🛰️ Lockheed Martin drop Terran Orbital bid

Plus, China launches lunar sample-return mission and SpaceX launches Maxar's first WorldView Legion satellite

A SpaceNews daily newsletter | Friday, May 3, 2024 Top Stories   China launched a mission Friday to return samples from the far side of the moon. A Long March 5 rocket lifted off from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center at 5:30 a.m. Eastern, carrying the Chang'e-6 spacecraft. Chang'e-6 will land on the lunar farside and collect up to two kilograms of samples to return to Earth nearly two months later. If successful, it will be the first mission to return samples from the moon's far side, and only the second spacecraft to land there after Chang'e-4. [SpaceNews] Lockheed Martin has withdrawn its bid to acquire smallsat manufacturer Terran Orbital. In an SEC filing late Thursday, Lockheed said it was withdrawing an offer made two months earlier to purchase the two-thirds of Terran Orbital it did not already own for $1 a share. The total value of the deal, including assuming or repaying Terran Orbital debt, was more than $500 million. Lockheed did not give a reason for withdrawing the deal but said it would continue to work with Terran, a supplier of smallsat buses for several Lockheed programs. Terran Orbital said it was continuing a strategic review started late last year to explore all options for the company. Shares in Terran Orbital fell 17% in after-hours trading. [SpaceNews] L3Harris will provide payloads for a set of hypersonic missile tracking satellites being built by Millennium Space. L3Harris said it will provide the payloads for the eight Fire-control On Orbit-support-to-the-war Fighter (Foo Fighter) that Millennium is building for the Space Development Agency under a $414 million contract awarded earlier this week. The selection of L3Harris as Millennium's payload supplier isn't a major surprise, given the company's expertise in providing advanced electro-optical infrared sensors and payloads for numerous U.S. military and intelligence satellites. [SpaceNews] Space capabilities are becoming a critical enabler for the Pentagon. Brig. Gen. Robert Hutt, director of plans and programs for the U.S. Space Force, said Thursday that it was clear that space has become the central nervous system of joint operations and a "critical part of the kill chains" for the Defense Department. "Kill chain" is a military term that describes the sequential steps involved in successfully targeting and eliminating an enemy threat. Hutt noted that the Space Force's budget has nearly doubled since the service's inception in late 2019. [SpaceNews] Other News One Falcon 9 launched the first WorldView Legion satellites for Maxar Intelligence Thursday. The rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 2:36 p.m. Eastern and placed the two satellites into orbit. The spacecraft are the first in a six-satellite constellation that will provide images at a resolution of 30 centimeters and triple Maxar's imagery capacity. Supply chain problems and other pandemic-related delays have extensively delayed the development of the WorldView Legion satellites. [SpaceNews] Another Falcon 9 launched a set of Starlink satellites Thursday evening. The Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 10:37 p.m. Eastern and placed 23 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit. The launch was the 19th for this Falcon 9 booster, while the launch earlier in the day from California features a booster making its 20th flight. [Space.com] A Crew Dragon spacecraft switched docking ports at the International Space Station Thursday. The Dragon, launched earlier this year on the Crew-8 mission, undocked from the forward docking port of the Harmony module at 8:57 a.m. Eastern and redocked to the module's zenith port nearly 50 minutes later. The maneuver frees up the forward port for Boeing's CST-100 Starliner, currently approved to use only the forward docking port. Starliner is scheduled to launch Monday night on its first crewed test flight. [NASA] The next Virgin Galactic suborbital flight is scheduled for next month. The company announced this week that the Galactic 07 mission will launch no earlier than June 8 from Spaceport America in New Mexico. The flight of the VSS Unity suborbital spaceplane will carry three private astronauts, two from the U.S. and one from Italy, and a researcher affiliated with Axiom Space. The flight will be the last for Unity, which Virgin Galactic is retiring to focus on developing its new Delta class of vehicles. [Virgin Galactic] Pre-Flight Entertainment "It's epic. I mean, you're in the Astrovan. It's got cushioned seats and, of course, it's got a big video screen in the back. And, as you would expect, two Navy test pilots, you know what movie we put on and, actually, asked them to edit it out and only put in the flying scenes and the dramatic scenes. Of course, it was Top Gun: Maverick. We will watch the same one on the way out to the pad Monday night." "We did watch the beach scene as well." – NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, when asked at a briefing Wednesday what it was like to ride in Boeing's new "Astrovan" crew transport to the launch pad during a recent dress rehearsal for their upcoming Starliner test flight.   Forward First Up to a friend or Subscribe for yourself Copyright © 2024 Multiverse Media Inc., All rights reserved. You signed up to receive this newsletter on Spacenews.com. At times you may receive marketing material. Our mailing address is: Multiverse Media Inc. 100 Fillmore St. 5th Floor Denver, CO 80206 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.