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Starship is gearing up for its fourth test flight this morning. Liftoff is scheduled for 8:50 a.m. Eastern from the company's Starbase test site at Boca Chica, Texas. The company's goal for this flight is to demonstrate the ability of the Starship upper stage to make it through reentry, where it broke up on the previous flight in March, and bring the Super Heavy booster back the ocean surface. [SpaceX]
Boeing's CST-100 Starliner is on its way to the International Space Station after its first crewed launch Wednesday. An Atlas 5 lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 10:52 a.m. Eastern carrying the Starliner spacecraft on its Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board. The launch went smoothly, although controllers reported late Wednesday they detected two new helium leaks in the spacecraft's propulsion system in addition to one found before launch. Mission managers say the leaks can currently be managed, allowing Starliner to proceed with a space station docking at 12:15 p.m. Eastern today. Starliner will remain at the station until at least June 14 to test spacecraft systems, then return to Earth for a landing at White Sands, New Mexico. [SpaceNews]
The Chang'e-6 ascent module, carrying samples collected from the far side of the moon, has docked with the mission's orbiter. The lunar orbit rendezvous and docking was completed at 2:48 a.m. Eastern Thursday, according to the the China National Space Administration, with the transfer of samples into a reentry capsule taking place about a half-hour later. The orbiter, or service module, will remain in lunar orbit for around two weeks, awaiting a window for a return to Earth. It will release the reentry capsule for reentry and landing around June 25. [SpaceNews]
Lockheed Martin has ordered up to 25 Alpha launches from Firefly Aerospace. Firefly announced the deal Wednesday, which includes 15 launches and options for up to 10 more through 2029. The first of those launches will take place later this year on the sixth flight of Alpha. Lockheed Martin was the customer for the rocket's fourth flight in December, which suffered a problem with the rocket's upper stage that stranded a Lockheed tech demo satellite in a low orbit. Lockheed said it still managed to achieve all its objectives for that mission despite the anomaly. [SpaceNews]
SES has demonstrated the ability to use its satellites to provide data relay services for spacecraft in low Earth orbit. In the test, an SES satellite in medium Earth orbit served as a link for a ground terminal simulating a LEO satellite provided by Planet. SES Space & Defense, the Luxembourg company's U.S.-based subsidiary, said the test was a success but did not provide technical details. SES is one of six companies that won NASA contracts to demonstrate commercial capabilities to replace the agency's TDRS satellite data relay network. [SpaceNews]
Slingshot Aerospace has developed a system that uses AI to identify anomalous behavior in satellites. The system, called Agatha, was developed under a DARPA contract and uses AI to find unusual patterns of operations in satellite operations, "needles in the haystack" that would be difficult for a human analyst to find. The system has found non-threatening anomalous spacecraft within operational commercial satellite networks that were later confirmed by the satellites' operators. The company said this could be a powerful tool for space domain awareness to not just track the positions of satellite also any patterns of use. [SpaceNews]
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| Other News
A small Chinese commercial rocket launched early Thursday. A Ceres-1 rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 1 a.m. Eastern, placing three satellites into orbit. The three satellites, TEE-01B and Naxing-3A and -3B, are all remote sensing spacecraft. The launch came after two Ceres-1 launches last week, one of which was from a barge. [Xinhua]
The first Ariane 6 launch is now scheduled for July 9. ESA and its partners on the program announced the launch date for the inaugural flight Wednesday at the ILA Berlin air show. ESA previously said it was targeting the first two weeks of July for the launch. The launch will primarily be a demonstration mission, carrying several cubesats, hosted payloads and reentry capsules. The last major milestone before the launch is a wet dress rehearsal scheduled for mid-June. [SpaceNews]
Astroscale shares soared in the company's first day of trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Wednesday. Shares closed up more than 60% in the company's initial public offering, giving the company a market capitalization of about $1 billion. The company announced plans to go public in May, raising more than $100 million to support its work on satellite servicing and debris removal technologies. [SpaceNews]
Japanese spacecraft propulsion company Pale Blue has raised additional funding. The company raised $8.5 million as an enlargement of an earlier Series B round that brought in $7.5 million in capital and loans last October. The company will use the funding to move into mass production of satellite thrusters using water vapor called Resistojet. The company successfully tested Resistojet in orbit last year on a 6U cubesat. [SpaceNews]
The U.S. military's vision of "disaggregated" satellite networks is gaining momentum. The Space Development Agency (SDA) has led the way with development of constellations for missile tracking and data relay, and the Space Force is now looking to emulate aspects of SDA's proliferated acquisition strategy. The service is laying out plans to augment or replace the Defense Department's backbone systems like protected communications, weather monitoring, and even GPS with clusters of smaller satellites. While large satellite systems are not going away, disaggregation is increasingly taking hold across the U.S. military's space architecture, the Space Force says. [SpaceNews]
A Russian cosmonaut is the first person to spend 1,000 days in space. Oleg Kononenko achieved that milestone Tuesday on the ISS during his fifth spaceflight. Earlier this year he broke the record of 878 days in space set by another Russian cosmonaut, Gennady Padalka. If Kononenko returns as scheduled in September he will have spent 1,110 days in orbit. [AP]
| |  | Does That Make Them Wizards?
"Now Butch and Suni do what they do best. They're test pilots, and they're going to test this thing from izzard to gizzard."
– NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, discussing the work astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will do testing the Starliner spacecraft during a post-launch briefing Wednesday.
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