 | Top Stories
A review chartered by NASA concluded that it is not possible to operate the Chandra X-Ray Observatory at the funding levels proposed by NASA. The Operations Paradigm Change Review, conducted by a team of scientists this spring and presented Tuesday, found that the proposed sharp cuts in NASA's fiscal year 2025 budget proposal ruled out any options for continued operations of Chandra. The committee did find approaches that would allow a cut of about a third in Chandra's budget, but with significant reductions in its scientific productivity. The same committee looked at several options to handle smaller proposed cuts in the Hubble Space Telescope budget that include reducing instrument modes and operations. NASA plans to announce its decision on how to reduce the budgets of the two space telescopes in mid-September. [SpaceNews]
Raytheon and Avio are joining forces to produce solid rocket motors for military applications. The companies announced Tuesday a strategic partnership that will leverage Avio's existing manufacturing and engineering capabilities in Italy to produce motors for military needs, addressing shortages in the U.S. defense industrial base. The partnership with Avio follows Raytheon's recently announced collaboration with Nammo to establish new solid rocket motor manufacturing lines in the U.S. [SpaceNews]
The European Space Agency is growing its presence in the United Kingdom for research and workforce development. ESA and the U.K. government announced Tuesday that ESA will expand its European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications, exploring the potential for a space quantum technologies laboratory in the country and collaboration in in-space servicing, assembly and manufacturing capabilities. The U.K. also announced 2.1 million pounds ($2.7 million) of funding for programs tackling space industry skills gaps. [SpaceNews]
Orbital Insight won a National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) contract for geospatial information services. The company, recently acquired by Privateer, received a $2 million contract to provide services for tracking illicit maritime activity in the Indo-Pacific region. NGA said 82 bids were received for the award, and 12 finalist teams were selected by a panel of analysts and collection managers from various agencies. The award is the first for NGA's new "Commercial Solutions Opening" program. [SpaceNews]
The U.K.'s SaxaVord Spaceport expects to be ready to host its first orbital launch this fall. A spaceport executive said Tuesday at the Farnborough International Airshow that it expects to get the final license it needs for hosting orbital launches by September. The spaceport's first launch will be the inaugural flight of Rocket Factory Augsburg's RFA ONE rocket, which is scheduled to go through a series of static-fire tests there in the near future ahead of the launch. The spaceport is also slated to host the "U.K. Pathfinder" flight by Lockheed Martin using ABL Space System's RS1 rocket, but the spaceport acknowledged that schedule is uncertain after the recent RS1 test mishap. [SpaceNews]
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| Other News
The SmallSat Alliance industry group has a new executive director. The organization announced Tuesday that Steve Nixon had stepped down and will be replaced by Angel Smith, a former Marine pilot and congressional staffer who most recently was a Microsoft executive. The SmallSat Alliance is a coalition of more than 50 companies in the small satellite ecosystem that lobbies for government investments in relevant technologies to maintain U.S. leadership in the field. [SpaceNews]
Thales says that its space business is not performing as well as other sectors. The company said Tuesday that its space business would have a negative operating profit margin due to falling demand for commercial communications satellites and costs of restructuring weighing down the company's stock despite better performance in other markets. Airbus has also suffered losses on its space business, leading to reports that the two companies might combine their space activities in some way. Thales CEO Patrice Caine called those reports rumors that have emerged from time to time, and that the company's focus was on "Plan A," or restructuring the business over the next three years. [Reuters]
Initial environmental tests of NASA's VIPER rover, which the agency said last week it would cancel, are underway. Speaking at a conference Tuesday, the mission's project scientist said that VIPER has completed vibration and acoustic tests without any problems, and was optimistic that other tests would not turn up any issues with the robotic lunar rover that would further delay its launch or increase its cost. NASA officials defended the decision to cancel VIPER, noting that the Griffin lander that will carry it to the moon could also face delays. Scientists at the meeting criticized the cancellation decision, noting the rover is nearly complete and will perform studies of lunar ice not possible by other missions planned for the foreseeable future. [SpacePolicyOnline.com]
The budget for India's space agency ISRO is going back up after recent declines. A new budget released by the Indian government Tuesday would allocate 130.4 billion rupees ($1.55 billion) for the space agency in 2025, a 4% increase from 2024. ISRO's budget had fallen the previous two years after a peak of 139.5 billion rupees in 2022. The government is also allocating 10 billion rupees for a venture capital fund to support Indian space startups. [CNBC TV18]
NASA announced new awards to fund space sustainability research. NASA said Tuesday it is providing $550,000 for five projects led by university researchers to examine aspects of space sustainability. Three of the projects are related to the policy and economics of orbital debris and two will examine issues regarding space sustainability on the moon. The research supports NASA's broader Space Sustainability Strategy that the agency released in April. [NASA]
| |  | No Foolin'
"The next stage for us, when we identified we wanted to build a vertical launch spaceport, was to get a planning application in. So here in the United Kingdom, we go to the local council. They checked the calendar when we arrived and said, 'We're about to build a spaceport, we're going to launch rockets up into space,' to make sure it wasn't the first of April. They rather doubted we were sane at the time."
– Scott Hammond, deputy chief executive and operations director of SaxaVord Spaceport, discussing at the Farnborough International Airshow Tuesday initial efforts to win approvals to build the spaceport in the Shetland Islands.
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