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The Canadian government is boosting its investment in Telesat's Lightspeed constellation. Telesat said Monday it received a letter from the Canadian government last week that agreed to terms for a loan worth 2.14 billion Canadian dollars ($1.6 billion) for Lightspeed, nearly half the 198-satellite network's $3.5 billion budget. The government will also have the option to purchase 10% of Lightspeed for $300 million. The new loan is 50% higher than one announced in 2021, but requires Telesat to pay off the loan in 15 years versus 20 years under the original agreement. Telesat recently reported 704 million Canadian dollars in revenue for 2023, down 9% year-on-year when adjusted for changes in foreign exchange rates. Telesat blamed an industry-wide decline in satellite TV revenues for the decline. [SpaceNews]
Smallsat manufacturer Terran Orbital reported higher revenues in 2023 but still had a significant loss. The company announced Monday revenues of $135.9 million for the year, up from $94.2 million in 2022, but had a net loss of $151.8 million in 2023, down only slightly from 2022. Terran Orbital, which delayed the release of its financial results by a week, canceled a planned earnings call for today, citing its ongoing strategic review. The company is still evaluating a proposal by Lockheed Martin to acquire the two-thirds of Terran Orbital it does not already own for $1 a share, plus payment for stock warrants and assumption of $313 million in debt. [SpaceNews]
CopaSAT, a supplier of communications equipment, is seeing a surge in orders for a militarized version of a Starlink terminal. The company designed a ruggedized satellite internet terminal that uses the Starshield electronically steered antenna built by SpaceX with enhanced encryption intended for government and military use. CopaSAT said it saw an opportunity because the standard terminal offered by SpaceX lacks the durability needed for harsh battlefield environments. Its $30,000 Storm V3 terminal provides a hardened enclosure for the antenna and other components. The company has received orders for about 150 of the terminals from U.S. military organizations. [SpaceNews]
A former NASA official is now advising a company involved in several space ventures. IBX announced Monday that it hired Bob Cabana as a senior adviser to support its portfolio of companies that include Axiom Space, Intuitive Machines and Quantum Space. Cabana retired from NASA at the end of last year after more than two years as its associate administrator, the highest-ranking civil service post at the agency. He was previously director of the Kennedy Space Center and a NASA astronaut who flew on four shuttle missions. [IBX]
| | Integrated Deterrence Begins with L3Harris
As missile threats become faster and more elusive, L3Harris is helping the U.S. military build a proliferated constellation of missile warning and defense satellites to stay ahead. Our technology plays a key role on several U.S. missile warning and defense satellite programs, including those for the U.S. Space Force's Space Development Agency and Space Systems Command as well as the Missile Defense Agency. We're answering the call to protect against advanced missiles by rapidly developing and deploying responsive, multilayered solutions that provide near-global and persistent indications, detection, warning, tracking and identification. Learn more. | | Other News
SpaceX launched another set of Starlink satellites Monday evening. A Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 10:30 p.m. after a few days of weather-related delays. The rocket deployed 22 Starlink satellites into orbit. As with another launch last month, the twilight launch was visible across southern California and Arizona as the plume was backlit by the sun. [Noozhawk]
Rocket Lab will launch satellites for NASA and a South Korean institute later this month. The company said Monday an Electron is scheduled to launch from New Zealand no earlier than April 24. It will place into low Earth orbit NEONSAT-1, an Earth observation satellite for the Satellite Technology Research Center at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and NASA's Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3). The launch will require multiple burns by the Electron's kick stage to place NEONSAT-1 into a 520-kilometer orbit and ACS3 into a 1,000-kilometer orbit. [Rocket Lab]
An object that hit a house in Florida last month may have been debris from the International Space Station. An object weighing nearly one kilogram fell through the roof and both floors of a two-story house in Naples, Florida, March 8. The location and time of the fall align with the reentry of a pallet of used ISS batteries. NASA has recovered the debris and is analyzing it to determine if it was from the station. The home's owner said he is still waiting to hear from "the responsible agencies" about paying for the damage. [Ars Technica]
Arizona now has an official state planet. The state's governor signed into law last week a bill that designates Pluto as the "official state planet." Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 while working at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, and Pluto was designated at the time the solar system's ninth planet. That changed in 2006, when the International Astronomical Union reclassified it as a "dwarf planet" after the discovery of other objects similar in size to Pluto in the outer solar system, a decision that still rankles some scientists and other fans of Pluto. [CBS]
| | Screaming at the Sun
"We had people screaming. But unlike a football game, you had them all screaming for the same thing."
– Bob Baer, director of the astronomy observation program at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois, describing the experience of the 2017 total solar eclipse, when the university filled its football stadium to view it. The university is also on the path of totality for next Monday's solar eclipse. [New York Times]
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