Astronomy Prints 🌌: AST SpaceMobile shares soar on AT&T deal 🚀

A SpaceNews daily newsletter | Friday, May 17, 2024

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Shares in AST SpaceMobile soared after the company announced a deal with AT&T for direct-to-device services. The company's shared closed up 68% Thursday, a day after the company reported a definitive agreement with AT&T to provide services until 2030 using the company's upcoming satellite constellation. AST SpaceMobile did not provide details about the agreement but said it did not come with additional prepayment revenue on top of the $20 million AT&T agreed to make in January. The company projects its first five commercial satellites will launch in July or August, which it says will provide "nationwide, noncontinuous" service in the United States. [SpaceNews]

Omnispace says it now has evidence that Starlink direct-to-device payloads interfere with its satellites. At a conference panel Thursday, an Omnispace executive said those Starlink payloads, using terrestrial spectrum from T-Mobile, generate noise that interferes with transmissions with its satellites using a mobile satellite services spectrum assignment. SpaceX has started to ramp up deployment of Starlink satellites with direct-to-device payloads, launching 26 since last week. Omnispace had previously warned the FCC that the SpaceX/T-Mobile plans would cause interference. FCC regulations adopted in March treat direct-to-device services using terrestrial spectrum as secondary to primary satellite spectrum allocations. [SpaceNews]

NASA and ESA have finalized an agreement about NASA's contributions to ESA's ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission. The agencies signed an agreement Thursday where NASA will provide thrusters, radioisotope heating units and launch services for the mission, scheduled for launch in late 2028. The NASA contributions replace components previously provided by Roscosmos before ESA halted cooperation when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. NASA's fiscal year 2025 budget proposal projected spending $339 million on the Rosalind Franklin mission through fiscal year 2029. [SpaceNews]

Startup Inversion Space is offering the Defense Department "warehouses in space" for rapid delivery of cargo. The company says it has plans to store cargo in space that could be landed any place on Earth within an hour using return capsules it is developing. The company is launching its first demonstration mission as soon as this fall to test its reentry technologies. The company declined to disclose specific customers but the U.S. Air Force is a clear potential adopter. [SpaceNews]

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Other News

Russia launched a classified payload Thursday. A Soyuz-2.1b rocket lifted off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome at 5:21 p.m. Eastern carrying multiple satellites. Russian officials did not disclose additional details about the payloads. The trajectory of the launch originally suggested that it carried a Bars-M military cartography satellite, but later information now indicates the launch carried a different, unspecified payload. [RussianSpaceWeb]

Emails have revealed concerns within NASA about a proposed private servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA and SpaceX announced a study in the fall of 2022 to examine the feasibility of using a Crew Dragon spacecraft to reboost or potentially service Hubble, a proposal backed by billionaire Jared Isaacman's Polaris program. NASA has not provided any updates since the completion of that report last year, but internal emails show some opposition to the concept, including by former astronauts who worked on Hubble on earlier shuttle servicing missions. They expressed concern about the risks to both astronauts conducting spacewalks to upgrade Hubble as well as to the telescope itself. Isaacman said earlier this year that he blamed opposition to the proposal on internal NASA resistance to let others try to repair the telescope. [NPR]

The Office of Space Commerce is extending a commercial pathfinder program for its space traffic coordination project. The office said Thursday it is extending agreements with five companies providing space situational awareness data and services by a month, through the end of June. The extension brings the combined value of the awards made earlier this year to $15.5 million. The contracts are a part of an effort by the office to test the ability to incorporate commercial data into its planned Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS) project. [Office of Space Commerce]

NASA officials see prospects for greater space cooperation with South Korea. At an event Thursday at South Korea's embassy in Washington, agency officials said they expect more opportunities for South Korea to collaborate on NASA science missions. The Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute is supporting SPHEREx, a NASA astrophysics mission in development for launch next year. [Yonhap]

NASA's streak continues as the best place to work among government agencies. NASA ranked first among large agencies in the annual survey by the Partnership for Public Service released Thursday. NASA has held the top spot for 12 consecutive years. [NASA]

Everyone Wants Faster Speeds

"People always said, up until about 18 months ago, 'I don't think it's even possible. You can't connect it. The link budget doesn't close. It's not going to work. You're never going to get basic connectivity.' Now, the question is, 'When are we going to have 5G?'"

– Dan Dooley, chief commercial officer of Lynk, discussing his company's work to provide 3G connectivity to mobile phones through its satellites during a panel discussion Thursday at International Telecoms Week.