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SES announced Tuesday that it will acquire Intelsat for $3.1 billion, combining two of the biggest GEO satellite operators. The companies said the deal would create a satellite operator with more than $4 billion in annual revenues and adjusted EBITDA of nearly $2 billion. The combined company would operate more than 100 GEO satellites as well as the O3b constellation in medium Earth orbit, and SES said the acquisition would optimize future investments in multi-orbit satellite fleets. SES and Intelsat had explored a merger last year but walked away from a potential deal last June. SES CEO Adel Al-Saleh said the timing was better now for an acquisition given "significant evolution" at both companies. The deal has the approval of both companies' boards, but SES does not expect it to close until the second half of 2025 because of necessary regulatory approvals. [SpaceNews]
A Chinese crewed spacecraft returned to Earth Tuesday. The Shenzhou-17 spacecraft undocked from the Tiangong station at 8:43 p.m. Eastern Monday and landed at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region near Jiuquan spaceport at 5:46 a.m. Eastern Tuesday. On board Shenzhou-17 were Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie and Jiang Xinlin, who had been in space since October. They performed two spacewalks while on Tiangong to repair damage to solar arrays and conducted 84 experiments. The Shenzhou-17 crew was relieved by the three-person Shenzhou-18 crew that arrived at Tiangong last week. [SpaceNews]
China is proposing an ambitious series of space science missions. The set of missions, spanning lunar farside astronomy, astrophysics, exoplanets and heliophysics, was announced by the National Space Science Center (NSSC), part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, at a meeting April 27. One mission, Discovering the Sky at the Longest Wavelength (DSL), would place 10 smallsats into lunar orbit, using the moon to shield the satellites from terrestrial radio signals so the spacecraft can detect radio emissions from the early universe. Another mission, Taiji, will use three satellites to detect gravitational waves. NSSC did not announce any new planetary missions as part of this, but there remains the possibility that one or more proposed planetary missions will be selected under a separate track. [SpaceNews]
Airbus had outlined plans for new high-resolution imaging satellites. The company said Monday it will develop a new series of spacecraft called Pléiades Neo Next to augment the two Pléiades Neo spacecraft in orbit that provide imagery at a resolution of 30 centimeters. Airbus said it has started work on one Pléiades Neo Next satellite to be launched in the next few years, but did not disclose how many satellites it foresees building. The Pléiades Neo Next satellites will offer enhanced resolution, although the company did not offer specifics. The Pléiades Neo Next program will help Airbus replace capacity lost when two Pléiades Neo satellites were destroyed in a December 2022 Vega C launch failure. [SpaceNews]
Finnish startup Kuva Space will provide hyperspectral data to ESA. The company said Monday it won a $1.9 million contract to develop onboard data processing and rapid communications links for its spacecraft, allowing them to quickly provide imagery that will be used to detect illegal activities in the Baltic Sea area between Finland, Estonia and Sweden. The contract was awarded by ESA's Civil Security from Space program, an initiative aimed at bolstering humanitarian, law enforcement, safety and emergency response with space technologies. [SpaceNews]
| | Footprints on the Moon Begin with L3Harris
For six decades, L3Harris has teamed with NASA to develop technology that's been critical to the evolution of human spaceflight. In fact, our technology has been part of every crewed NASA mission: from Project Mercury to Apollo to the Space Shuttle to the International Space Station era and now beyond – as part of NASA's Artemis campaign. L3Harris' contributions to NASA's Artemis missions include propulsion, communications and launch avionics for NASA's Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft and Gateway lunar space station. Learn more. | | Other News
A Dragon cargo spacecraft returned to Earth early Tuesday. The Dragon splashed down off the coast from Tampa, Florida, at 1:38 a.m. Eastern, concluding the CRS-30 mission to the International Space Station. The spacecraft, which launched to the station last month, returned about 1,850 kilograms of science experiments and equipment from the ISS. [NASA]
Rocket Lab will launch a pair of NASA cubesats on its next two launches. The company said Monday it will perform back-to-back launches of Electron rockets from New Zealand for NASA's PREFIRE mission, each carrying a single 6U cubesat. The first launch is scheduled for no earlier than May 22 with the second to follow within three weeks of the first. The two launches are required to place the spacecraft into specific orbits to carry out their mission of measuring infrared emissions from the polar regions. [Rocket Lab]
A Canadian general says he wants to increase the "space-mindedness" of the Canadian military. Brig. Gen. Michael Adamson, commander of the Canadian Armed Forces Space Division, told a parliamentary committee that his division is working to help the rest of the military better understand the importance of space and the growing need to be aware of threats to space assets. He said the Canadian military will need to work more with the private sector to better leverage their capabilities. [Canadian Press]
NASA has named a new director of the Stennis Space Center. The agency said Monday that John Bailey, who has been acting director of the Mississippi center since January, will take the job on a permanent basis. Bailey has been at Stennis since 1999 in technical and management roles, most recently as deputy director. Bailey succeeds Richard Gilbrech, who retired in January after leading Stennis for more than a decade. [NASA]
| | Standard Progress
"How do you make this real? You make it real by interfaces, by standards. Standards, to the uninformed, might seem boring, but standards is how you make progress."
– Phil Root, director of DARPA's Strategic Technology Office, discussing the agency's LunA-10 project to study how to create a sustainable lunar economy during a speech last week at the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium meeting.
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