 | Top Stories
Gogo is acquiring inflight connectivity rival Satcom Direct to better compete against Starlink. Satcom Direct would get $375 million in cash and five million shares from Gogo under a deal announced Monday, and up to $225 million in extra payments tied to performance targets over the next four years. Gogo has traditionally dominated the inflight connectivity market for small and midsized business aviation while Satcom Direct has been a leader in long-haul aviation, using a mix of terrestrial and satellite services. Both, though, are facing stiff competition from Starlink, which recently announced deals with Air France and United Airlines. [SpaceNews]
Smallsat manufacturer Apex will provide satellite buses for Anduril Industries. The companies announced a collaboration Tuesday where Apex will sell buses to Anduril, a defense technology firm making inroads into the space market. Anduril is planning to launch a self-funded mission in 2025 using Apex's Aries bus to host data processing and infrared imaging payloads. [SpaceNews]
The Office of Space Commerce turned on its space traffic coordination system for a set of beta users Monday. Nine satellite operators will use phase 1.0 of the Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS), getting conjunction data messages from TraCSS. Those operators include a mix of companies that have satellites in low Earth orbit and geostationary orbit, with about 1,000 satellites overall included in this phase of TraCSS. The Office of Space Commerce will use feedback from those beta users to guide later phases of TraCSS, with upgrades planned on a quarterly basis through next September. TraCSS will ultimately replace the Defense Department's Space-Track system to provide space traffic coordination services to civil and commercial users. [SpaceNews]
In-space transportation company Momentus is in danger of being delisted from Nasdaq. The company announced last week that it had been informed by Nasdaq that it would be delisted from the exchange on Oct. 3 because of a share price that remains below $1 and other issues, including delayed filings of quarterly and annual reports. Momentus said it intends to appeal that decision and seek a hearing from a Nasdaq panel, which would delay the delisting until after the panel makes a ruling. The company has indefinitely delayed launches of its Vigoride tug and sought other business, such as building satellite buses. [SpaceNews]
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| Other News
The FAA confirmed Monday that it will require an investigation into a Falcon 9 anomaly over the weekend. On that Saturday launch of the rocket on NASA's Crew-9 mission, a problem with a deorbit burn for the upper stage meant that the stage landed outside of its designated target in the South Pacific. SpaceX has not disclosed additional details about the issue, and the FAA said only that it will require an investigation, which is standard for an incident like this. The FAA could allow launches to resume before the investigation is complete through a public safety determination where the FAA concludes the issue does not pose a hazard to the uninvolved public. [Reuters]
United Launch Alliance rolled out its second Vulcan Centaur rocket ahead of a launch late this week. The rocket rolled out Monday morning to the pad at Cape Canaveral, where the company plans to perform a tanking test today. Launch of the rocket on the Cert-2 test flight is scheduled for a three-hour window that opens at 6 a.m. Eastern Friday. The launch, carrying an inert payload, is the second of two launches required for the rocket to be certified by the Space Force to carry national security payloads. [Spaceflight Now]
NASA reposted a request for information (RFI) seeking ideas on how to repurpose a pair of smallsats for an asteroid mission after a four-week hiatus. NASA originally published the RFI Aug. 30 for concepts on how to use the twin Janus spacecraft, currently in storage, to visit the asteroid Apophis ahead of the asteroid's close flyby of Earth in 2029. NASA withdrew the RFI later the same day, though, saying it needed to be "corrected" but did not elaborate. NASA republished the RFI only last Friday but did not note what had changed. A comparison of the original and revised RFI document shows that many technical details about the Janus spacecraft in the original RFI are no longer in the new version. [SpaceNews]
Starfish Space is raising a new funding round. The satelite servicing company has raised $21 million in a round that could reach $30 million, according to documents filed last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company declined to comment on the funding round. Starfish Space won a $15 million NASA contract last week to develop a satellite inspection mission called SSPICY scheduled for launch in late 2026. [GeekWire]
| |  | Revenge of the AV Club
"We always used to joke that satellite communications was sort of like the AV club of the Commission. No one really knew what we did. We showed up and they really didn't care as long as things worked and we went away."
– Stephen Duall, associate chief of the FCC's Space Bureau, speaking Friday at the Space Logistics Conference.
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