Falcon 9 Grounded Again - 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, Falcon 9 is grounded again, details on the CST-100 Starliner's return, and more. Our Top Story FAA pauses Falcon 9 launches to investigate failed booster landing By Jeff Foust, August 28, 2024 Falcon 9 launches are temporarily on hold as the Federal Aviation Administration looks into any public safety implications of the failed landing of a booster early Aug. 28. In an Aug. 28 statement, the FAA stated it was aware of the incident earlier that day when a Falcon 9 booster landed on a droneship on an otherwise successful launch of 21 Starlink satellites. Upon landing, flames erupted from the booster's base and the vehicle tipped over seconds later. While the incident caused no injuries or damage beyond the loss of the booster, the FAA noted in its statement that it is requiring an investigation. That will, for the time being, prevent SpaceX from conducting additional launches. Other News From the Week COMMERCIAL Firefly names space industry veteran Jason Kim as new CEO Kim joins Firefly from Millennium Space, a Boeing subsidiary specializing in small satellites primarily for U.S. government agencies, where he served as CEO. He previously held executive positions at Raytheon Intelligence & Space, and Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. Valve problem blamed for Peregrine lunar lander failure Astrobotic released Aug. 27 a report by a failure review board that examined the Peregrine Mission One flight in January. That mission suffered a propellant leak hours after launch that kept the spacecraft from attempting a lunar lander. The spacecraft instead flew through cislunar space for 10 days before reentering over the South Pacific. With successful airlock test, Lockheed Martin invests in inflatable space structures Lockheed Martin recently tested an inflatable airlock structure to determine creep factors, or how much it wears and tears over time. With new safety data in hand, the company plans to invest in bigger inflatable structures for space. CIVIL NASA selects Intuitive Machines for south pole lunar lander mission NASA announced Aug. 29 that it awarded a task order valued at $116.9 million through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program to Intuitive Machines. That company's Nova-C lander will deliver six payloads, with a combined mass of 79 kilograms, to the south polar region of the moon in 2027. NASA's inspector general predicts continued cost growth for SLS mobile launch platform The Aug. 27 report by NASA's Office of Inspector General (OIG) concluded that NASA could end up spending $2.5 billion on a contract with Bechtel to design and build Mobile Launcher 2 (ML-2), the launch platform that will be used by the larger Block 1B version of SLS, and may not be ready to support a launch until 2029. Starliner return from ISS set for Sept. 6 Starliner was to remain at the ISS for as little as eight days before returning to Earth with Williams and Wilmore on board. However, NASA repeatedly extended the spacecraft's stay as engineers focused on the thruster problems. The agency decided Aug. 24 to return Starliner uncrewed, concluding uncertainty about how those thrusters would perform during critical maneuvers made it too risky to have astronauts on board. LAUNCH Blue Origin flies NASA-funded scientist and space tourists on New Shepard suborbital flight New Shepard lifted off into cloudy skies at the company's Launch Site One in West Texas at 9:07 a.m. Eastern. The crew capsule, with 6 people inside, reached a peak altitude of 105.3 kilometers above sea level before landing 10 minutes and 8 seconds after liftoff. Galactic Energy launches six satellites with third sea launch Galactic Energy confirmed launch success within an hour of liftoff. Aboard were six remote sensing satellites for commercial customers. Three of the satellites were Yunyao-1 spacecraft, equipped with GNSS occultation (GNSS-RO) and infrared imaging payloads, intended to provide meteorological data for commercial firm Yunyao Yuhang. Help Us Decide! Do you know a company, individual, or team that deserves to be recognized? Nominate them today! Categories include Emerging Space Company, Mission Excellence, Innovative Technology, and more. Submit Your Nomination Here Save the Date: The 2024 SpaceNews Icon Awards will be held Friday, Dec. 6, at Washington, D.C.'s Intercontinental Hotel at the Wharf. Stay tuned for more details. OPINION US leaders have been warned to focus on GPS and PNT to protect the nation By Dana A. Goward, August 28, 2024 In Ukraine and the Middle East, smart weapons are degraded or neutralized. Drones and missiles are deflected or turned back on attackers. In the Baltic, South China Sea and elsewhere, denial and manipulation of satellite navigation signals has become a daily part of great power competition. These stark demonstrations of vulnerabilities have highlighted long-standing concerns about the capability of GPS and other American positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) capabilities. Recently, security and navigation experts published two documents that offer strong critiques of the low priority and attention senior leadership has given to PNT issues over the last 20 years. Space weather: prioritization, not policy, is the missing piece in U.S. resilience By Brian Cavanaugh, August 26, 2024 A recent SpaceNews op-ed outlined an impassioned and emphatic need to get space weather policy right. While the passion behind this article is appreciated, the major gap in improving the United State's space weather resilience is not policy. It is the need for prioritization and sufficient funding to appropriately implement the deep backlog of legislative responsibilities and extant policy guidance and recommendations to improve the space weather resilience of our infrastructure and communities. 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. Stellar Dispatch A premier press release service designed to elevate your company's visibility and target your reach to our audience. Publish your company's press release today. ReOrbit Completes PDR Phase for UKKO Mission By ReOrbit Moog Unveils New, Radiation-Hardened Space Computer to Support the Next Generation of High-Speed Computing On-Orbit By Moog Inc.

