 | Top Stories
NASA expects to decide by the middle of the month whether the astronauts who flew to the International Space Station on Boeing's Starliner can return on that spacecraft. At a briefing Wednesday, agency officials said they are considering a contingency plan where Starliner returns to Earth without Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the astronauts who flew to the station on Starliner in June. NASA would instead launch the upcoming Crew-9 Crew Dragon mission with just two crew instead of four, freeing up seats for Williams and Wilmore to return to Earth at the conclusion of that mission early next year. NASA engineers are continuing to study thrusters on Starliner that malfunctioned during its approach to the ISS two months ago, with no consensus yet whether they are safe enough for a crewed return to Earth. [SpaceNews]
Firefly Aerospace has won a contract from L3Harris for up to 20 Alpha launches. Firefly announced Wednesday it won the contract, which includes two to four launches annually from 2027 through 2031. The companies had an earlier contract for three Alpha launches in 2026. The deal comes two months after Lockheed Martin agreed to buy between 15 and 25 Alpha launches through 2029. [SpaceNews]
A Spanish defense contractor is acquiring a smallsat manufacturer as part of efforts to set up a space company. Indra, one of Spain's largest defense contractors, said Wednesday it will acquire Deimos, a smallsat manufacturer, from Spanish energy giant Elecnor for an undisclosed sum. The deal is projected to close by the end of the year. Indra's shareholders approved a plan in June to spin off its space assets into a new company, dubbed Space NewCo, with the goal of generating a billion euros in annual revenue by the end of the decade. [SpaceNews]
Another Long March 6A launch has created debris in low Earth orbit. Both commercial space tracking company Slingshot Aerospace and the U.S. Space Force said they were tracking debris from Tuesday's launch of the first set of Qianfan, or "Thousand Sails," satellites on a Long March 6A. Slingshot said it was tracking more that 50 pieces of debris. Launches of the rocket last month, and in November 2022, also created debris. The state-owned Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, which designed and produces the rocket, has yet to comment on the incidents. [SpaceNews]
The U.S. Army is taking cues from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine to prepare for a new era of space-based warfare. Army officials said at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium this week that the war in Ukraine has provided a stark demonstration of modern electronic warfare capabilities. U.S. military planners now anticipate that rival powers will adopt similar tactics in future conflicts, potentially leaving American forces in electronically contested environments where reliable satellite communications and navigation are no longer guaranteed. The Army is also exploring offensive capabilities that could potentially deny adversaries access to their own satellite networks in times of war. [SpaceNews]
PLD Space plans to soon start building launch facilities for its Miura 5 rocket in French Guiana. The Spanish startup says work converting the Diamant site at the Guiana Space Center for use by Miura 5 will begin by October. PLD Space, Germany's Isar Aerospace and a handful of other small European launchers are working with France's CNES space agency to convert the site, abandoned decades ago, into a multi-use facility. PLD Space expects to conduct a first launch of Miura 5 next year and enter commercial service in 2026. [SpaceNews]
| | | 
| Other News
The number of smallsats projected to launch in the next decade is declining as satellites get bigger. A study by Novaspace presented at the Small Satellite Conference this week projected 14,500 smallsats will launch in the next decade, down from 23,000 smallsats in last year's forecast. The company said it no longer includes Starlink satellites in its forecast because those satellites now weigh more than 500 kilograms, the threshold it uses to define smallsats. Such spacecraft have been getting heavier in recent years as developers seek to pack more capabilities into them. The report also warned that, despite the large number of smallsats still expected to launch in the next decade, more than 90% are being developed internally or are otherwise captive and thus not open to competition among smallsat manufacturers. [SpaceNews]
Oxford Space Systems says it successfully deployed its Yagi very high frequency, high gain antenna. The antenna is installed on the Ymir-1 maritime communications satellite developed by AAC Clyde Space, Saab and Orbcomm. The antenna, which was stowed in a 1U cubesat volume before deployment, enables maritime communication through the VHF Data Exchange System. [SpaceNews]
Little Place Labs announced a contract to deploy software to Loft Orbital's YAM-6 satellite. The Houston-based startup plans to use its software on YAM-6 to support maritime domain awareness applications through real-time processing of data collected by the satellite. Loft Orbital launched YAM-6 in March with a variety of cameras and sensors for use by multiple customers. [SpaceNews]
Future lunar exploration requires significant infrastructure. Specialists from NASA, industry and academia took part in a workshop last month with a goal of orchestrating an enduring human presence on the lunar landscape. That work includes developing landing pads, habitats and other structures needed for crewed missions that have to handle a harsh environment that includes moonquakes and sandblasting by regolith thrown up by the plumes of spacecraft landing and taking off. [SpaceNews]
A private astronaut mission is now scheduled to launch late this month. The Polaris program announced Wednesday that it has scheduled the launch of Polaris Dawn for Aug. 26. The mission will fly four people on a Crew Dragon and features the first spacewalk on a private mission. The mission has suffered extensive delays, most recently when a Falcon 9 launch anomaly bumped its launch form the end of July. The delayed Crew-9 mission allowed Polaris Dawn to launch late this month. [Space.com]
Jon McBride, an astronaut who flew on an early shuttle mission, has died at 80. McBride, a U.S. Navy pilot, was part of the "TFNG" astronaut class of 1978 and flew as pilot on STS-41G in 1984, his only trip into space. He later worked at NASA Headquarters before retiring in 1989, going to work in private industry and running unsuccessfully for governor of West Virginia in 1996. [collectSPACE]
| |  | Optimizing for Maximum Attention
"I'm a natural introvert, so it's unnatural for me to want to be 'on show.' And I think Elon [Musk] is the inverse of that… And if you optimize for maximum attention, then it explains a lot of his decisions."
– Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck, comparing himself to SpaceX's Elon Musk. [Deadline]
| | | Join our expert panelists as they dive into the growing race for moon resources. REGISTER HERE | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment