Russian Debris Briefly Threatens ISS - SpaceNews This Week

Top stories of the week from SpaceNews

Welcome to our weekly roundup of the top SpaceNews stories of the week, brought to you every Friday! This week, the ISS crew took shelter after a Russian satellite broke up, more details on the Chang-e'6 far side lunar return samples, Firefly's trip to Sweden, and more. Our Top Story Russian satellite breaks up, creating debris in low Earth orbit By Jeff Foust, June 27, 2024 A Russian satellite in low Earth orbit broke up June 26, creating more than 100 pieces of trackable debris and briefly causing the International Space Station crew to take shelter. The satellite, Resurs P1, suffered some kind of event at around 12 p.m. Eastern June 26, U.S Space Command (USSPACECOM) said in a June 27 statement, creating more than 100 pieces of debris. The statement did not indicate any potential cause for the breakup. What caused the spacecraft to break up is not clear. The leading explanation is the spacecraft itself broke apart because it was not properly passivated at the end of its mission. Passivation involves removing sources of energy, such as draining batteries and venting tanks, that have been linked to past satellite breakups. Other News From the Week CIVIL China gears up for deep space missions after collecting 1,935 grams of lunar far side samples The Chang'e-6 reentry capsule landed back on Earth June 25, successfully ending a 53-day mission. It was airlifted to Beijing and opened June 26 to retrieve the sample canister. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced Friday that it contains 1,935.3 grams of samples. Russian spy satellite reportedly continues suspicious maneuvers Slingshot reports that the Luch 2 satellite has been positioning itself near several communications satellites in what appears to be an ongoing signals intelligence-gathering mission. Luch 2's latest move was a "large maneuver" on June 23 that would indicate that the satellite is moving towards an Intelsat communications satellite. MDA Space receives contract for next phase of lunar Gateway robotic arm development MDA Space announced June 27 it received the $1 billion Canadian ($730 million) contract to continue work on the Canadarm3 system. The contract covers Phase C, the final design of the system, as well as Phase D, the assembly and test of it. The work is scheduled to run through March 2030. LAUNCH Firefly to launch Alpha rockets from Esrange in Sweden The Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) and U.S. space transportation company Firefly Aerospace announced a collaborative agreement June 27 for launches of Firefly's Alpha rocket from Esrange spaceport starting in 2026. Pad modifications at Esrange Launch Complex 3C are reportedly underway. Beta Project Kuiper broadband services pushed to early 2025 Amazon had earlier aimed to start deploying more than 3,200 satellites in the first half of 2024 to begin beta trials with potential customers, including Verizon in the United States. However, the company now expects to ship the first production satellites this summer to Florida for the launch with United Launch Alliance from its recently opened factory in Kirkland, Washington. OPINION The Missing Piece of Satellite's Multi-Orbit Ambitions: A Big-picture Vision By Mark Steel, June 25, 2024 With the rapid rollout of multi–constellation satellites in lower orbits, the time has come for an industry long living in the shadow of terrestrial communications to finally emerge and shine as a primary enabler of connectivity. That is, if we can get out of our own way. The endgame is clear: satellite terminals that are as easy to use as current cell phones, and satellites that are able to talk to each other without human intervention. What multi–constellation roaming gives you is resilience: the strength of leveraging different orbits to provide enhanced connectivity. I've been part of these discussions and planning exercises but, so far, it's been a lot of talk and minimal progress. Let's face it: revolutionizing an industry isn't easy. China may need to adjust its approach toward SpaceX By Chengxin Zhang, June 24, 2024 The Space Force no longer has the luxury of time. It needs industry help to stay ahead. By Dave Broadbent, June 28, 2024 Space Mining doesn't need more international regulation from the U.N. By Chris Tolton, June 26, 2024 SpaceNews is committed to publishing our community's diverse perspectives. Whether you're an academic, executive, engineer or even just a concerned citizen of the cosmos, send your arguments and viewpoints to opinion@spacenews.com to be considered for publication online or in our next magazine. Copyright (C) 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 USA Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe

