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A North Korean rocket carrying a reconnaissance satellite exploded after launch Monday. The rocket lifted off at about 9:44 a.m. Eastern from North Korea's Sohae Satellite Launching Ground, but the rocket appeared to explode in flight. North Korea's official news service confirmed the failure, blaming it on a new engine that uses liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants. The rocket was carrying Malligyong-1-1, a reconnaissance satellite. North Korea's Chollima-1 rocket suffered two launch failures last year before placing a spy satellite into orbit last November, but this appears to be a different, or at least modified, rocket. Japan, South Korea and the United States condemned the launch for violating U.N. Security Council resolutions regarding ballistic missile technology development. [Yonhap]
NASA and Boeing are moving ahead with another Starliner launch attempt this weekend. At a briefing Friday, officials said they concluded a helium leak in one thruster in the spacecraft's service module did not need to be repaired before launch, since the leak, traced to a damaged seal in a flange, can be managed even if it were to grow significantly. During that review, though, engineers discovered a "design vulnerability" with the overall propulsion system where an unlikely, but not impossible, series of failures could prevent Starliner from performing a deorbit burn. NASA and Boeing have developed a backup deorbit burn mode that could be used in the event those failures happened. The launch is scheduled for Saturday, with backup opportunities Sunday as well as June 5 and 6. [SpaceNews]
SpaceX is also targeting early June for its next Starship test flight. The company announced Friday it is projecting a launch of the fourth Starship/Super Heavy mission no earlier than June 5, pending an updated license from the FAA. The mission will focus on being able to successfully return both the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage after both were destroyed during their descent on the previous launch in March. SpaceX said the Starship upper stage broke up on reentry on the March flight because of a loss of attitude control that resulted in excess heating of the spacecraft, while Super Heavy suffered failures of Raptor engines on its boostback and landing burns. SpaceX said it has implemented changes to address both issues. [SpaceNews]
A Chinese spaceplane has released an object into orbit. The object was released from the spaceplane on Friday, based on U.S. Space Force tracking data, and may be either a satellite or piece of hardware ejected before the end of the mission. The object could also be part of rendezvous and proximity operations demonstrations by the spaceplane, something that vehicle did on its previous mission. Chinese officials have released few details about the spaceplane since its launch last December. [SpaceNews]
A Chinese company has filed plans for a 10,000-satellite constellation. Shanghai Lanjian Hongqing Technology Company, or Hongqing Technology, filed a notice with the ITU last week for the Honghu-3 constellation, featuring 10,000 satellites in 160 orbital planes. Hongqing Technology is linked to launch vehicle developer Landspace. The Honghu constellation plan appears to be the third 10,000-plus satellite megaconstellation planned by Chinese entities, following the national Guowang plan and the Shanghai-backed G60 Starlink proposal. [SpaceNews]
Chinese rocket company Deep Blue Aerospace has secured new funding for its reusable rocket plans. The company announced it has recently closed Series B and B1 funding rounds that raised tens of millions of dollars. Deep Blue Aerospace plans to launch its first Nebula-1 rocket from a new commercial spaceport at Wenchang, Hainan island, before the end of the year. It will also attempt to land the rocket's first stage using retropropulsion and landing legs. Nebula-1 will initially be able to place up to 2,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit while a larger Nebula-2 rocket will have 10 times the payload capacity. [SpaceNews]
The Space Development Agency (SDA) plans to procure two separate ground systems in support of its experimental missile defense satellites. The first program, dubbed Advanced Fire Control Ground Infrastructure (AFCGI), will establish a cloud-based ground system at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama to control missile-tracking experiments like a constellation of satellites called Foo Fighter. SDA will also award a separate Advanced Fire Control Mission Integration (AFCMI) contract for processing and integrating the fire-control tracking data. SDA said it split the ground systems into separate contracts because ground mission integration and data mission integration require distinct skill sets. [SpaceNews]
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An Electron successfully launched a NASA Earth science cubesat Saturday. The Electron lifted off from Rocket Lab's New Zealand launch site at 3:41 a.m. Eastern and placed the first of two PREFIRE cubesats into sun-synchronous orbit. The second will be launched on another Electron in the next few weeks. The PREFIRE, or Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment, mission will use the cubesats to measure the infrared emissions at the poles, filling in gaps in data about those regions that can be used to improve climate models. [SpaceNews]
NASA and the Indian space agency ISRO are still in discussions about flying an Indian astronaut to the International Space Station. The United States and India, in a joint statement after a June 2023 summit meeting, stated their intent to fly an Indian astronaut to the station by the end of 2024, but neither government had provided updates since then. The U.S. ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti, told Indian media last week that plans were "still on track" to fly an Indian astronaut before the end of the year. But NASA, in a statement late Friday, said that details were still being finalized, and only then would NASA determine training requirements and a schedule. [SpaceNews]
Amazon Web Services expects generative AI to play a role in space. More than 60% of the company's space and aerospace customers are already using some form of AI in their businesses now, an AWS executive said. AWS has created a "generative AI for space" cell of a handful of people to engage with cloud customers to help develop next-generation capabilities using new deep-learning models in topics such as geospatial analytics, spacecraft design and constellation management. [SpaceNews]
Earth imaging company Satellogic has laid off 13% of its staff. The company said in a filing with the SEC late Friday that it laid off 34 employees as part of "previously announced and ongoing efforts to reduce operational costs and control spending." Satellogic laid off 110 people last year as the company, which went public in a SPAC merger in 2022, seeks to reduce costs to compensate for revenue growth that has been slower than projected. Satellogic also raised $30 million last month in a convertible note agreement with cryptocurrency company Tether. [SpaceNews]
South Korea's space agency is open for business. The Korea Aerospace Administration, or KASA, formally started operations Monday. Legislation earlier this year authorized the formation of KASA, which has a budget this year of $556 million and 110 employees. Yoon Young-bin, first administrator of KASA, said the agency had several goals to advance the country's aviation and space industries, including plans for a lunar lander mission by 2032. [Korea Herald]
Amazon is planning to deorbit its first two Project Kuiper satellites. The Protoflight spacecraft, launched last October, have successfully completed planned on-orbit tests, the company said last week, and the spacecraft will lower their orbits with onboard propulsion over the next several months. Amazon said it is gearing up manufacturing of operational Kuiper satellites that will be launched starting in the next few months, but did not disclose details about its launch plans. [GeekWire]
NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft has arrived in Florida for final launch preparations. The spacecraft, built at JPL, flew across the country on a C-17 aircraft last week to the Kennedy Space Center. The spacecraft will undergo final checks, including installation of its solar arrays that were delivered separately to KSC, before its launch in October on a Falcon Heavy. [NASA/JPL]
| |  | The Week Ahead
Tuesday: - Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying the ESA/JAXA EarthCARE Earth science spacecraft at 6:20 p.m. Eastern.
Wednesday: - Chinese Coastal Waters: Scheduled launch of a Ceres 1S rocket from a barge carrying an unidentified payload.
- Online: The University of Washington School of Law hosts "The Present and Future of Space Security" at 3:30 p.m. Eastern.
Thursday: - Singapore: Asia Satellite Business Week by Novaspace includes sessions on the Asia Pacific satellite industry.
- Baikonur, Kazakhstan: Scheduled launch of a Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying the Progress MS-27 cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station at 5:42 a.m. Eastern. The spacecraft will dock with the station Saturday.
- Xichang, China: Scheduled launch of a Long March 3B rocket carrying an unspecified payload at 8:20 a.m. Eastern.
- Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 7:09 p.m. Eastern.
Thursday-Friday: Saturday: | | | |
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