 | Top Stories
The U.S. Space Force picked four companies to work on concepts for "resilient" GPS satellites. The Department of the Air Force announced Monday that Astranis, Axient, L3Harris Technologies and Sierra Space had been invited to submit proposals for the Resilient GPS (R-GPS) program, which seeks to explore the use of proliferated small satellites transmitting core GPS signals. The selection marks the first of three phases aimed at producing up to eight R-GPS satellites, potentially ready for launch by 2028. Subsequent phases will involve down-selecting companies for final design reviews and prototype development, with one or more vendors ultimately chosen to build the initial satellites. [SpaceNews]
A separate effort to develop improvements to GPS may finally be approaching launch. The Navigation Technology Satellite-3 (NTS-3), developed by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, aims to test advanced technologies for future GPS and satellite navigation systems. It may launch by the end of the year if ULA's Vulcan Centaur rocket is certified shortly after an upcoming test flight. Once in geostationary orbit, AFRL plans 100 flight experiments using NTS-3, which has six electronically steerable array panels to direct energy to specific areas, potentially improving signal strength in areas with interference or weak GPS coverage. [SpaceNews]
The House passed a NASA authorization bill Monday. The House approved the NASA Reauthorization Act of 2024 with a 366-21 vote after a brief debate on the House floor where no members spoke against the bill. The legislation, approved by the House Science Committee in July, would largely keep major NASA initiatives on track, formally authorizing a number of existing programs while also directing several reports on topics ranging from non-NASA use of the SLS to studies of Hubble servicing missions. The bill goes to the Senate, where it is unclear if there is interest in taking it up. [SpaceNews]
NASA selected Firefly Aerospace to launch a NOAA satellite. NASA announced Monday that it awarded a task order through its Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) contract to Firefly for the launch of the QuickSounder spacecraft. NASA did not disclose the value of the task order. QuickSounder is the first element of NOAA's Near Earth Orbit Network (NEON), a new generation of polar-orbiting weather satellites, and is slated to be ready for launch by February 2026. [SpaceNews]
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| Other News
A sea-based launch placed eight Chinese satellites into orbit late Monday. A Jielong-3 solid-fuel rocket lifted off from a platform off the coast of Haiyang city, in the eastern province of Shandong, at 10:31 p.m. Eastern. The rideshare mission carried eight satellites for several companies and organizations. The launch was the fourth for the Jielong-3, which can carry up to 1,500 kilograms to sun-synchronous orbit. [SpaceNews]
A NASA lab is sharing AI tools it has developed to make spacecraft operations more efficient. The Space Autonomy and Resilience (SPAR) lab at the Goddard Space Flight Center created the Onboard Artificial Intelligence Research platform, called OnAIR. It is an open-source-software pipeline and cognitive architecture tool that is available through the GitHub platform. OnAIR was tested in a project with drones flying in Alaska to collect data on methane emissions from permafrost, as well as on the ISS. [SpaceNews]
NASA has signed an agreement with South Korea's new space agency. The agreement, signed last week and announced by NASA on Monday, confirms interest in cooperation with the Korea Aerospace Administration, or KASA, which was formally established in May. The agreement does not mention any specific projects for cooperation but states that the agencies will discuss how they could work together in exploration, science and other fields, including NASA use of a South Korean deep space antenna. [NASA]
X-rays from a nuclear explosion could help divert an incoming asteroid. A study published Monday examined how the blast of X-rays created in a nuclear detonation near an asteroid could vaporize material on the surface of an asteroid. That would create a plume of gas that pushes the asteroid, changing its trajectory. Researchers said this approach could work for larger asteroids where crashing a spacecraft into the asteroid, the "kinetic impactor" approach tested by NASA two years ago on the DART mission, would be insufficient to deflect the asteroid. [Science News]
| |  | Not Cool Enough
"Predicting auroras is cool. We want to be able to view it, right? But that does not necessarily have a real societal impact, per se."
– Piyush Mehta, associate professor at West Virginia University, discussing the need for improved space weather predictions for satellite operators during a panel at the AMOS Conference Friday.
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