Plus: Crew-8 astronaut discharged after brief hospital stay, and Boeing weighs a sale of its space operations.
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A NASA astronaut is out of the hospital after an overnight stay for an undisclosed medical issue after returning from the International Space Station. The unidentified astronaut, part of the Crew-8 mission that splashed down early Friday, was admitted to a Pensacola, Florida, hospital in stable condition for observation hours after splashdown. That astronaut was released Saturday and returned to Houston. The other three Crew-8 members were released from the hospital after additional checks Friday. NASA cited medical privacy issues for not identifying the astronaut or the specific medical issue that prompted the hospitalization. NASA had initially said the four were in good condition after their splashdown that concluded a 235-day mission. [SpaceNews]
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said he found reports that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk had regular conversations with Russian president Vladimir Putin "concerning." The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk and Putin had talked regularly since 2022 and that, on one occasion, Putin asked Musk to not activate Starlink in Taiwan as a favor to China. Nelson, asked about the report at a conference Friday, said that while he didn't know if the claims in the article were true, they should be investigated, calling them "concerning" to NASA and the Defense Department. SpaceX, in a statement late Friday, called the report "incredibly misleading" since other factors keep SpaceX from providing Starlink service in Taiwan. The statement, though, stopped short of denying the conversations took place. [SpaceNews | Wall Street Journal]
AST SpaceMobile says its first five production satellites have unfolded their large antennas in orbit a month after launch. Each unfolded Block 1 BlueBird spans about 64 square meters, featuring the largest array commercially deployed to LEO. The company is continuing to conduct in-orbit health checks for the spacecraft to prepare them for operations in the United States, although it needs regulatory approval to test services using wireless frequencies from partners AT&T and Verizon. [SpaceNews]
The Super Heavy booster on the latest Starship test flight came within a second of aborting its "catch" landing back at the launch site. Company officials, in audio apparently inadvertently posted on X by Elon Musk Friday, said a misconfigured parameter affected the rate at which engines were started up in the booster for the landing, coming within a second of triggering an abort "and telling the rocket to abort and try to crash into the ground next to the tower." In the audio, those officials also discussed a cover that came off a vertical structure called a chine on the side of the booster, exposing critical valves needed for the landing burn. The company is balancing those fixes and other risk-reduction work with getting the next Starship vehicle ready for launch as soon as possible under the same FAA license used for the previous flight. [SpaceNews]
ESA is proposing measures to help Europe's space industry as it deals with financial problems. At a briefing after an ESA Council meeting last week, ESA leaders said they are considering changes like increasing the size of contract down payments, currently 10-15% of the overall award, to as much as 35%. ESA will also consider allowing partial payments for milestones only partially complete to improve cash flow. The proposals come as both Airbus Defence and Space and Thales Alenia Space report pressures on their commercial space businesses and discuss a potential merger of them. ESA declined to comment on the implications of such a merger on the agency. [SpaceNews]
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| |  | LMV is Lockheed Martin's Venture Capital arm, and about a third of its portfolio is invested in space. Some of its most notable space Investments include launchers Rocket Lab and ABL Space. | | | Other News |
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SpaceX launched a batch of Starlink satellites from Florida on Saturday. A Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 5:47 p.m. Eastern and placed 22 Starlink satellites into orbit. The launch was the 73rd so far this year from the Cape, setting a new annual record with more than two months to go. [Space.com]
Boeing is considering selling part of its space business as the company seeks to streamline. The company is reportedly examining a sale of the part of the business that handles operations of the International Space Station and developed the Starliner commercial crew vehicle. Any deal is unlikely to include its satellite manufacturing business or its work on the Space Launch System. Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said in an earnings call last week he was reviewing what parts of the company he would seek to divest with a goal of completing that review by the end of the year. [Wall Street Journal]
Chile formally signed the Artemis Accords on Friday. The country's science minister signed the Accords in an event at NASA Headquarters, becoming the 47th country overall, and fourth so far this month, to sign the document that outlines best practices in space exploration. At a meeting earlier this month during the International Astronautical Congress, representatives of current Artemis Accords signatories said they were redoubling efforts to encourage more countries to join. [SpaceNews]
Most of the residents of a "radio quiet" zone in Virginia and West Virginia can now get Starlink satellite broadband services. The National Science Foundation and SpaceX said Friday they had finalized coordination to allow Starlink services for 99.5% of residents of the National Radio Quiet Zone, a region where radio transmissions are limited to avoid interference with both the Green Bank Observatory and a National Security Agency facility there. NSF and SpaceX will monitor Starlink services there during a one-year assessment period to identify and mitigate any interference issues. [Green Bank Observatory]
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The Week Ahead
Monday: San Francisco: The TechCrunch Disrupt conference includes a space track to discuss commercial space topics. Online: The National Academies holds a town hall session to collect input for its Science Strategy for the Human Exploration of Mars study at 12:30 p.m. Eastern. Monday-Tuesday: Monday-Wednesday: Tuesday: Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 7:30 a.m. Eastern. Washington: Dr. Jason Rathje, director of the U.S. Department of Defense's Office of Strategic Capital (OSC), speaks at a Washington Space Business Roundtable luncheon. Online: SpaceNews holds a webinar titled "The Rise of Intuitive Machines" with company CEO Steve Altemus at 1 p.m. Eastern.
Jiuquan, China: Anticipated launch of a Long March 2F on the Shenzhou-19 crewed mission at 4:27 p.m. Eastern. Wednesday: Tanegashima, Japan: Rescheduled launch of an H3 rocket carrying the DSN-3 military communications satellite at 2:46 a.m. Eastern. Online: CSIS holds a webinar on "Space Warfare: A Virtual Book Talk with Dr. John J. Klein" at 10 a.m. Eastern. Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 5:10 p.m. Eastern. Thursday: Friday-Saturday:
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