Crew Dragon May Bring ISS Crew Home - 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, the stranded Starliner crew may return home on a Crew Dragon, a Long March 6A launch produces over 700 pieces of orbital debris, and more. Our Top Story NASA considering returning Starliner astronauts on Crew Dragon By Jeff Foust, August 7, 2024 At an Aug. 7 briefing, NASA officials said they expect to decide around the middle of August if it is too risky to have astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who arrived at the station two months ago on Starliner, to return on the same spacecraft. That would require them to stay on the station while Starliner performs an automated undocking and return to Earth. In that scenario, NASA would fly the Crew-9 mission, whose launch was delayed one day earlier from Aug. 18 to no earlier than Sept. 24, with two people instead of four. Williams and Wilmore would then return with Crew-9 at the end of its scheduled mission in early 2025. Officials declined to disclose which of the current members of Crew-9 would be retained in that scenario and who would be reassigned to later missions. Other News From the Week LAUNCH Firefly signs multi-launch agreement with L3Harris L3Harris has signed a contract for up to 20 Firefly Alpha launches over a five year period. The deal includes two to four launches annually from 2027 through 2031, in addition to three Alpha launches already scheduled for 2026. The companies didn't disclose what satellites L3Harris would be launching. Chinese rocket stage breaks up into cloud of more than 700 pieces of space debris U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM) confirmed that a rocket breakup event producing hundreds of pieces of orbital debris following an Aug. 6 Long March 6A rocket launch that was carrying 18 flat panel Qianfan ("Thousand Sails") satellites. LeoLabs said Aug. 8 that it detected at least 700 and perhaps over 900 pieces of debris resulting from the launch. MILITARY U.S. Army seeks to expand space expertise among soldiers The U.S. Army is considering the creation of the Army Space Military Occupational Specialty (MOS), a dedicated space career field for enlisted soldiers. The move could significantly expand its pool of space experts and better equip land forces to face the technological challenges of modern warfare. U.S. Army gears up for space warfare, drawing lessons from Ukraine U.S. military planners anticipate that rival powers will adopt similar tactics in future conflicts to those used by Russia in the conflict in Ukraine, potentially leaving American forces in electronically contested environments where reliable satellite communications and navigation are no longer guaranteed. Voyager Space to maintain subcontractor role in Lockheed Martin's missile program Voyager, a space exploration and infrastructure company based in Denver, will provide a solid propulsion roll control system designed to stabilize the Next Generation Interceptor missile's flight trajectory. This follows a $94 million contract awarded to Valley Tech Systems in December 2021, shortly after it was acquired by Voyager. COMMERCIAL Hungary and Poland to join India on Ax-4 Axiom announced Aug. 5 the crew for Ax-4, its fourth private mission to the ISS. The mission will be commanded by former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who will be joined by India's Shubhanshu Shukla, Hungary's Tibor Kapu, and Poland's Sławosz Uznański. Viasat shares soar on government and aviation growth Viasat's shares rocketed 38% Aug. 8 after the geostationary fleet operator raised annual revenue expectations amid strong government and aviation broadband business growth. The Carlsbad, California-based company now expects slightly more than the flat revenue growth it previously forecasted for its fiscal year to the end of March. Virgin Galactic outlines economics of its future spaceplanes The company used an Aug. 7 earnings call less to discuss the company's second quarter financial results than to lay out its financial models for how the new Delta-class vehicles, currently scheduled to enter commercial service in 2026, will dramatically alter the company's bottom line. With each vehicle carrying six customers, the company projects flying 750 people a year at an average ticket price of $600,000, resulting in annual revenue of $450 million.  Rocket Lab fires Archimedes engine for the first time The company announced Aug. 8 that it performed the first static-fire test of Archimedes at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The test, which took place earlier this month, ran the methane/liquid oxygen engine to 102% of its rated power during a burn of undisclosed duration. AI BAE wins $48 million U.S. Air Force contract for data analytics platform The contract is to add new features and enhancements to a data analytics platform already used by military intelligence analysts called Insight. The Air Force Research Lab wants to improve the system's capabilities to integrate and analyze data from multiple sources, including sensors, satellites, drones, and human intelligence. Little Place Labs and Loft Orbital to test analytics in orbit Houston startup Little Place Labs announced a contract to deploy software to Loft Orbital's YAM-6 satellite, launched in March. The idea of deploying software to someone else's satellite, like it can be deployed in the cloud, is new for the space industry. OPINION In the West, ties between space and defense are strengthening By Bogdan Gogulan, August 7, 2024 One key finding of a recent RAND report was that Chinese leaders have perceived a global shift, with China rising to overtake the U.S. as the supreme world power. They also found that Chinese military leaders viewed the U.S. as a major threat and didn't want to work with the U.S. to stop global crises from escalating. It isn't surprising, then, that the U.S. and China are closely monitoring what one another does in space. These countries, after all, are the contestants in the new Space Race: the competition to become the world's dominant space power. It's certainly true that China, despite being a space-faring nation for decades, has ramped up its defensive efforts in recent years. And the U.S. has created the U.S. Space Force and the U.S. Space Defense Agency, or SDA – clear indications of how it understands the role of space in the world today. This is a real cultural shift. Partly owing to the regrettable outbreak of war in Ukraine and in the Middle East, defense budgets have been rising and a more pragmatic attitude about the space industry's role in national defense has prevailed. Practically, this means that governments in the West have a strong incentive to see the private space sector thrive. 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