 | Top Stories
NASA says a Cygnus cargo spacecraft is still headed to the International Space Station despite problems after its launch Sunday. A Falcon 9 lifted off at 11:02 a.m. Eastern and placed the Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft into low Earth orbit. Several hours later, though, NASA said that the spacecraft failed to perform two maneuvers to raise its orbit and send it towards the station. The first maneuver did not take place because of "a late entry to burn sequencing" while the second was aborted because of low pressure in the engine. Despite the issues, NASA said late Sunday that Cygnus should still arrive at the ISS early Tuesday as originally planned. The spacecraft is carrying more than 3,850 kilograms of cargo for the station, ranging from science experiments to supplies for the crew. [SpaceNews]
Indian astronauts will start training in the U.S. this week for a private astronaut mission to the ISS. The Indian space agency ISRO said Friday it selected Shubhanshu Shukla to go on the Ax-4 mission to the station, with Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair to train as his backup. The two are half of India's current astronaut corps that have been training to fly on India's Gaganyaan spacecraft. ISRO and NASA agreed to fly an Indian astronaut to the ISS as part of broader cooperation between the countries in space. Axiom Space announced early Monday that Poland's Sławosz Uznański and Hungary's Tibor Kapu will also fly on Ax-4, which will be commanded by former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson. Ax-4 is scheduled to launch no earlier than November, but may slip to early 2025. [SpaceNews]
Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging company Umbra is expanding into custom satellite manufacturing. The company announced last week a new business segment called Mission Solutions aimed at the U.S. and other governments to provide capabilities up to full SAR constellations. Umbra currently operates eight SAR satellites it has built, with plans to expand its constellation to 32. Umbra's new business reflects a broader trend in the space industry, with remote sensing companies increasingly offering end-to-end solutions to attract a wider customer base. [SpaceNews]
Capella Space, another SAR company, won an Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) contract. The $14.9 million contract covers work to integrate Capella's SAR data into AFRL's Global Unification Environment, an experimental cloud-based platform designed to test automated satellite tasking and imaging collection strategies using commercial systems. The type of contract awarded to Capella is typically aimed at supporting small businesses in their research and development efforts with potential for commercialization. [SpaceNews]
Maritime connectivity provider KVH Industries is relying on SpaceX's Starlink to help turn around its business. The company noted in an earnings call last week that it has seen a slight increase in the number of ships subscribed to its services after declines in the previous three quarters. This came after the company bought a large block of Starlink capacity, providing customers more specialized customer and technical services than if they directly purchased from SpaceX. KVH, though, still reported a 15% decline in revenues year-over-year and recently laid off 20% of its workforce to cut costs. [SpaceNews]
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| Other News
Rocket Lab launched another SAR satellite for Japanese company Synspective Friday. An Electron rocket lifted off from New Zealand at 9:39 a.m. Eastern and deployed the StriX satellite about an hour later. The satellite is the fifth for Synspective, but the first of a new generation of spacecraft with improved performance as well as the first to go into a mid-inclination orbit for improved revisit times of low- and mid-latitude regions. Synspective has launched all five of its satellites on Electron and has contracts for 11 more launches. [SpaceNews]
SpaceX launched another set of Starlink satellites from California early Sunday. A Falcon 9 lifted off at 3:24 a.m. Eastern from Vandenberg Space Force Base and placed 23 Starlink satellites into orbit. With this mission and the Cygnus launch, SpaceX has conducted six Falcon 9 launches in a little over a week after a 15-day hiatus caused by an upper stage anomaly in mid-July. [Space.com]
Ascending Node Technologies unveiled new mission-visualization software for satellite projects. The software, called Spaceline, is a web-based suite of data analysis and visualization tools designed to improve collaboration from mission design through operations and post-mission review. Aspera, a NASA smallsat astrophysics mission, is the first to use the software. The company's founders decided to pursue development of Spaceline after their experience working on the OSIRIS-REx mission. [SpaceNews]
NASA is sticking to plans to fund only a single Artemis lunar rover despite the experience from another services contract. NASA picked three companies in April to conduct feasibility studies for the Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) Services contract, but the agency said then it would fund only one through development and demonstration of the rover, which NASA and others would then use as a service. At the AIAA ASCEND conference last week, NASA said it was sticking to that plan even after one of two companies on a separate spacesuit services contract dropped out. NASA had argued that having two companies working on spacesuits provided redundancy, but for the LTV program it said budget limitations prevented a similar approach. [SpaceNews]
The Canadian government says it has wrapped up negotiations on an agreement that would allow American rockets to launch from Canada. Canada's foreign affairs ministry said Friday it had completed negotiations with the United States on a technology safeguards agreement (TSA) for launch vehicle systems. The TSA, which still needs formal approval by the two governments, would allow American companies to export rockets to Canada for launch there. The agreement is key for one Canadian company, Maritime Launch Services, which is developing a spaceport in Nova Scotia. [CBC]
| |  | The Week Ahead
Monday-Thursday: Tuesday: Tuesday-Thursday: Wednesday: Thursday: Thursday-Friday: Thursday-Sunday: Saturday: - Kennedy Space Center, Fla.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 7:20 a.m. Eastern.
Sunday: - Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying the Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission satellites at 10 p.m. Eastern.
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