 | Top Stories
A Falcon Heavy rocket successfully launched a NOAA weather satellite Tuesday. The Falcon Heavy lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 5:26 p.m. Eastern and deployed the GOES-U satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit four and a half hour later, after three burns by the upper stage. GOES-U, which will be renamed GOES-19 after reaching GEO, is the fourth and final satellite in the GOES-R series of advanced geostationary orbit weather satellites. It will replace GOES-16 at the GOES-East location at 75 degrees west longitude in GEO. GOES-U carries the same instruments as the earlier GOES-R satellites as well as a new compact coronagraph instrument for monitoring the sun. The launch was the 10th for the Falcon Heavy and the second for NASA, which managed the development and launch of the satellite for NOAA. [SpaceNews]
The U.S. Space Force is moving forward with plans to deploy smaller, cheaper GPS satellites based on commercial designs. The Space Systems Command earlier this month issued a solicitation through the Space Enterprise Consortium for the Resilient Global Positioning System (R-GPS) program, seeking innovative design concepts. Space Systems Command will pick five concepts for further study. The program seeks to augment the existing GPS constellation in medium Earth orbit with smallsats that will provide a subset of the primary GPS signals. The goal of R-GPS is to provide an additional layer of resilience for military, allied and civilian users. [SpaceNews]
Collins Aerospace says it is "descoping" work for NASA on a new spacesuit for the International Space Station. The company won a NASA task order in late 2022 to develop a spacesuit for ISS spacewalks that would be offered to the agency under a services contract. However, the company said Tuesday the company and NASA mutually agreed to descope that work, but did not elaborate on the reasons why. Industry sources believe the company has run into cost and schedule problems with the suit's development that make the fixed-price contract no longer acceptable to the company. NASA has a separate contract with Axiom Space focused on lunar spacesuits, but with an option to develop one for the space station as well. [SpaceNews]
Sift, a startup working on ways to better manage telemetry data, has raised $17.5 million. The company says the Series A funding, led by Google Ventures, will allow it to expand its staff and accelerate work on a platform intended to make it easier for engineers to handle hardware sensor data. Sift, founded by former SpaceX engineers, is working with aerospace companies as well as those in defense, energy and transportation. [SpaceNews]
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| Other News
The commercial arm of India's space agency ISRO has signed a deal to launch an Australian satellite. NewSpace India Ltd. said Wednesday that it will launch the 450-kilogram Optimus spacecraft built by Space Machines Company, an Australian startup developing satellite servicing technologies. The spacecraft will launch on a Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) in 2026 under a contract valued at $18 million. The contract was announced at the Indian Space Congress conference where the head of ISRO, S. Somanath, said he sought to launch SSLV 20 to 30 times a year. [Mint]
Shareholders of Astra Space are filing suit over a deal to take the company private. The suit, filed in a Delaware court this week, seeks access to company documents about the deal finalized in March where the company's co-founders would take the company private at $0.50 per share. Shareholders believe the deal may undervalue the company. [Bloomberg Law]
Virgin Galactic's chief pilot is retiring. The company announced Wednesday that Dave Mackay is stepping down after 19 years at the company, including three suborbital spaceflights on the company's VSS Unity vehicle. He will be succeeded by CJ Sturckow, a former NASA astronaut who flew on four shuttle missions and joined Virgin Galactic in 2013, flying several suborbital missions on Unity. The company retired Unity earlier this month to focus its development on the new Delta class of suborbital spaceplanes, scheduled to enter service in 2026. [Virgin Galactic]
The Great Red Spot seen on Jupiter today may not be the same storm that was first discovered centuries ago. A new study argues that the storm, first seen in the 1600s in early telescope observations, may have disappeared and later reformed, based on more than 100 years of observations of Jupiter in the 18th and 19th centuries that did not record it. Scientists noted that, in recent decades, the current Great Red Spot has shrunk, and speculate that it, too, may disappear at some point and reform later. [Sky & Telescope]
| |  | Bold Prediction
"Honestly, I don't think Starship will be a game-changer or a real competitor. This huge launcher is designed to fly people to the moon and Mars. Ariane 6 is perfect for the job if you need to launch a four- or five-ton satellite. Starship will not eradicate Ariane 6 at all."
– Toni Tolker-Nielsen, ESA director of space transportation, in an interview about the upcoming inaugural launch of the Ariane 6.
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