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A final fiscal year 2024 spending bill would reduce the Space Force's budget by $1 billion relative to what it requested. The bill, released early Thursday, would provide the service with $29 billion, about $1 billion less than what the Biden administration had requested but still some $2.7 billion more than Space Force received for 2023. The bill cuts the Space Force's procurement account request by $600 million and its research, development, testing and engineering account by $400 million. The bill, though, does increase funding for National Security Space Launch research and development as well as Tactically Responsive Space. A big winner in the 2024 defense bill is the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), which gets a an $842 million increase. The House and Senate are expected to take up the bill today to avert a partial government shutdown. [SpaceNews]
The head of U.S. Space Command says the military plans to improve its abilities to track objects in geosynchronous orbit. With a growing need for better space domain awareness, the Pentagon wants additional satellites acting as eyes and ears in the GEO belt, Gen. Stephen Whiting said Thursday. The U.S. Space Force is modernizing ground-based sensors, such as a deep space radar, that are critical to monitoring the GEO belt. The Space Force and the intelligence community are also working on new surveillance satellites to keep a closer eye on potential threats such as anti-satellite weapons. [SpaceNews]
The National Reconnaissance Office is seeking new technologies to support its launch operations. The NRO's Office of Space Launch recently issued a Broad Area Announcement (BAA) seeking proposals for its "Agile Launch Innovation and Strategic Technology Advancement" program. The BAA covers topics such as in-space mobility and refueling as well as artificial intelligence for ground operations. The BAA comes as the NRO performed the final launch under a five-launch contract with Rocket Lab early Thursday, putting payloads into orbit on a flight out of Wallops Island, Virginia. The launch was the fifth and last mission under a Rapid Acquisition of a Small Rocket (RASR) contract between NRO and Rocket Lab, dating back to 2020. [SpaceNews]
The DIU will study the potential use of an orbital transfer vehicle developed by Firefly Aerospace. DIU awarded Firefly a study contract that, once complete, could lead to as many as two flight demonstration missions in cislunar space using Firefly's Elytra vehicle. The contract supports DIU's Sinequone project that aims to deliver cost effective, responsive access to cislunar space through both launch and orbital transfer services. [SpaceNews]
Rivada Space Networks says a recent series of undersea internet cable cuts has bolstered interest in its satellite constellation. Speaking at Satellite 2024 this week, Rivada CEO Declan Ganley claimed that enterprises have been flocking to the company to learn how its proposed constellation of up to 600 satellites could provide redundancy for their networks. While he said Rivada had MOUs worth more than $7 billion from potential customers, he provided few specifics on efforts by the company to finance that constellation. That constellation would be built by Terran Orbital, and Terran CEO Marc Bell said on the same panel that Rivada remains current on all invoices ahead of plans to deploy two or four prototype spacecraft before the end of the year. [SpaceNews]
Hanwha Phasor plans to release its first flat panel antenna this summer to join a wave of multi-orbit broadband terminals coming to the market. The company's Phasor L3300B is designed to connect land vehicles for government and commercial users seeking connectivity from Ku-band satellites in GEO or LEO. Hybrid antennas promise customers greater network redundancy and the flexibility to access the strengths of various orbital regimes without the need for multiple terminals, making them particularly suitable for vehicles on the move. The company says it is talking with potential military customers across the United States, Europe and South Korea, and expects to start taking orders in the next three months. [SpaceNews]
Intuitive Machines is looking ahead to its next lunar lander mission and other contracts. The company reported Thursday an operating loss of $56.2 million in 2023, but said its cash balance grew since the start of the year from $4.5 million to $54.6 million after the exercise of stock warrants and other investments. The company is continuing to review data from the IM-1 lunar lander mission and says it still expects to launch IM-2 by the end of the year. Intuitive Machines is also looking to win additional business, such as upcoming NASA contracts for an Artemis lunar rover and cislunar communications services. [SpaceNews]
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A SpaceX cargo Dragon spacecraft launched to the International Space Station hours after a rare scrub of a Soyuz crewed launch. A Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 4:55 p.m. Eastern Thursday and placed the CRS-30 Dragon into orbit. The Dragon, carrying more than 2,800 kilograms of cargo, is scheduled to dock with the ISS Saturday morning. The launch was the first to use a new crew tower at Space Launch Complex 40, which SpaceX built to provide a backup to Launch Complex 39A. Seven and a half hours earlier, a Soyuz rocket aborted its countdown just 20 seconds before liftoff at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It was to send the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft, carrying a NASA astronaut and Russian and Belarusian cosmonauts, to the station. A low voltage reading the rocket caused the scrub, delaying the launch to at least Saturday. [SpaceNews]
The small launch industry is wary of the impact SpaceX's Starship could have on them. During a Satellite 2024 conference panel this week, industry executives said they thought Starship, with its potentially very low per-kilogram launch prices, might be able to launch smallsats with orbital transfer vehicles less expensively than dedicated small launch vehicles. Starship might also encourage satellite developers to make their satellites larger. Small launch companies remain concerned about the effect SpaceX's Transporter rideshare launches are having on them, but noted those missions have also stimulated interest in smallsats in general. [SpaceNews]
India performed another landing test of a reusable launch vehicle prototype. The RLV-LEX-02 vehicle, an unpowered winged vehicle, was dropped from a helicopter Friday from an altitude of 4,500 meters and glided to a runway landing. The vehicle is intended to test landing technologies that could be used on a future reusable launcher. [PTI]
An Indian startup has postponed the launch of a suborbital vehicle. Agnikul Cosmos has planned to launch its Sub Orbital Technology Demonstrator (SOrTeD) mission Friday from a launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, but called off the launch after "certain minor observations" in the vehicle during launch preparations, details of which the company did not disclose. Agnikul Cosmos did not disclose a new launch date. The SOrTeD mission is intended to test systems the company plans to use in the Agnibaan small launch vehicle it is developing. [Express News Service]
A $100 million donation to Caltech will fund a new center to develop exploration technologies with a "SpaceX vibe." Caltech said Thursday that the donation from financier Gary Brinson will allow it establish the Brinson Exploration Hub, which will focus on development of technologies for space and Earth applications. The center will take on a more iterative approach to technology development with a higher tolerance for risk. [Los Angeles Times]
Astronomers are meeting this week to find ways to preserve the far side of the moon for radio astronomy. The meeting in Italy by the International Academy of Astronautics is intended to study how to keep the lunar farside, shielded from terrestrial radio emissions, radio-quiet as exploration of the moon increases. Astronomers want to preserve that environment to support future radio telescopes there that could better observe the universe. [Space.com]
| | Fast and Furious: Tycho Drift
"The guys are driving a little crazy. You can see they're catching air on some of the jumps. As they're coming around the corner here, they're going to hit one of these potholes and they're going to take a dive. We certainly don't encourage this sort of driving on the moon."
– Andrew Sullivan, program director of SAIC, showing off a simulation of a lunar rover speeding on the moon during a session of the American Astronautical Society's Goddard Space Science Symposium on Thursday.
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