| A SpaceNews daily newsletter | | | | | Apple is investing $1.5 billion in Globalstar's next-generation satellite constellation. Globalstar, in a regulatory filing Friday, said that Apple will pay $400 million to take a 20% stake in the new system and provide $1.1 billion in prepayments to Globalstar to help fund the network. Apple currently uses Globalstar's existing constellation to provide satellite connectivity for iPhones, which Globalstar is upgrading with a new set of satellites being built by MDA. Globalstar provided few additional details about the new constellation and its capabilities. [SpaceNews]
NASA is urging continuity in its human spaceflight plans in the next administration. In a talk last week, NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free said the agency needed "consistency in purpose" in its human spaceflight efforts, currently focused on the Artemis campaign to return humans to the moon, warning that a change in destinations could result in a loss of U.S. leadership. He did not discuss any specific concerns about changes in Artemis, and both the Harris and Trump campaigns, in formal documents like party platforms, have endorsed a human return to the moon. However, in recent campaign speeches Trump has suggested an accelerated program of human missions to Mars using SpaceX, after Elon Musk said his company could be ready for crewed Starship missions to Mars as soon as the 2028 launch window. Most in industry are highly skeptical of that timeline. [SpaceNews]
The CEO of Airbus said he is keeping his options open about consolidating part or all of his company's space business with other European firms. In an earnings call last week, Guillaume Faury said improving the space business at Airbus Defence and Space "starts with ourselves" through internal changes. He acknowledged, though, that there is "potential for consolidation in Europe" that could involve merging the entire Airbus space business with another company, like Thales Alenia Space, or only parts of it. Airbus, which took a charge against earnings of nearly $1 billion earlier this year on space programs, said it is still auditing one unnamed space program in the company, a process that should be completed by the end of the year. [SpaceNews]
Astranis and Xona Space and working together to study how they could offer a backup to the GPS system. The companies said Friday they received an $8 million Space Force study contract for the Resilient Global Positioning System (R-GPS) program, which seeks to deploy smaller, more cost-effective satellites to supplement the existing GPS constellation. The companies are proposing a constellation of satellites built by Astranis using positioning, navigation and timing algorithms developed by Xona Space. Three other companies — Axient, L3 Harris and Sierra Space — also received study contracts, and the Space Force plans to pick one or two companies to build an initial set of eight satellites for launch in 2028. [SpaceNews]
Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth Sunday after six months on the Tiangong space station. The Shenzhou-18 spacecraft landed in Inner Mongolia at 12:24 p.m. Eastern, several hours after undocking from Tiangong. The spacecraft returned Chinese astronauts Ye Guangfu, Li Cong and Li Guangsu after 192 days in space. A new crew for Tiangong arrived last week on the Shenzhou-19 mission. [Xinhua]
| | | | | Japan launched a military communications satellite early Monday. An H3 rocket lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center at 1:48 a.m. Eastern and deployed the Kirameki 3 satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit nearly a half-hour later. The satellite will provide military communications services. The launch was the fourth for the H3 and the third successful one after a failure on its inaugural flight in 2023. [SpaceNews]
SpaceX scrubbed a Falcon 9 launch Sunday because of a technical problem. The company called off the launch from Cape Canaveral because of an issue with the helium pressurization system on the rocket's first stage identified about two and a half minutes before the scheduled 4:57 p.m. Eastern liftoff. SpaceX said both the rocket and its payload of Starlink satellites are healthy but did immediately not announce a new launch date but is expected to slip to at least Tuesday. [Florida Today]
A Crew Dragon spacecraft moved from one docking port to another on the International Space Station Sunday. The Crew-9 Crew Dragon spacecraft undocked from the forward port on the Harmony module at 6:35 a.m. Eastern, docking with the zenith port of the module 50 minutes later. The relocation frees up the forward port for the next cargo Dragon spacecraft, scheduled to launch Monday night and dock with the station Tuesday morning. [Space.com]
Launch vehicle company Relativity Space is reportedly running low on cash. The company, which raised $650 million in 2021 in a round that valued the company at $4.2 billion, is said to be exploring options after finding it difficult to raise additional funding. The company launched the Terran 1 small launch vehicle in March 2023, which failed to reach orbit, and the company said weeks later it was canceling Terran 1 to focus on the larger Terran R. The company had long trumpeted the use of 3D-printing technologies to manufacture its rockets but has since embraced more traditional manufacturing approaches as well as outsourcing some elements, like the rocket's payload fairing, to contractors. [Bloomberg]
NASA's NEOWISE spacecraft has reentered. NASA said Saturday that the spacecraft reentered at 8:49 p.m. Eastern Friday, three months after its mission formally ended. NASA launched the spacecraft in 2009 as WISE, for Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, and repurposed it in 2013 as NEOWISE, a space telescope to look for near Earth objects. NASA used the experience from NEOWISE to guide the development of a larger mission, NEO Surveyor, that will launch by mid-2028 to continue space-based searchers of potentially hazardous asteroids. [X @AsteroidWatch]
| | | | | | The Week Ahead
Monday:
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Washington: The Hudson Institute hosts "Navigating GPS Vulnerabilities: Implications for US Economic and National Security" at 10 a.m. Eastern.
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Vostochny, Russia: Scheduled launch of a Soyuz-2.1b rocket carrying two Ionosfera-M space science satellites and several secondary payloads at 6:18 p.m. Eastern.
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Kennedy Space Center, Fla.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying the CRS-31 cargo Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station at 9:29 p.m. Eastern.
Monday-Tuesday:
Tuesday:
Tuesday-Thursday:
Wednesday:
Wednesday-Thursday:
Thursday:
Thursday-Friday:
Friday:
Friday-Saturday:
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