Sent to: generalastronomy110.stnirp@blogger.com Unsubscribe SpaceNews, 100 Fillmore Street, 5th Floor, Denver, CO 80206, United States

NASA selects Intuitive Machines for 2027 lunar mission 🌗

Jason Kim takes the helm at Firefly; Starliner set for uncrewed return next week

A SpaceNews daily newsletter | Friday, August 30, 2024 Top Stories NASA selected Intuitive Machines for a robotic lunar lander mission in 2027. The agency announced Thursday it awarded the company a task order valued at $116.9 million for the mission, which will deliver a set of six science and technology demonstration payloads to the south polar region of the moon. The award is the fourth for Intuitive Machines through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. It was also the first CLPS award NASA made in nearly 18 months, after program managers said they wanted to incorporate lessons learned from the first two CLPS missions into the program. NASA expects to award another CLPS mission by the end of the year. [SpaceNews] Boeing's CST-100 Starliner will return to Earth next Friday without a crew on board. NASA said late Thursday that a flight readiness review approved plans to have Starliner undock from the ISS at 6:04 p.m. Eastern Sept. 6, landing six hours later at White Sands, New Mexico. That undocking would take place exactly three months after Starliner arrived at the station with two astronauts on board for the Crew Flight Test mission. NASA announced last Saturday that concerns about the performance of the thrusters on Starliner led them to have Starliner come back empty, with astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams remaining on the ISS until early next year. [SpaceNews] Raytheon Technologies won an Air Force Force Research Lab contract to develop satellite communications terminals for military aircraft. The three-year contract, worth $51.7 million, is part of the Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet (DEUCSI) program that aims to create advanced satcom networks leveraging commercial space internet constellations. Under the contract, Raytheon will develop multi-band, high-throughput  satellite communications antennas that can be integrated onto various military aircraft. [SpaceNews] Firefly Aerospace has hired the former CEO of Millennium Space Systems as its new chief executive. Firefly announced Thursday that Jason Kim will start as CEO Oct. 1. He succeeds Bill Weber, who left the company in mid-July after misconduct allegations. The announcement came a day after reports that Kim had left Millennium Space, a Boeing-owned smallsat manufacturer, for reasons then undisclosed. Kim, in a statement, noted he was familiar with Firefly from having worked with the company on the launch of Victus Nox, a responsive space mission last year using a Millennium-built satellite launched on Firefly's Alpha rocket. [SpaceNews] Chinese researchers say the country needs to improve its space situational awareness (SSA) capabilities to keep pace with the United States. A study by researchers, many of whom are affiliated with the Space Engineering University in Beijing, assessed U.S. SSA space-based capabilities that involve programs like the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) and Silentbarker. The authors concluded China needs to enhance its capabilities, although Western analysts note that China already appears to be doing so. [SpaceNews]   Other News Blue Origin flew six people, including a NASA-funded scientist, on a suborbital New Shepard mission Thursday. The vehicle lifted off from the company's West Texas facility at 9:07 a.m. Eastern, landing 10 minutes later after reaching a peak altitude of more than 105 kilometers. The six people on the NS-26 mission included Rob Ferl, a University of Florida professor who conducted experiments on how gene expression in one type of plant changes when exposed to different phases of flight, including microgravity. His flight was supported by NASA, the first time the agency funded the flight of a researcher on a commercial suborbital vehicle. [SpaceNews] Verizon is starting an emergency messaging service using satellites for some Android smartphones. The company announced this week a partnership with Skylo, using L-band services from GEO satellites to provide messaging services for some Google and Samsung phones when out of reach fo terrestrial networks. Verizon said it will offer the service at no charge to customers. Apple started providing a similar service to iPhone users two years ago using Globalstar satellites. [SpaceNews] Starlink has become entangled in a dispute between Elon Musk's X social network and a Brazilian judge. Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Starlink's bank accounts in the country frozen to guarantee payment of fines levied against X. Musk, who has stridently attacked de Moraes on X, said that SpaceX would continue to provide Starlink services in Brazil at no charge while its accounts are frozen. X itself could be blocked in Brazil as part of the months-long dispute linked to efforts by the Brazilian government against misinformation on social media platforms. [CNBC] Human spaceflight is a priority for the head of South Korea's new space agency. Yoon Young-bin, administrator of the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA), said at a conference Thursday that he wants the agency to "foster new astronauts" through training programs and international partnerships. One South Korean, Yi So-yeon, has been to space so far, flying on a short-duration mission to the ISS in 2008 through an agreement with Russia. [JoongAng Daily] A NASA smallsat has successfully deployed a solar sail. NASA said Thursday that Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) smallsat deployed its sail, according to telemetry relayed back to Earth earlier in the day. High-resolution images of the deployed sail will be downlinked next week. NASA will now test the ability of the 80-square-meter sail to adjust the orbit of the spacecraft. [NASA] Note: FIRST UP will not publish on Monday in observance of Labor Day. We will be back on Tuesday.   Sailing, Not Swimming "The European Service Module number 3 is actually in the water. It's left Bremen. It's in the Atlantic right now." "It's not in the water." "It's not in the water. You're right, Cathy. It is floating on a boat that is in the water." – Amit Kshatriya, deputy associate administrator for NASA's Moon to Mars Program, and Cathy Koerner, NASA associate administrator for exploration systems development, discussing at a NASA Advisory Council committee meeting Thursday the transport of the Orion service module for the Artemis 3 mission on a ship en route to Florida.   Help Us Decide! 🏆 Do you know a company, individual, or team that deserves to be recognized? Nominate them today! Categories include Emerging Space Company, Mission Excellence, Innovative Technology, and more. 🗳️ Submit Your Nomination Here 📆 Save the Date: The 2024 SpaceNews Icon Awards will be held Friday, Dec. 6, at Washington, D.C.'s Intercontinental Hotel at the Wharf. Stay tuned for more details. Forward First Up to a friend or Subscribe for yourself Copyright © 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 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.