Starliner's Extended Stay - SpaceNews This Week

Top stories of the week from SpaceNews

Welcome to our weekly roundup of the top SpaceNews stories of the week, brought to you every Friday! This week, Starliner's stay at the ISS was extended once again, Rocket Lab celebrates new orders and a successful launch, and more. Our Top Story Starliner ISS stay extended to complete thruster and helium leak testing By Jeff Foust, June 18, 2024 NASA and Boeing have again extended the stay of the CST-100 Starliner at the International Space Station to permit engineers to take more time wrapping up their analysis of two key issues encountered during the mission: thruster problems and helium leaks on the crewed spacecraft. At a June 18 briefing, NASA announced that Starliner's return to Earth on the Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission, which had already been postponed twice to June 22, had been pushed back again. Starliner is now scheduled to undock from the station at 10:10 p.m. Eastern June 25 and land at White Sands, New Mexico, at 4:51 a.m. Eastern June 26. Other News From the Week LAUNCH Rocket Lab launches first Kinéis satellites on 50th Electron The launch is the first of five Rocket Lab will perform for Kinéis under a contract announced in September 2021. Each launch will place five satellites weighing 28 kilograms each into orbit to build out a constellation to provide IoT services. Synspective orders 10 Rocket Lab Electron launches The companies announced late June 17 the contract, which covers launches of individual StriX synthetic aperture radar (SAR) spacecraft on Electron rockets from 2025 through 2027. China takes small step towards the moon with rocket test A Long March 10 first stage test article was fired in Fengtai district of Beijing, Friday, June 14. The stage started normally, operated steadily, and shut down on schedule, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) stated via its WeChat channel. COMMERCIAL Isar Aerospace raises $70 million Isar Aerospace announced June 20 the extension of the Series C round it raised in March 2023. The new funding brings the total value of the round to more than 220 million euros. The company has raised more than 400 million euros to date. ExoTerra raises $8 million to boost propulsion system production The latest investment will help ExoTerra expand staff and facilities, ExoTerra CEO Michael VanWoerkom, told SpaceNews by email. ExoTerra will "add the assembly, test equipment and staff we need to increase output from eight modules per month to 20 per month, and successfully deliver on customer commitments," VanWoerkom said. AI Starlab Space adds Palantir as strategic partner on commercial space station effort The companies announced the partnership June 20 but did not disclose financial details associated with it. Starlab described the partnership as a "strategic teaming agreement" similar to one it announced in October 2023 with Northrop Grumman. Under the agreement, the companies will use Palantir software to develop a digital twin, or software-based model, of the Starlab station. That digital twin will be used to optimize operations of the station, detect potential issues and identify preventative maintenance. OPINION America's first Black astronaut candidate finally flew. Now it's time to make more By Caleb Henry, June 19, 2024 Ed Dwight thought he would be an astronaut six decades ago, back when President John F. Kennedy's administration, in its push for the moon, realized that the impact of America reaching our closest celestial neighbor would be magnified greatly if the crew included a person of color. Now, after Blue Origin finally sent Dwight to space decades later, the scarcity of Black Americans in space and the broader space industry remains a stark shortcoming that some groups, like the Patti Grace Smith Fellowship, are working to solve. SpaceNews is committed to publishing our community's diverse perspectives. Whether you're an academic, executive, engineer or even just a concerned citizen of the cosmos, send your arguments and viewpoints to opinion@spacenews.com to be considered for publication online or in our next magazine. Copyright (C) 2024 Multiverse Media Inc.. All rights reserved. You signed up to receive this newsletter on Spacenews.com. At times you may receive marketing material. Our mailing address is: Multiverse Media Inc. 100 Fillmore St. 5th Floor Denver, CO 80206 USA Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe