 | Top Stories
Boeing's CST-100 Starliner successfully returned to Earth Friday night, although without astronauts on board. The spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station at 6:04 p.m. Eastern and landed at White Sands, New Mexico, nearly six hours later. The spacecraft made a "bullseye" landing, NASA said, although there were a few minor issues with thrusters and a navigation computer during its return to Earth. The return came nearly two weeks after NASA decided to bring back the spacecraft without astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board, citing uncertainties about the performance of the spacecraft's thrusters. NASA said it will work with Boeing on hardware and operational changes to the spacecraft but did not state when the vehicle's next flight would be. Boeing officials had been scheduled to participate in a post-landing press conference but decided not to appear, offering only a brief statement. [SpaceNews]
NASA will no longer launch a Mars mission on the inaugural flight of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket. NASA said Friday it decided not to fuel the twin ESCAPADE smallsats ahead of a scheduled mid-October launch on New Glenn out of concerns that the rocket would not be ready in time for that narrow launch window, which wold have required a costly and hazardous defueling process. NASA said it is instead looking to launch ESCAPADE on a New Glenn as soon as spring of next year, but did not disclose details about the trajectory or arrival date for the spacecraft. Blue Origin said it will instead launch unspecified technology for its Blue Ring orbital transfer vehicle on the first New Glenn, with a launch as soon as early November. [SpaceNews]
A Singapore-based startup has raised $1.5 million for its online satellite-tasking platform. Eartheye Space said the pre-seed funding will allow it to build out its capabilities and expand into Africa, the Middle East and the United States. The company has developed a platform that allows users to task more than 475 different Earth imaging satellites from various companies that provide imagery from multispectral to radar, an approach that it likens to the Uber Eats food delivery service. [SpaceNews]
ESA performed a targeted reentry Sunday of the first of four Cluster space science satellites. The satellite, nicknamed Salsa, burned up Sunday afternoon over the South Pacific. Controllers took advantage of the spacecraft's highly elliptical orbit to target the reentry location far away from land to avoid any risk of falling debris. The reentry also provided an opportunity to monitor the breakup using an aircraft equipped with more than a dozen instruments. The other three Cluster satellites will renter over the next three years in a similar fashion. [SpaceNews]
The FAA hopes to finalize regulations next year on the safe disposal of upper stages. The head of the FAA's commercial space transportation office said Friday that the agency is working on a final version of regulations released in draft form a year ago that call on companies that conduct launches licensed by the FAA to dispose of upper stages in one of five ways, from controlled reentries to placement in safe graveyard orbits, to minimize the risk of breakups or collisions that could create large amounts of debris. That came as another Centaur upper stage, left in a geostationary transfer orbit after a 2018 launch, broke up earlier Friday, creating at least several dozen pieces of debris. The cause of the breakup, the fourth involving a Centaur since 2018, is unclear. [SpaceNews]
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| Other News
SpaceX will try early tomorrow to launch a private astronaut mission delayed by weather. SpaceX said Sunday night it is targeting early Tuesday for the launch of a Crew Dragon spacecraft on the Polaris Dawn mission from the Kennedy Space Center. The launch has been on hold for close to two weeks because of unfavorable weather in splashdown locations off the Florida coast. The five-day mission will feature the first spacewalk from a commercial spacecraft and will go to the highest altitude for a crewed mission in more than 50 years. [Spaceflight Now]
Elon Musk has set a new date for the first launch of Starships to Mars. Musk posted on X, the social media network he also owns, on Saturday that the first uncrewed Starships will fly to Mars in the next launch window in 2026, attempting to land there. If successful, he claimed, crewed missions could follow in the next window two years later. He offered no other details about those planned missions. Musk has repeatedly set, and missed, goals for launching missions to Mars. At a conference nearly seven years ago, he said the first crewed missions to Mars would launch in 2024. To date, no Starship has launched to Mars or even completed one orbit of the Earth. [Space.com]
A Maine company conducted a test of an engine it plans to use on a small launch vehicle. BluShift Aerospace performed a 60-second full-duration test of the engine, called Modular Adaptable Rocket Engine for Vehicle Launch (MAREVL), on Friday, at its Brunswick, Maine, facility. The engine, which uses a "bio-derived" solid fuel, is intended for use on sounding rocket called Starless Rouge the company is developing, along with future small orbital launch vehicles. [The Times-Record]
NASA picked eight companies for a contract vehicle to provide Earth observation data. The Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition Program On-Ramp1 Multiple Award contract, announced Friday, allows the agency to acquire Earth observation data from BlackSky, Iceye, MDA Space, Pixxel Space, Planet, Satellogic, Teledyne Brown and Tomorrow.io. The contract has an overall maximum value of $476 million through November 2028. [NASA]
NOAA has selected the members of a new space advisory board. NOAA's Office of Space Commerce announced Friday the selection of 16 people to its new Advisory Committee on Excellence in Space (ACES), providing advice to the office on space matters. ACES will be chaired by Caryn Schenewerk of Georgetown University with David Gauthier of GXO Inc. serving as vice chair. The first meeting of ACES is planned for within the next two months. [NOAA]
| |  | The Week Ahead
Monday-Friday: Tuesday: Tuesday-Wednesday: - Geneva/Online: The ITU Space Sustainability Forum 2024 will discuss various aspects of space sustainability, including space situational awareness and space operations.
- Geneva/Online: The Outer Space Security Conference 2024 by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research will examine topics on security in space.
- Washington: The Global Aerospace Summit by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce includes presentations and panels on space topics, primarily on Wednesday.
Wednesday: - St. Gallen, Switz.: The Aviation and Space Symposium St. Gallen includes sessions on space business and policy.
- Baikonur, Kazakhstan: Scheduled launch of a Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying the Soyuz-MS26 crewed spacecraft to the International Space Station at 12:23 p.m. Eastern. The spacecraft is scheduled to dock with the station at 3:33 p.m. Eastern.
- Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 10:45 p.m. Eastern.
Wednesday-Thursday: - Glasgow: The Space-Comm Expo Scotland conference will discuss space business and related topics, with a focus on the Scottish space industry.
Thursday: - Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying five BlueBird communications satellites for AST SpaceMobile at 4:52 a.m. Eastern.
Friday: Sunday: - Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Projected launch of a Falcon 9 carrying two Galileo navigation satellites at 6:57 p.m. Eastern.
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