Amazon delays Project Kuiper tests 🌐

Plus: Russian satellite breakup, MDA wins $1B contract, Viasat's new terminals

A SpaceNews daily newsletter | Friday, June 28, 2024 Top Stories Amazon says initial tests of its Project Kuiper broadband constellation will be delayed to next year. Amazon had earlier aimed to start deploying more than 3,200 satellites in the first half of 2024 to begin beta trials with potential customers later in the year. Amazon now says the first production satellites will launch on an Atlas 5 in the fourth quarter of this year. The company provided the revised schedule at the opening of a new factory in Kirkland, Washington, where it will produce up to five Kuiper satellites a day. The company has a July 2026 deadline from the FCC to have half the constellation in orbit. [SpaceNews] A defunct Russian satellites has broken up in low Earth orbit, creating potentially hundreds of pieces of debris. U.S. Space Command said Thursday that the Resurs P1 remote sensing satellite suffered a breakup event around 12 p.m. Eastern Wednesday. The debris from the breakup briefly caused the International Space Station crew to shelter in their spacecraft. LeoLabs said it was tracking at least 180 pieces of debris from the event. Resurs P1 is a 6,000-kilogram spacecraft that was decommissioned in late 2021 and is in a low orbit expected to decay by the end of the year. It was not clear if the breakup was caused by an event on the spacecraft itself or a collision. [SpaceNews] Another Russian satellite continues to make unusual maneuvers in geostationary orbit. Slingshot Aerospace said Thursday that the Luch 2 spacecraft made a large maneuver several days ago, suggesting it was moving towards the Intelsat 10-02 satellite. Since its launch, Luch 2 has been notably active, making several significant maneuvers during its first 14 months in orbit that have taken it close to several communications satellites in GEO. That has raised suspicions that the spacecraft is eavesdropping on the signals being routed through those satellites. [SpaceNews] China's Chang'e-6 spacecraft returned nearly two kilograms of samples from the far side of the moon. Chinese officials said Friday that the capsule that landed Tuesday had 1,935.3 grams of material the mission collected from Apollo Crater on the lunar farside. The mission was designed to collect up to two kilograms, and the amount returned is more than the 1,731 grams brought back by Chang'e-5 in 2020. Chinese officials also confirmed plans to launch the Tianwen-2 asteroid sample return and comet rendezvous mission in 2025, followed by the Tianwen-3 Mars sample return mission and Tianwen-4 Jupiter mission, both around 2030. [SpaceNews] MDA Space has received a contract worth $1 billion Canadian ($730 million) from the Canadian Space Agency to continue work on a robotic arm for the lunar Gateway. The company said Thursday it received the contract to cover Phase C design work and Phase D assembly and testing work for Canadarm3. That robotic arm, based on systems developed for the shuttle and station, is Canada's contribution to the Gateway. [SpaceNews]   Other News Viasat won an order for eight satellite communications terminals for Spain's military's maritime patrol aircraft. The contract, announced Thursday, is for terminals that will be installed in Spain's fleet of C295 maritime surveillance aircraft. The terminal is a hybrid Ka- and Ku-band aviation satcom terminal designed to communicate with constellations in different orbits and frequencies. [SpaceNews] Firefly Aerospace plans to launch its Alpha rocket from a Swedish site. The company said Thursday that it reached an agreement with the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) to launch Alpha from Esrange Space Centre in northern Sweden starting in 2026. Firefly and SSC say they expect the site to support Alpha launches for commercial, civil and defense customers. The announcement comes days after Firefly said it will launch Alpha from Wallops Island in Virginia. All Alpha launches to date have taken place from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, including one rescheduled for Sunday or Monday. [SpaceNews] Weather has pushed back the launch of the next H3 rocket. JAXA said Friday that it has rescheduled the H3 launch of the ALOS-4 Earth observation satellite to late Sunday, citing a forecast of poor weather for the previous launch date of Saturday. The launch will be the third for the H3, after an unsuccessful launch last year and successful second launch earlier this year. [JAXA] A Supreme Court ruling on a case involving the Securities and Exchange Commission could affect SpaceX's lawsuit against the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The court, in a ruling Thursday, did not weigh in on whether the SEC's administrative law judges are unconstitutional, leaving in place a ruling from a lower court that they are. SpaceX has made a similar argument about the NLRB's administrative law judges in its efforts to throw out cases the board has filed against the company. Legal experts, though, say differences between the agencies may limit the power of any precedent. [Bloomberg Law]   Who Could That Be "There's somebody else around here that needs to learn from this kind of build quality in the process." – San. Maria Cantewell (D-Wash.), speaking Thursday at an event to open Amazon's Project Kuiper satellite factory in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland, Washington, a comment seen as a veiled reference to Boeing. [GeekWire]   Join our expert panelists as they dive into the growing race for moon resources. REGISTER HERE 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.

SpaceX awarded ISS deorbit contract 🌌

Plus: next Vulcan won't wait for Dream Chaser, Planet's 17% layoffs, and Intelsat orders Starfish life extension

A SpaceNews daily newsletter | Thursday, June 27, 2024 Top Stories ULA will launch an inert payload, rather than Sierra Space's Dream Chaser, on the second Vulcan launch. ULA announced Wednesday that the Cert-2 mission, scheduled for September, will carry only that inert payload and instrumentation after Sierra Space informed ULA that there was "significant risk" for Dream Chaser being ready in time for that launch as previously planned. ULA wants to fly Cert-2 in September to win Space Force certification for Vulcan, allowing it to perform two national security missions before the end of the year. Sierra Space said it understood ULA's decision and will work with the company to find a new launch slot for Dream Chaser, a cargo spaceplane that will fly to the International Space Station. [SpaceNews] SpaceX won a $843 million NASA contract to build a vehicle to help deorbit the ISS. NASA said Wednesday it selected SpaceX to build the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle (USDV), a spacecraft that will dock to the station near the end of its life and perform the final maneuvers needed to bring the station down over an empty region of the ocean. Neither NASA nor SpaceX disclosed details about SpaceX's design for the USDV. NASA, in a white paper released Wednesday, said that deorbit vehicle is "the safest and only viable method" of decommissioning the station at the end of its life, currently planned for around 2030. [SpaceNews] Intelsat will be the first commercial customer for Starfish Space's life extension vehicle. The Otter spacecraft being developed by Starfish will launch between late 2025 and mid 2026, first docking with a retired Intelsat satellite in a graveyard orbit to test its capabilities before then docking with an active Intelsat spacecraft, taking over stationkeeping to extend its life. The companies did not disclose financial details of the agreement. Starfish launched a prototype spacecraft, Otter Pup, last year, but a problem with the transfer vehicle carrying it prevented it from carrying out its original mission. [SpaceNews] Planet is laying off 17% of its workforce. The company said in an SEC filing Wednesday it was laying off 180 employees as the company works to become profitable. Planet did not disclose details of specific parts of the company impacted by the layoffs, the second in less than a year. Planet reported a net loss of $29.3 million in the quarter ending April 30, and executives at the time said they were making good progress towards profitability. [SpaceNews] House appropriators have advanced a bill that would cut funding for NASA science and education programs. The House Appropriations commerce, justice and science subcommittee favorably reported a fiscal year 2025 spending bill Wednesday that includes a little less than $25.2 billion for NASA, $205 million below the agency's request. The cuts are concentrated in science and education, although with few details about which programs would be affected. The bill funds other parts of NASA, including exploration, space technology and space operations, at or above the request. The full House Appropriations Committee will take up the bill next month. [SpaceNews] A Chinese approach to "worst-case thinking" could lead to a space crisis with the United States, according to a new report. The RAND Corporation report released this week concluded that China's approach to space competition with the United States could increase the risk of unintended military escalation. That approach includes deep suspicions in China about American activities, growing assertiveness by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and a historical reluctance to engage in crisis communication. The report recommends the U.S. should avoid investing heavily in establishing crisis communications mechanisms with the PLA, as these efforts are unlikely to be reciprocated in good faith. [SpaceNews]   Other News SpaceX set another booster reuse record with a Starlink launch this morning. A Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 7:14 a.m. Eastern carrying 23 Starlink satellites. The Falcon booster, making its record-setting 22nd flight, landed on a droneship. The launch was the 350th flight of the Falcon 9. [Spaceflight Now] China will launch the first satellites for a megaconstellation in August. Eighteen satellites for the Starlink G60 constellation will launch on Aug. 5, according to Chinese reports, likely on a Long March 6A rocket from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. The Starlink G60 constellation is designed to have more than 12,000 satellites providing broadband global access. [SpaceNews] Urban Sky has won a NASA contract to develop a wildfire detection system using stratospheric balloons. The $2.6 million award from NASA's Earth Science Technology Office, announced Wednesday, will go towards development of a small thermal infrared sensor system that can fly in the stratosphere on "microballoons" that can detect and monitor wildfires, transmitting information about them directly to firefighters on the ground. The company argues that this approach has several advantages over satellite-based systems, including better resolution and the ability to loiter over an area for hours or days. [SpaceNews] Wyvern will use Loft Orbital satellites to expand its hyperspectral imaging constellation. The companies said Wednesday that Wyvern will have access to hyperspectral imagers on Loft Orbital satellites, allowing it to virtually expand its constellation. Wyvern has launched three cubesat-class satellites, built by AAC Clyde Space, with hyperspectral instruments to serve agricultural and other markets. Loft Orbital says the agreement is part of its efforts to offer "virtual missions" on its satellites that carry imagers and other payloads. [SpaceNews] An ongoing stock sale values SpaceX at $210 billion. The tender offer, where the company allows employees to sell stock to investors, set a price of $112 per share, higher than expected, boosting the company's valuation from $180 billion in December. Sources said strong demand for the shares led to the higher price. That valuation would be the highest for a privately held American company, trailing only China's ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. [Bloomberg] After months of effort, scientists and engineers have gotten an instrument on the Perseverance Mars rover working again. NASA said in January that a dust cover on an instrument called SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) on the rover's robotic arm was stuck partially open, keeping the instrument from operating. Engineers concluded that a motor used for opening the cover, as well as focusing the instrument, had malfunctioned. Efforts to shake the cover open eventually worked, and scientists then worked to calibrate the instrument to find the best focus. Earlier this month, scientists said that SHERLOC's camera and spectrometer were operational again. [NASA/JPL]   Smoking Hazards "If you were to go to our storage facility — maybe I shouldn't say where in Florida — where we are pre-staging the large solid rocket motors, you would see 35 of those stacked up like cordwood. It's nearly four million pounds of propellant. In my long career of building solid rocket motors, I believe this is the maximum number of solid rocket motors that have ever been built up in one place before ever in history. Definitely a non-smoking zone." – ULA CEO Tory Bruno, discussing on a media call Wednesday how the company had built up inventories of rocket components to allow it to ramp up launches of its Vulcan vehicle once it is certified by the Space Force for national security missions.   Join our expert panelists as they dive into the growing race for moon resources. REGISTER HERE 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.