 | Top Stories
China's Chang'e-6 spacecraft successfully landed on the far side of the moon Saturday to collect samples to return to Earth. The Chang'e-6 lander made a soft landing at 6:23 p.m. Eastern Saturday, according to the China National Space Administration, touching down within Apollo Crater, located in the South Pole Aitken Basin on the lunar farside. The lander is designed to collect up to two kilograms of samples and place them in a capsule to be launched back into lunar orbit, where the Chang'e-6 orbiter will capture it to return to Earth later this month. The mission is China's fourth successful lunar landing in four attempts, and the second on the far side of the moon. It is also the third spacecraft to land on the moon this year after Japan's SLIM and Intuitive Machines' IM-1 missions. [SpaceNews]
A problem with a ground computer scrubbed a Starliner launch attempt Saturday. The computer glitch halted the countdown less than four minutes before the scheduled 12:25 p.m. Eastern launch of a crewed test flight of the spacecraft, calling off the launch for the day. United Launch Alliance later said that a power supply unit in part of one computer rack in a ground system, part of a set of three redundant computers, had malfunctioned and has since been replaced. The launch is now scheduled for Wednesday at 10:52 a.m. Eastern, with another launch opportunity on Thursday morning. The Starliner spacecraft itself was in good condition, and a helium leak studied after a previous launch attempt had diminished. [SpaceNews]
The Space Development Agency (SDA) is offering new opportunities for commercial spacecraft providers. SDA released Friday its Hybrid Acquisition for Proliferated LEO (HALO) solicitation, which seeks to establish a pool of pre-approved vendors eligible to compete for upcoming demonstration projects. Through HALO, selected vendors will be eligible to bid on future demonstration prototype projects, with multiple contracts expected to be awarded annually. The program is designed specifically to attract newer commercial players to try their hand at rapid prototyping and spaceflight demonstrations. [SpaceNews]
A Japanese billionaire has canceled plans to take a trip around the moon on SpaceX's Starship. Yusaku Maezawa announced Saturday that he was calling off the dearMoon mission, where he and eight artists would have flown around the moon on Starship. He cited delays in Starship's development which had pushed back the mission from its original date of 2023. Maezawa signed a contract for the mission in 2018, becoming SpaceX's first commercial Starship customer and making what Elon Musk called a "non-trivial" down payment. Some of the people Maezawa selected to fly with him on dearMoon said they were stunned by the announcement and were not consulted, adding that they were willing to wait for years to fly the mission. [SpaceNews]
Ground network specialist ST Engineering iDirect is looking to carve out a place in the emerging direct-to-smartphone market. The company sees opportunities in helping satellite operators manage large numbers of devices than come in and out of coverage zones. The company is also looking to use its network management expertise to provide billing support and guard against interference concerns threatening to hold the market back. ST Engineering iDirect announced a strategy in March for a unified platform centered around virtualized, standards-based multi-orbit networking tools that could support the direct-to-smartphone market, although the company says that work is still at a very early stage. [SpaceNews]
A parachute line that was not properly cut is the likely reason why one of New Shepard's parachutes did not fully open on its latest flight. One of three parachutes did not fully inflate on the NS-25 suborbital flight last month, although the capsule landed safely. At a briefing Friday, NASA officials said they were briefed by Blue Origin about the issue to see if there may be any commonality with Starliner's parachutes. That investigation found that a line that reefs, or controls the expansion, of the parachutes was not cut as intended, keeping the parachute's throat closed. Blue Origin is still working to determine why the line was not cut, but NASA said there was no cause for concern for Starliner's parachutes. [SpaceNews]
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| Other News
SpaceX launched a set of Starlink satellites Friday night. A Falcon 9 lifted off at 10:37 p.m. Eastern from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and placed 23 Starlink satellites into orbit. The launch was the 14th in May for SpaceX, a record for the company. The launch also set a new company record for fastest turnaround time for the droneship used in the landing, which supported another Falcon 9 launch three and a half days earlier. [Spaceflight Now]
Rocket Lab scrubbed an Electron launch of a NASA Earth science cubesat Friday night. The company said an "out-of-family sensor reading" halted the countdown, after previously holding and recycling the countdown. The company later reported that liquid oxygen temperatures were out of bounds for the launch, causing the scrub. Rocket Lab has rescheduled the launch for as soon as Tuesday night. The rocket is carrying the second of two PREFIRE satellites for NASA to measure radiated heat in the polar regions; the first launched on another Electron May 25. [Space.com]
A Progress cargo spacecraft docked with the ISS Saturday morning. The Progress MS-27 spacecraft, designated Progress 88 by NASA, docked with the station's Poisk module at 7:43 a.m. Eastern, a little more than two days after its launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The spacecraft is carrying about three tons of crew supplies and propellant for the station. [NASA]
Another gyro problem has paused operations of the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA said Friday that the spacecraft went into safe mode May 24 due to an "ongoing" issue with one of the three remaining gyros. The agency didn't explain why it waited a week to disclose the problem but said it would provide an update early this week. [NASA]
Indian regulators may not issue final approvals for satellite broadband services like OneWeb and Starlink until next year. The country's Department of Telecommunications is working with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to set up a pricing framework for satellite spectrum, after which TRAI will start consultations with stakeholders, a process expected to take at least six months. That would delay final approvals for companies to provide satellite broadband services to at least early 2025, officials said. [Financial Express]
Two former astronauts formally entered the Astronaut Hall of Fame on Saturday. The induction ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex welcomed former shuttle-era astronauts David Hilmers and Marsha Ivins to the 109-person hall. Hilmers flew on four shuttle missions, including two classified Defense Department flights, and Ivins on five, including missions to both Mir and ISS. [collectSPACE]
| |  | The Week Ahead
Tuesday: Tuesday-Friday: Wednesday: - Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 1:12 a.m. Eastern.
- Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Rescheduled launch of Boeing's CST-100 Starliner Crew Flight Test mission on an Atlas 5 at 10:52 a.m. Eastern.
- Online: The Beyond Earth Institute holds a webinar on "The Next Steps Toward Artificial Gravity" at 12:30 p.m. Eastern.
Wednesday-Friday: Wednesday-Sunday: - Berlin: The ILA Berlin air show features several space-related sessions, including an announcement of the target launch date for the first Ariane 6 flight.
Thursday: Friday: - Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 6:58 p.m. Eastern.
Saturday: - Spaceport America, N.M.: Scheduled flight of Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity suborbital spaceplane on the Galactic 07 mission, the final commercial flight of that vehicle.
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