 | Top Stories
ESA is continuing to prepare for a launch next week of an asteroid mission despite the grounding of its Falcon 9 rocket. At a briefing Wednesday, project officials for the Hera mission said they were continuing final preparations for the launch, scheduled for Monday from Cape Canaveral. Those preparations continue even though the rocket remains grounded after an anomaly during the deorbit burn of the upper stage on a launch Saturday. ESA officials said they are making sure they will be ready to go once the FAA allows launches to resume, adding that they are willing to be the return-to-flight mission of the rocket. [SpaceNews]
ULA says it is ready for the second launch of its Vulcan Centaur rocket early Friday. Liftoff of the rocket from Cape Canaveral is scheduled for a three-hour window that opens at 6 a.m. Eastern. ULA CEO Tory Bruno said in a call with reporters Wednesday that the rocket completed a countdown rehearsal Tuesday, with only final reviews to complete ahead of the launch. The Cert-2 mission, carrying a mass simulator, is the second of two launches ULA needs to successfully perform to win certification from the Space Force, with the goal of getting that certification in time to conduct two national security launches by the end of the year. ULA also plans to use the launch to conduct tests of the Centaur upper stage for upgrades that will allow it to operate in orbit for days to weeks, rather than hours. [SpaceNews]
Companies developing synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging satellites are introducing new capabilities tailored for defense and intelligence customers. Finnish company Iceye announced Wednesday that its SAR satellites, designed to be able to see objects on the Earth's surface as small as 25 centimeters, can now identify specific types of military equipment and even detect targets hidden beneath tree cover or dense foliage. The company says it has added new imaging features to meet the demands of defense and intelligence customers that need to monitor fast-moving geopolitical situations. Other SAR companies report growing interest from foreign governments in establishing their own sovereign SAR constellations. [SpaceNews]
Startup In-Orbit Aerospace won an Air Force contract to detect and manage anomalies in hypersonic flight. The $1.8 million contract from AFWERX covers work to create machine-learning algorithms to detect hypersonic vehicle anomalies as they happen and make "informed decisions" on ways to reduce risk to the vehicle and mission caused by those anomalies. The work supports the long-term plans of In-Orbit Aerospace to develop cargo transportation systems for in-space manufacturing and research. [SpaceNews]
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| Other News
ESA released a new Earth observation strategy this week. The "Earth Science in Action for Tomorrow's World" report outlines priorities for ESA's Earth science efforts through 2040. The strategy marks a shift from studying specific Earth system domains to understanding the interconnections and feedback mechanisms among them. That includes identifying critical knowledge gaps that could be filled with future missions. [ESA]
NASA awarded studies of lunar communications networks to two companies. NASA announced this week it selected Aalyria Technologies for one contract, valued at nearly $400,000, for work on network management systems that would integrate multiple commercial and government communication service providers. Intuitive Machines won a separate contract valued at nearly $650,000 to work on a dual-purpose navigation and communication lunar surface user terminal. Intuitive Machines last month won a contract to provide communications services on and around the moon for NASA. [NASA]
India is planning a 2028 launch of its first mission to Venus. The Indian space agency ISRO recently announced its Venus Orbiter Mission is planned for launch in March 2028 on an LVM-3 rocket, arriving at Venus four months later. The spacecraft will carry several instruments, including a radar to peer through the planet's thick clouds to map its surface as well as sensors to study its atmosphere. The mission was one of several space projects formally approved by the Indian government last month. [India Today]
A massive radio telescope array is slowing its expansion plans. The Square Kilometer Array (SKA) observatory includes, in its first phase, 197 medium-frequency dishes in South Africa and more than 130,000 low-frequency antennas in Australia. A second phase was to expand into eight African countries, installing 2,000 dishes. However, the head of SKA said that those plans have "evolved" because of limited funding, stalling the expansion in Africa, adding that those original plans are "probably just impractical" today. A handful of dishes will be added to the SKA in Africa in the near future, though. [Nature]
| |  | Unkind Adjectives
"It turns out you go to bolt something together and one of the bolts is difficult to reach, and it takes a special tool, and it takes a long time, and the technician is saying unkind adjectives about engineers."
– ULA CEO Tory Bruno, giving an example during a briefing Wednesday of lessons learned in the design of vehicles that can be used to improve their production.
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