 | Top Stories
Blue Origin has secured a place in the national security space launch market with a contract Thursday. The company, along with SpaceX and ULA, won National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 3 Lane 1 launch contracts Thursday that are worth up to a combined $5.6 billion over five years. The three companies will compete for orders over the contract period in fiscal years 2025 through 2029, with at least 30 Lane 1 missions expected. The three companies were the only ones that met the criteria for less-demanding Lane 1 missions, although there will be on-ramps annually starting in fiscal year 2025 to bring new companies onto the contract. The Phase 3 contract is a big win for Blue Origin, marking the first time it has been selected to launch sensitive national security satellites.[SpaceNews]
House appropriators cut the proposed budget for the Space Force. The House Appropriations Committee approved a fiscal year 2025 defense spending bill Thursday that includes $28.7 billion for the Space Force, $900 million less than requested by the administration. The cuts included $185.9 million from an account for procuring GPS 3F satellites, while appropriators expressed skepticism about the service's plans for "Resilient GPS" using commercial technologies. Other cuts were spread among R&D and procurement programs, affecting both classified and unclassified projects. [SpaceNews]
A new report says growth in the commercial satellite industry is now being fueled by launch, manufacturing and ground equipment. The study released Thursday by the Satellite Industry Association estimated the global satellite industry generated $285 billion in revenue in 2023, a 2% increase from 2022. Growth in launch, satellite manufacturing and ground equipment offset a decrease in satellite services caused by declining demand for satellite TV. Excluding satellite services, the industry would have seen growth of 5% in 2023. [SpaceNews]
Virgin Galactic will perform a reverse stock split to boost its share price. The company announced after markets closed Wednesday that it would perform a 1-for-20 split after the close of trading Friday, converting 20 existing shares of company stock into 1 new share. The move is intended to increase the share price, which has been below $1 for much of the last two months, triggering a delisting warning from the New York Stock Exchange. Virgin Galactic shares fell 14% in trading Thursday to $0.73. [SpaceNews]
China's experimental reusable spaceplane has been using a smaller spacecraft to test proximity operations, potentially even capturing the object. The spaceplane released an object first spotted May 24 by the U.S. Space Force and designated Object G. Observations of the two objects show that the spaceplane approached Object G June 7-8, likely to test rendezvous and proximity operations. While it is unclear if the spaceplane briefly retrieved and re-released Object G, their close approach suggests intentional proximity operations. The spaceplane performed two to three similar operations on its prevous mission in 2022-2023. [SpaceNews]
LeoLabs has won a contract to develop a new type of space surveillance radar. The company said Thursday it won a $1.245 million contract from AFWERX to develop the S-band 2-D Direct Radiating Array, a radar the company says is designed to track launches as well as satellites in very low Earth orbit. The company had been working on the technology with internal funding, but the AFWERX award will allow it to complete development and deploy it at a site by mid-2025. [SpaceNews]
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| Other News
NASA has rescheduled a spacewalk that was postponed Thursday but provided few details about what caused the scrub. NASA postponed a spacewalk by astronauts Tracy C. Dyson and Matt Dominick shortly before it was scheduled to start Thursday morning, citing a "suit discomfort" issue. NASA said late Thursday that the work that had been scheduled for that spacewalk will be done instead on a spacewalk scheduled for June 24. NASA, though, has declined to provide any specifics on the problem that prevented Thursday's spacewalk, and did not identify who will conduct the June 24 spacewalk. [NASA]
Aerospacelab has won a contract to build a debris tracking satellite for Vyoma. The 60-kilogram satellite will be ready for launch by the end of 2025 and carry telescopes for optical tracking of objects in low Earth orbit. Vyoma has two satellites being built by EnduroSat for launch at the end of this year and plans a 12-satellite constellation for debris tracking. The contract marks the second commercial customer for Aerospacelab's Versatile Satellite Platform-50 (VSP-50) platform following a recent order from California-based navigation constellation developer Xona Space Systems. [SpaceNews]
NGA is looking to industry for help in monitoring objects in orbit. The agency released a request for information this week seeking input from companies in the emerging non-Earth imagery (NEI) market, or imaging spacecraft, satellites and space debris in orbit. NGA said leveraging commercial NEI capabilities represents an opportunity to augment existing government systems. [SpaceNews]
Kayhan Space has unveiled a new tool for getting information on objects in Earth orbit. The company announced Friday the release of Satcat, which merges open-source data on spacecraft and debris with tools to simplify research and analysis. [SpaceNews]
Voyager 1 is returning science data from its instruments after engineers fixed a computer problem. NASA said Thursday that all four operational instruments on the spacecraft are providing data for the first time since a computer malfunction cut off communications in November. Engineers concluded that a corrupted computer memory chip caused the communications problem and rewrote flight software to correct it. At a committee meeting Thursday, Voyager's project scientist expressed hope that Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 could operate into the 2030s as controllers manage declining power levels. [SpaceNews]
Two astronomers will share a $1 million prize for their work in exoplanet science. David Charbonneau from Harvard University and Sara Seager from MIT won the 2024 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics, announced this week. Charbonneau pioneered the use of the transit technique for discovering exoplanets and studying their atmospheres, while Seager led theoretical study of exoplanet atmospheres. [Physics World]
| |  | Who Wouldn't?
"I would like more information on obtaining champions in Congress."
– Mike Wong, an astronomer at the University of California Berkeley, discussing efforts to win support for the Hubble Space Telescope given projected budget cuts during a meeting Thursday of the Outer Planets Assessment Group.
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