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An aging Eutelsat communications satellite has failed. The company said Friday that it stopped providing services from the Eutelsat 113 West A satellite, located at 113 degrees west in GEO, after it suffered an unspecified anomaly. The 18-year-old satellite, three years past its design life, was providing C- and Ku-band video, data and government services, but was projected to generate only about $3.2 million in revenues over the next five months. Eutelsat said it was making every effort "to mitigate the potential adverse consequences on orbital safety" but did not say if it had lost complete control of the spacecraft. [SpaceNews]
A NASA Earth science mission that escaped multiple attempts at cancellation is about to launch. The Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) spacecraft is scheduled to launch early Tuesday on a Falcon 9. The $964 million spacecraft will collect data on ocean color as well as atmospheric clouds and aerosols that will be used by scientists to study ocean biology and climate. The Trump administration proposed canceling PACE in all four of its NASA budget proposals, from fiscal years 2018 through 2021, but Congress kept the mission funded each year. [SpaceNews]
Firefly Aerospace says future Alpha launches will use the same responsive launch approach it took on a launch last year. The company launched the Victus Nox mission last September just 27 hours after being formally called up by the Space Force. A company executive said at the SpaceCom conference last week that Firefly will follow a similar approach on future Alpha launches for both government and commercial customers. Firefly is continuing to investigate a problem with the second stage on its most recent Alpha launch in December that placed its payload in the wrong orbit, and expects to wrap up that review and implement corrective actions in the coming weeks. [SpaceNews]
NASA is finalizing work to collect lessons learned from the Artemis 1 mission. At SpaceCom last week, NASA and industry officials said they had collected technical and programmatic lessons from that mission that will be used to help both future Artemis missions and other parts of the overall lunar exploration effort. NASA took a wide-ranging approach to collect insights from internal and external stakeholders on topics ranging from technical issues with the SLS, Orion and ground systems to improved coordination of schedules among the programs. [SpaceNews]
Operators of inland spaceports in the United States are looking for ways to host orbital launches. The growth in launch activity in recent years has been concentrated at federal ranges in California and Florida that can accommodate orbital vertical launches, even as those sites become more congested. In an effort to support work on launch systems that can safely launch from inland sites, Spaceport America in New Mexico has proposed an Orbital Launch Challenge prize that would provide $2 million to the first company to get an FAA license for an orbital launch from the spaceport. The spaceport unsuccessfully sought state funding for the prize this year but plans to continue work on the proposal, possibly in collaboration with other inland launch sites. [SpaceNews]
| | Other News
China carried out two launches hours apart late Friday. A Long March 2C rocket lifted off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern China at 6:37 p.m. Eastern, placing 11 satellites into orbit for Chinese automaker Geely. The satellites are part of a constellation that Geely plans to use to support autonomous driving and related services. A Jielong-3 solid-fuel rocket launched from a ship off the coast of Guangdong province at 10:06 p.m. Eastern and put nine satellites into orbit for a variety of customers. Among the payloads were remote sensing and technology demonstration satellites, as well as an experimental satellite for Egypt. [SpaceNews]
Weather has delayed the return of the Ax-3 private astronaut mission from the International Space Station. The Crew Dragon spacecraft Freedom was scheduled to undock from the station early Saturday and splash down off the Florida coast later that day, but NASA and SpaceX delayed the departure because of unfavorable weather at splashdown locations. The spacecraft is now scheduled to undock from the ISS at 9:05 a.m. Eastern Tuesday, pending improved weather conditions, with splashdown about nine hours later. [NASA]
A Texas court has revived a lawsuit regarding beach closures linked to SpaceX Starship testing and launches. A Texas appeals court ruled last week that environmental and other groups did have standing to sue county and state officials over closures of the road leading to Boca Chica Beach, next to SpaceX's Starbase site. A district court had concluded in 2022 that the plaintiffs did not have standing. The ruling returns the suit to district court. The plaintiffs argued that the beach closures, permitted under a state law passed in 2013, violate the "Open Beaches" provision of the state constitution. [Texas Public Radio]
A startup created by former Blue Origin executives is raising a funding round. Regulatory filings disclosed recently that Interlune has raised $15.5 million in an ongoing funding round. The startup, led by former Blue Origin executives Rob Meyerson and Gary Lai, is working on technologies to extract resources from the moon, but has disclosed few specifics about their work so far. [TechCrunch]
A Russian cosmonaut has broken the record for most cumulative time spent in space. Oleg Kononenko broke Gennady Padalka's record of 879 days, 11 hours and 29 minutes spent in space on Sunday. Kononenko is on his fifth mission to the station dating back to 2008. He is on track to exceed 1,000 days in space before his current mission to the ISS ends in September. [AP]
| | The Week Ahead
Monday: - Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 9:08 p.m. Eastern.
Tuesday: - Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Scheduled launch of NASA's PACE mission on a Falcon 9 at 1:33 a.m. Eastern.
- International Space Station: Rescheduled undocking of a Crew Dragon spacecraft on the Ax-3 private astronaut mission at 9:05 a.m. Eastern.
- Springfield, Va.: The U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation holds its Space Situational Awareness Workshop. Afternoon panel sessions are classified.
Tuesday-Thursday: Wednesday: Thursday: Friday: Saturday: - Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 1 a.m. Eastern.
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