Starship's Third Launch - SpaceNews This Week

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View this email in your browser A weekly roundup of the top SpaceNews stories from this week, every Friday This week, SpaceX conducted its third Starship test flight, which fared much better than the first two launch attempts. This time, Starship was able to conduct most of its planned tests, and telemetry was only lost about 49 minutes after takeoff, during descent. Elsewhere, NASA, the Pentagon and the FAA released details on their FY2025 budget requests, and both Japan and China faced issues on recent launch attempts. Our Top Story Starship lifts off on third test flight Jeff Foust, March 14, 2024 WASHINGTON — SpaceX's Starship vehicle lifted off on its third test flight March 14, making significant progress compared to its first two by achieving most of its planned test milestones. The Starship/Super Heavy vehicle lifted off from the company's Starbase site at 9:25 a.m. Eastern. The liftoff was delayed by nearly an hour and a half because of ships in restricted waters offshore. SpaceX reported no technical issues during the countdown. The Super Heavy booster fired all 33 of its Raptor engines for nearly three minutes before executing "hot staging", with the Starship upper stage's engines igniting while still attached to Super Heavy before separating. Other News From the Week U.S. BUDGET NASA says spending caps force "hard choices" for its 2025 budget NASA says its fiscal year 2025 budget proposal is constrained by the second year of a debt-ceiling agreement that caps overall spending, leading to delays, potential cancellations and broader uncertainty for many NASA science programs in particular. Space Force budget holding steady amid Pentagon's fiscal constraints The Pentagon rolled out a $849.8 billion budget request for fiscal year 2025 that includes $29.4 billion for the U.S. Space Force. The $29.4 billion request represents a $600 million cut from the $30 billion the Defense Department sought for the newest military branch in fiscal 2024 – a plan that remains in limbo as Congress has kept the government funded via a series of stopgap spending bills. FAA requests large funding increase for commercial space office The Federal Aviation Administration is requesting a major budget increase for its commercial space office to both keep up with growing launch demand and prepare for potential new regulatory roles. The FAA, in its fiscal year 2025 budget proposal released March 11, requested $57.13 million for its Office of Commercial Space Transportation, or AST. That is a 36% increase from the $42.018 million AST received in the final fiscal year 2024 spending bill passed last week. LAUNCH First Kairos rocket explodes seconds after liftoff The first flight of privately developed Japanese rocket ended in a catastrophic failure seconds after liftoff March 12. The Kairos rocket, built by Japanese company Space One, exploded about five seconds after liftoff at 10:01 p.m. Eastern from Spaceport Kii, a launch site in the southern part of Honshu. In a webcast of the launch, the rocket had not yet cleared a hillside surrounding it when it exploded. Surprise Chinese lunar mission hit by launch anomaly A pair of Chinese spacecraft, apparently intended for lunar orbit, have potentially been lost following an issue with a Long March rocket's upper stage on Wednesday. A Long March 2C rocket lifted off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 8:51 a.m. Eastern (1251 UTC) March 13. There was no official acknowledgement of the launch until early Thursday, when Chinese state media Xinhua announced the DRO-A and B spacecraft had not been inserted accurately into their designated orbit by the rocket's Yuanzheng-1S upper stage. Rocket Lab launches Synspective radar imaging satellite Rocket Lab launched a radar imaging satellite for Japanese company Synspective March 12, the latest in a series of launches for that company. A Rocket Lab Electron lifted off from the company's Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 11:03 a.m. Eastern March 12. The launch, delayed three days by weather, took place at the end of the day's launch window, about 75 minutes long, also on account of weather. The rocket deployed the StriX-3 satellite into sun-synchronous orbit about 54 minutes after liftoff. GOVERNMENT Space Development Agency marks five-year milestone When the Pentagon established the Space Development Agency five years ago, it encountered fierce resistance from stalwarts of the military's traditional satellite programs. The agency had been given an ambitious but controversial mission: to build a new orbital architecture for national security using small satellites and commercially available technologies, overturning decades of preference for larger, ultra-costly spacecraft that took years to design and launch. FCC approves direct-to-smartphone regulatory framework U.S. regulators have approved ground rules for allowing SpaceX and other satellite operators to use radio waves from terrestrial mobile partners to keep smartphone users connected outside cell tower coverage. The Federal Communications Commission voted March 14 unanimously in favor of its Supplemental Coverage from Space (SCS) regulatory framework. Copyright (C) 2024 Multiverse Media Inc.. All rights reserved. You signed up to receive this newsletter on Spacenews.com. At times you may receive marketing material. 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