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A new crew is on its way to the International Space Station after a launch Sunday night. A Falcon 9 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 10:53 p.m. Eastern and placed the Crew Dragon spacecraft Endeavour into orbit. That spacecraft, flying NASA's Crew-8 mission, is carrying three NASA astronauts and one Roscosmos cosmonaut to the ISS for a six-month stay, with docking scheduled for about 3 a.m. Eastern Tuesday. The launch was scheduled for Saturday night but postponed by weather. [SpaceNews]
NASA is canceling a $2 billion satellite servicing technology demonstration mission because of cost and schedule overruns. NASA announced Friday that it plans to terminate the On-Orbit Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing (OSAM) 1 mission, which was to attempt to refuel the Landsat 7 spacecraft and perform a test of assembling an antenna structure in orbit. NASA said it was ending OSAM-1 because of "continued technical, cost, and schedule challenges" as well as a move by industry away from approaches that involved refueling "unprepared" spacecraft. OSAM-1 had a cost of $2.06 billion and was scheduled to launch in late 2026, but a review last fall by NASA's inspector general concluded it was likely to miss those targets. That review noted poor performance by Maxar, which was supplying the OSAM-1 bus and robotics system. NASA said the approximately 450 people at the Goddard Space Flight Center who had been working on OSAM-1 will be supported through the end of the fiscal year. [SpaceNews]
A final fiscal year 2024 spending bill will cut funding for NASA. The bill, released Sunday by House and Senate negotiators, would give the agency $24.875 billion in 2024, 2% less than what it received in 2023 even before correcting for inflation. NASA had requested nearly $27.2 billion for 2024. The bill punts a decision on funding for Mars Sample Return, instructing NASA to provide a report 60 days after the completion of an architecture reassessment and allowing NASA to spend between $300 million and $949.3 million on the program. The bill adjusted spending on some other science, space technology and exploration programs. Congress is expected to pass the bill by Friday, when a stopgap funding bill expires. [SpaceNews]
Boeing won a contract to build another Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) communications satellite. The Space Force selected Boeing to build the WGS-12 satellite Friday, awarding a contract valued at $439.6 million. Both WGS-12 and the WGS-11 spacecraft scheduled for completion this year were funded by congressional earmarks. The Space Force did not request funding for a wideband satellite in the 2023 budget but Congress nevertheless added $442 million, an action reminiscent of the 2018 defense appropriations bill when Congress inserted $600 million for WGS-11. [SpaceNews]
Lockheed Martin is offering to buy the two-thirds of smallsat manufacturer Terran Orbital it does not already own. Lockheed disclosed Friday that it made an offer to buy the outstanding shares of Terran Orbital for $1 each, as well as pay more than $70 million to acquire stock warrants and $313 million to assume or repay Terran Orbital debt. Lockheed would spend more than $500 million if the deal is approved. Lockheed is the largest customer of Terran Orbital, buying its spacecraft for Space Development Agency contracts and other programs. Lockheed had also invested in the company, with its stake growing to a third of the company by 2022. Terran Orbital did not immediately comment on the offer. [SpaceNews]
The Space Force is evaluating ideas to augment the GPS constellation with smallsats. Space Systems Command issued a request for information last month to determine the capabilities of the private sector to design a more affordable GPS spacecraft that is also interoperable with existing GPS infrastructure. Companies were asked to submit concepts for a demonstration of smaller and cheaper GPS satellites that would "inform future planning for the GPS enterprise," the command said, adding that there is no official follow-on or changes to the existing GPS 3F contract Lockheed Martin has to produce up to 22 satellites. [SpaceNews]
| | Other News
Chinese astronauts performed a spacewalk outside the Tiangong space station Saturday. Tang Hongbo and Jiang Xinlin spent about eight hours outside the station, making repairs to solar panels that had been degraded by impacts of small particles. They also performed an inspection of the exterior of the station's modules. [Xinhua]
NASA says it is studying the design of the side hatch of the Orion spacecraft to ensure it can be opened in a contingency situation. The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel mentioned the review in their public meeting last week, noting the work was intended to ensure the hatch could be opened by the crew in "a contingency operation" on the launch pad or after splashdown. NASA said that the focus in on the performance of hinges in the hatch regarding requirements for pressure changes. The safety panel also said at its meeting that NASA was closing in on the root cause of the greater-than-expected erosion of heat shield material seen on the Artemis 1 Orion mission, something NASA previously said was a factor in its decision to delay the Artemis 2 launch from late 2024 to September 2025. [SpaceNews]
Astra's board warns that if a deal to take the company private falls through, its only option is liquidation. The company, in an SEC filing late Friday, said it was reviewing a revised proposal by company founders Chris Kemp and Adam London, Astra's CEO and CTO respectively, to take the company private at $0.50 a share, a price two-thirds lower than their original offer in November. The board said that it has not been able to identify any other financing options for the launch and satellite propulsion company, and that if it cannot complete the deal to go private, it will have to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and liquidate. Astra did not disclose a timeframe for completing a deal or going bankrupt. [SpaceNews]
A NASA Earth science mission has ended after 16 years of operations. NASA said Friday it was formally ending the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) mission, nearly a year after a battery failed on the spacecraft. NASA said that multiple efforts to maintain power on AIM without that battery were unsuccessful, keeping the spacecraft from collecting data. AIM launched in 2007 to study noctilucent clouds in the upper atmosphere to better understand how they formed and how they are affected by other atmospheric phenomena. [NASA]
The National Science Foundation (NSF) may only fund one new large ground-based telescope rather than two. The National Science Board, at a meeting last month, directed the NSF to move forward with support for either the Giant Magellan Telescope or Thirty Meter Telescope. Astronomers, through an initiative called the U.S. Extremely Large Telescope Program, had hoped the NSF would provide funding for both projects in exchange for a share of observing time. The board said the high cost of the telescopes led them to direct the NSF to move forward with one, with a cost cap of $1.6 billion. However, language in the fiscal year 2024 spending bill "strongly encourages" the NSF to support both telescopes. [Science]
The head of India's space agency ISRO said he was diagnosed with, and treated for, cancer last year. In an interview over the week, S Somanath, chairman of ISRO, said he received a diagnosis of stomach cancer the same day as the launch of the Aditya-L1 space science mission in September. He said he underwent surgery and chemotherapy and that he is "completely cured," having reassumed his duties. [The Economic Times]
| | The Week Ahead
Monday: - Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 on the Transporter-10 rideshare mission at 5:05 p.m. Eastern.
- Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 6:56 p.m. Eastern.
Monday-Tuesday: Monday-Thursday: Tuesday: - Houston: NASA holds a graduation ceremony for its latest class of astronauts at 10:30 a.m. Eastern.
- Online: The Air and Space Forces Association hosts a webinar with Col. Raj Agrawal, Commander of Space Delta 2, at 1 p.m. Eastern.
Wednesday: Wednesday-Thursday: - Farnborough, England: The Space-Comm Expo conference includes sessions focused on the U.K. space industry.
Thursday: Friday: - Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 6:56 p.m. Eastern.
- Spaceport Kii, Japan: Scheduled inaugural launch of the Kairos rocket by Japanese company Space One at 9 p.m. Eastern.
Friday through March 16: Saturday: - Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand: Scheduled launch of an Electron rocket carrying a Synspective radar imaging satellite at 9 a.m. Eastern.
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