxygen and methane propellants into the lander while on the pad, a capability SpaceX created for this mission. [SpaceNews]
Weather postponed a launch overnight of a NASA Earth science satellite on another Falcon 9. High winds at the Cape Canaveral landing site for the Falcon 9 booster led SpaceX to postpone the launch, which had been scheduled for 1:33 a.m. Eastern this morning. The launch is now scheduled for the same time Wednesday, with a slightly better weather forecast. The rocket is carrying NASA's PACE spacecraft, designed to study ocean biology and atmospheric clouds and aerosols. [Florida Today]
Weather also caused another delay in the return of the Ax-3 private astronaut mission from the International Space Station. NASA said poor weather conditions in splashdown locations off the Florida coast for the Crew Dragon spacecraft caused it and SpaceX to postpone an undocking that was scheduled for Tuesday morning. NASA did not announce a new undocking date. Ax-3 was scheduled to depart the station Saturday but has been delayed by weather. [NASA]
| | Other News
Terran Orbital says it has reached an agreement with a group of shareholders who had been demanding a management shakeup at the satellite manufacturer. Terran Orbital said Monday it agreed to appoint a new independent member of its board of directors and will examine "a number of value creating initiatives as part of its ongoing strategic review process." The shareholder group, which included cofounders of Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, a company that became part of Terran Orbital, had sought bigger changes at the company, including replacing CEO Marc Bell, because of financial performance that fell short of forecasts. [Terran Orbital]
The acting director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center is no longer acting. NASA announced Monday that it named Joseph Pelfrey as the center's next permanent director. Pelfrey had been acting director since the retirement of former director Jody Singer in July. He started at Marshall as an aerospace engineer in 2004 after previously working in industry, rising through the ranks to become deputy director in 2022. [NASA]
NASA is seeing unprecedented demand for the James Webb Space Telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute, which operates JWST, is currently reviewing proposals for the next cycle of JWST observations, and astronomers expect that only one out of nine proposals will be approved. That is more selective than the first two observing cycles for JWST or for observations on the Hubble Space Telescope, where one out of four to six proposals is selected. Astronomers attribute the demand to capabilities that JWST offers that are not possible on other telescopes in space or on Earth. [Nature]
The Juno spacecraft has returned images from a close flyby of Jupiter's moon Io. The spacecraft passed with 1,500 kilometers of the large volcanic moon on Saturday, the closest approach the spacecraft, orbiting Jupiter, will make. The images returned from the spacecraft so far have revealed volcanic activity caused by tidal forces heating Io's interior. [Sky & Telescope]
A defunct European Earth science spacecraft will reenter later this month. ERS-2, a 2,500-kilogram spacecraft launched in 1995 into sun-synchronous orbit, is expected to reenter around mid-February, according to the European Space Agency. The agency did not disclose how much of the spacecraft may survive reentry and reach the ground. ERS-2 operated until 2011, providing radar imagery as well as data on sea surface temperatures and winds and atmospheric ozone. [ESA]
| | Thank a Plankton Today
"If you're a citizen of the world who likes breathing and you like eating and you like going to the beach, say thank you to a phytoplankton the next time you see one of them."
– Jeremy Werdell, project scientist for NASA's PACE mission, at a briefing about the mission Sunday. As part of its mission, PACE will track different populations of phytoplankton in the Earth's oceans.
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