 | Top Stories
The 20 Starlink satellites on last Thursday's Falcon 9 launch were lost as SpaceX and the space industry grapple with the fallout of the launch failure. SpaceX said Friday that the satellites, deployed in an orbit with a very low perigee, could not counteract the atmospheric drag and would reenter. That was the result of a malfunction of the upper stage engine when it attempted to perform a circularization burn. SpaceX said there was a liquid oxygen leak in that upper stage that led to the engine anomaly. The company has put Falcon launches on hold while it investigates the problem, a process that will take weeks to months. The FAA said it will be involved in the investigation and will only allow the rocket to return to flight after concluding there is no impact on public safety. NASA, one of SpaceX's biggest customers, said it is also involved in the investigation. [SpaceNews]
A Chinese rocket has created debris in low Earth orbit. The latest Long March 6A launched July 4 and placed two remote sensing satellites into orbit. However, data from a Swiss space tracking company, S2a systems, shows several objects in the vicinity of the upper stage left in orbit from that launch. The nature and cause of the debris is unclear. It could be related to passivation of the stage or broken insulation. S2a systems also detected around 60 objects surrounding a Long March 6A upper stage launched in late March. [SpaceNews]
A planned $3 billion military contract seeks to incorporate space-based and other data into an AI-powered intelligence platform. The program, known as Long-Range Enterprise Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Activity (LEIA), seeks to procure a wide spectrum of commercial data and advanced AI-driven analytics, integrating information from ground, aerial and space-based platforms. It is intended to monitor potential threats across the Indo-Pacific region, a focal point of global geopolitics and a priority theater for the Department of Defense. The $3 billion LEIA contract is expected to be awarded later this year. [SpaceNews]
NASA is making sustained progress on a space sustainability strategy. In a speech Friday at the Summit for Space Sustainability, NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said the agency was working on several fronts to implement the Space Sustainability Strategy it announced in April. That includes developing frameworks for assessing space sustainability and an analysis of uncertainties in collision risk assessments. The agency has selected an official in its space technology directorate as an interim director of space sustainability, leading that work, as it continued the process to hire a person to take the job on a permanent basis. [SpaceNews]
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| Other News
NASA's ESCAPADE Mars smallsat mission is on track to launch this fall. During a talk Monday at the COSPAR Scientific Assembly, the mission's principal investigator said the twin smallsats, built by Rocket Lab, are wrapping up final testing. The spacecraft are slated to launch on the first New Glenn rocket by Blue Origin, although NASA has not disclosed a specific launch date beyond this fall. The ESCAPADE spacecraft will go into orbit around Mars to study the planet's magnetosphere and its interaction with the solar wind. [SpaceNews]
A Royal Air Force officer is joining the leadership of the U.S. Space Force. Air Marshal Paul Godfrey will serve as as assistant chief of space operations for future concepts and partnerships after three years of being the first leader of U.K. Space Command. Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said he brought Godfrey into his headquarters staff to promote cooperation with a key ally. In the job Godfrey will advise Saltzman in matters involving space superiority and resilience through international partnerships. [Space Force]
Amazon's Project Kuiper is seeking a license to operate in India. Government officials say that Amazon has filed applications to get a license to operate satellite broadband services in the country, and could be approved in the near future. The Department of Telecommunications has already issued licenses to Eutelsat OneWeb and Reliance Jio, which uses SES satellites. SpaceX is also seeking a license for Starlink but the government reportedly has "unresolved concerns" with the company. [The Economic Times]
Some astronomers are reconsidering the definition of "planet" to include objects outside of our own solar system. The current definition formally approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 2006 limits planets to objects that orbit our sun, and thus does not include thousands of known exoplanets orbiting other stars. One proposal would expand the definition to include objects orbiting other stars, including brown dwarfs and stellar remnants. It would also use a range of masses, from one-third of the mass of Mercury to 13 times the mass of Jupiter, to determine if the object was the right size to be a planet. The proposal could be taken up at an IAU meeting next month. [Cosmos Magazine]
| |  | The Week Ahead
Monday-Wednesday: Monday-Saturday: Tuesday: - New Orleans: NASA will roll out the Space Launch System core stage for the Artemis 2 mission at the Michous Assrmbly Facility ahead of its shipment to the Kennedy Space Center.
- Greenbelt, Md.: The Maryland Space Business Roundtable holds a luncheon with Jinni Meehan, assistant director for space policy at the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Tuesday-Thursday: Saturday: - Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand: Scheduled launch of an Electron rocket carrying a Capella Space radar imaging satellite at 3:15 p.m. Eastern.
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