 | Top Stories
The crew of the Polaris Dawn private astronaut mission successfully performed the first commercial spacewalk this morning. During the spacewalk, commander Jared Isaacman and mission specialist Sarah Gillis individually exited the hatch of their Crew Dragon spacecraft, testing the mobility of their SpaceX-designed spacesuits. The overall spacewalk started at 6:12 a.m. Eastern when the four astronauts activated their spacesuits, ending just before 8 a.m. Eastern when the cabin was repressurized. The spacewalk, the first on a non-governmental mission, was the highlight of the five-day flight that launched early Tuesday. [SpaceNews]
SpaceX launched the first operational direct-to-device satellites for AST SpaceMobile early Thursday. A Falcon 9 lifted off at 4:52 a.m. Eastern from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and deployed five BlueBird satellites into orbit a little more than an hour later. The satellites will be able to provide intermittent connectivity services in the United States that the company says can be useful for remote monitoring services and testing for the company's long-term plans to provide voice and broadband services to smartphones. Around 45 to 60 satellites would be enough to provide continuous services in the United States. [SpaceNews]
U.S. Space Force leaders warn there is a widening gap between the service's budget and its expanding mission requirements. Speaking at the Global Aerospace Summit Wednesday, Brig. Gen. Brian Denaro, military assistant to the secretary of the Air Force who oversees the Space Force budget, said that current funding falls short of what is needed to meet military forces' needs for satellite service while modernizing its space architecture to counter threats from China and Russia. His comments echoed sentiments from Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, who recently suggested that the Space Force's nearly $30 billion budget should be two to three times larger in order to address emerging needs. [SpaceNews]
Industry officials are also looking for more funding to provide commercial capabilities for the Defense Department. During a Global Aerospace Summit panel, executives of venture-backed companies said that while the DoD offers support for early-stage companies to develop capabilities, there is not a clear pathway for them to move beyond R&D and secure funding to scale up production and become key suppliers in national defense. They noted commercial space services do not receive the steady, predictable funding that traditional military programs enjoy, despite the government's stated intent to leverage private-sector innovation. [SpaceNews]
Astroscale and ClearSpace have won new rounds of funding from the U.K. government to develop satellite deorbiting systems. The British subsidiaries of Japan-based Astroscale and Switzerland's ClearSpace announced Wednesday they had each received about $3 million to continue de-risking their robotic arm capture system and debris de-tumbling capabilities. The grants enable the companies to continue working on their technologies until March, when the U.K. Space Agency is expected to decide which will conduct a demonstration mission n 2026 to remove two satellites from low Earth orbit. [SpaceNews]
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| Other News
A Soyuz spacecraft delivered a new crew to the International Space Station Wednesday. A Soyuz-2.1a rocket lifted off at 12:23 p.m. Eastern from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and deployed the Soyuz MS-26 into low Earth orbit. The spacecraft docked with the station's Rassvet module at 3:32 p.m. Eastern. On board the spacecraft were Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner as well as NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who will remain on the station through next March. [Spaceflight Now]
The FAA defended its launch licensing process amid criticism about delays with Starship. SpaceX said Tuesday that it was informed that the FAA delayed its schedule for an updated Starship launch license for its next mission by more than two months, to late November. At the Global Aerospace Summit Wednesday, an FAA official said schedules for launch licenses can be affected by several factors, including changes companies make to license applications and the completeness of the information they provide. The FAA separately said that SpaceX provided just last month updated information about the environmental effects of the next Starship launch that requires consultation with other agencies. [SpaceNews]
Amazon's costs to develop its Project Kuiper broadband constellation could be as much as double earlier estimates. A study by Quilty Space found that the cost of deploying the 3,200-satellite constellation will be between $16.5 billion and $20 billion, with launch costs alone potentially exceeding $10 billion. Amazon previously stated it expected to spend $10 billion on Project Kuiper. However, the report also found that the system could be very lucrative for Amazon. [GeekWire]
A NASA spacecraft has observed a new volcano on a moon of Jupiter. Scientists using images from the JunoCam instrument on the Juno spacecraft say they found a volcano on the surface of Io, the innermost of Jupiter's four largest moons, that was not present in Galileo images of the same part of the moon taken in 1997. The finding, researchers state, illustrate how active Io is, with more volcanic activity there than any other world in the solar system. [Space.com]
| |  | Dark Side
"I wanted to be an aerospace engineer. I tried to study astrophysics under Jay Pasachoff, the noted astronomer at Williams College. I got wooed away by the dark side of political science and history."
– Don Graves, deputy secretary of commerce, speaking Wednesday at the Global Aerospace Summit.
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