Astronomy Prints 🌌: SpaceX breaks 10-day launch drought 🚀

Wednesday, June 19, 2024

SpaceX breaks 10-day launch drought 🚀

A SpaceNews daily newsletter | Wednesday, June 19, 2024

Top Stories

Lockheed Martin has won a contract worth up to $2.27 billion to build the next generation of geostationary orbit weather satellites. NASA announced Tuesday it awarded Lockheed a contract for the GeoXO satellites that includes firm orders for three satellites and options for four more. The new GeoXO spacecraft will be based on Lockheed Martin's modernized LM 2100 satellite bus. Lockheed built the GOES-R series of weather satellites as well, with the last of the series scheduled to launch next week. [SpaceNews]

NASA and Boeing are extending the stay of the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft at the International Space Station again. At a briefing Tuesday, officials said they had pushed back the undocking of Starliner to late June 25, with a landing in the early morning hours of June 26 at White Sands, New Mexico. The delay will give engineers time to wrap up analysis of thruster issues seen with the spacecraft as well as helium leaks. Officials said they are confident that neither problem poses a safety risk for the crew. Tests over the weekend confirmed good performance from all but one suspect thruster, while helium leak rates had diminished. NASA also announced it was revising plans for spacewalks at the station, with Mike Barratt taking the place of Matt Dominick on a spacewalk rescheduled for June 24. Dominick had reported unspecified "suit discomfort" issues when preparing for a June 13 spacecraft that was scrubbed. [SpaceNews]

Space antenna company CesiumAstro has raised an additional $65 million. The company announced the Series B+ round Tuesday led by Trousdale Ventures, increasing the total raised by the company to $156 million. CesiumAstro plans to expand its staff to bolster research and development and manufacturing both domestically and internationally. The company is developing phased array antennas for use on spacecraft and entered the in-flight connectivity market last year. [SpaceNews]

Spanish startup FOSSA has raised $6.8 million for a network of tracking cubesats. The company said Tuesday that it raised the Series A round that Portuguese early-stage investor Indico Capital Partners co-led with the venture arm of Nabtesco, a Japanese aerospace component maker. The company has launched 17 picosatellites to date to demonstrate Internet of Things services, although all but one of those satellites have since deorbited. The new funding will support work on around 20 slightly larger cubesats to start offering full commercial connectivity services for remote monitoring and tracking devices. [SpaceNews]

Exploration Laboratories, or ExLabs, a startup focused on space resources, has secured $1.9 million in funding through a Space Force agreement. The Tactical Funding Increase (TACFI) from SpaceWERX, split between government and private investors, will allow the company to advance technology for an autonomous capture and acquisition robot called ACQR. It is designed to work with a spacecraft ExLabs is developing called Space Exploration and Resource Vehicle to manipulate large objects in space. [SpaceNews]

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It Was Cool

"When that booster kicked in, I though, 'oh, damn.' I thought the damn thing exploded. And then, equally, when that thing separated from the capsule, that's a pretty noisy thing too as well. And I said, 'oh, God.' I know I'm going to get back because Leland promised me I was going to get back. So it was cool, it was good."

– Ed Dwight, the 1960s-era Black astronaut candidate who finally went to space last month on Blue Origin's New Shepard, describing the flight during a panel moderated by former NASA astronaut Leland Melvin at the National Space Council Black Space Week Forum on Monday.

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