| We're bringing you our coverage from day two of the SATELLITE 2024 Conference & Exhibition in Washington, D.C. Chief among the news is SpaceX COO and President Gwynne Shotwell's announcement that the company intends to fly Starship again in May, indicating an accelerated turnaround time between tests compared to the previous few. Also, Kayhan Space will work with universities to promote sustainable space management, GEO operators are trying a new strategy to compete with Starlink, and more. | |  | | WASHINGTON — SpaceX hopes to conduct the next launch of its Starship vehicle as soon as early May, a schedule that will depend on how quickly it can get an amended launch license. Speaking at the Satellite 2024 conference March 19, Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, said the company was still reviewing the data from the vehicle's third integrated launch March 14 but expected to be ready to fly again soon. "We're still going through the data" from the flight, she said when asked about the analysis of data from the mission. "It was an incredibly successful flight. We hit exactly where we wanted to go." SEE FULL STORY | |  | | By Jeff Foust
WASHINGTON — Kayhan Space is offering a version of its space traffic coordination platform for universities, a move the company says is intended to help teach students best practices for sustainable space operations.
The Broomfield, Colorado-based company rolled out March 19 Pathfinder Classroom, a version of its Pathfinder system designed for use by universities. The system is intended to give student satellite programs access to space safety services while also serving as a learning tool.
"They don't really teach conjunction assessment, collision avoidance, spaceflight safety as a course. You don't go to school to learn these things," said Araz Feyzi, chief technology officer and co-founder of Kayhan Space, in an interview. "Let's solve the root of this problem and give them the tools that gives them the means to learn this particular, very niche area."
SEE FULL STORY | |  | By Jason Rainbow
WASHINGTON — Geostationary satellite operators say local service providers in hard-to-reach connectivity markets are helping them counter competition from SpaceX's Starlink low Earth orbit network in Latin America.
During a panel at the Satellite 2024 conference here March 18, Ignacio Sanchís, chief commercial officer of Spain-based Hispasat, said local service ecosystems are proving to be an important selling point for rural communities, alongside the price and performance of available broadband.
Whereas Starlink sells directly to consumers through its website, Sanchís said it leverages more than 30 retail service providers, including regional specialists. SEE FULL STORY | |  | By Sandra Erwin
WASHINGTON — Aerospacelab, a Belgian startup that manufactures and operates small satellites, announced a new partnership with U.S. startup Xona Space Systems.
Under the agreement with Xona Space announced March 19, Aerospacelab secured a contract to build the U.S. startup's first positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) satellite.
Xona Space is developing a commercial PNT service through a constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites. The company plans to offer the service as a backup to PNT provided by the Global Positioning System.
SEE FULL STORY | |  | | By Jeff Foust
WASHINGTON — Benchmark Space's first electric thruster is in orbit and ready to begin operations as the company moves into large-scale production of the systems.
The company announced March 19 that its Xantus thruster is on the Electro-Optical/Infrared (EO/IR) Weather Systems (EWS) demonstration cubesat built by Orion Space Solutions and launched on the SpaceX Transporter-10 rideshare mission March 4. The company said it expects to soon start firing the thruster after completing on-orbit checkouts.
Xantus is a metal plasma thruster that uses molybdenum as propellant. Benchmark, which has developed chemical propulsion systems, obtained the technology in its August 2022 acquisition of Alameda Applied Science Corporation.
SEE FULL STORY | | | Millennium Space Systems is an end-to-end mission prime contractor delivering advanced small satellite constellations for operational National Security Space missions, including mission engineering, design, qualification, build, integration, test, launch integration and support, and mission operations.
 | |  | | By Sandra Erwin
WASHINGTON — The Defense Innovation Unit, the Pentagon's outpost in Silicon Valley tasked with integrating commercial tech into the military, is increasing its support of the Space Force's efforts to shorten the time it takes to plan space missions.
The Space Force's Tactically Responsive Space program is an initiative to rapidly respond to situations in space. The goal is to drastically reduce the time it takes to launch and operate satellites, from the usual weeks or months down to days or even hours.
Maj. David Ryan, space portfolio program manager at the Defense Innovation Unit, said DIU is working with the Space Force's Space Safari office to identify and select commercial providers for an upcoming responsive mission named Victus Haze.
SEE FULL STORY | |  | By Sandra Erwin
WASHINGTON — Orbit Fab, a startup developing infrastructure to refuel satellites in space, said its docking mechanism for transferring propellant has been qualified for flight after completing a battery of tests to simulate harsh conditions in orbit.
The company announced March 19 that its RAFTI satellite refueling port has passed qualification tests assessing its ability to withstand extreme temperatures, vibrations and radiation exposure encountered in space environments.
RAFTI, short for Rapidly Attachable Fluid Transfer Interface, is a docking interface that allows satellites to receive propellant from external sources while on the ground or in orbit.
SEE FULL STORY | |  | By Jeff Foust
WASHINGTON — Loft Orbital is partnering with SkyServe to leverage Earth observation and edge computing capabilities on a newly launched satellite.
The two companies announced March 19 that SkyServe will use Loft Orbital's YAM-6 spacecraft, launched on the Transporter-10 rideshare mission March 4, to demonstrate artificial intelligence capabilities by analyzing optical and hyperspectral imagery the satellite collects.
For what the companies call Mission Denali, SkyServe, an Indian startup, will install its SkyServe STORM platform on the spacecraft. Customers can then deploy AI models on the platform to perform analysis of imagery the satellite collects in real time.
SEE FULL STORY | |  | Neuraspace starts free space traffic management service By Jason Rainbow
WASHINGTON — Portuguese startup Neuraspace has released a free version of its space traffic management platform to foster more collaboration among satellite operators.
Drawing from a pool of information gathered from public sources and partnerships with ground telescope providers, Neuraspace announced March 19 that the software platform is now available at no cost to operators seeking real-time satellite position data to manage their operations better.
Operators signed up for the service would get a common view of conjunction alerts, which would also automatically open up a chat room between them to discuss how best to avoid the collision risk.
SEE FULL STORY | | | | |
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