| | | A SpaceNews daily newsletter | | | | | The next Ariane 6 launch has slipped to early next year. Arianespace announced Friday that the launch, previously planned for December, is now scheduled for no earlier than mid-February. The company gave no specific reason for the delay but noted the core and upper stages of the rocket have yet to be shipped from Europe to the French Guiana launch site, and that it was working on final preparations to launch facilities at the spaceport. The launch will be the second for the Ariane 6, after a mostly successful inaugural launch in July, and the first operational mission for the rocket, carrying a reconnaissance satellite for the French military. [SpaceNews]
A startup led by a former Google executive is planning its own megaconstellation. Logos Space says it has early financial commitments needed to deploy 1,000 satellites for global broadband coverage. The company, which emerged from stealth at the end of October, has the backing of Thomas Tull's U.S. Innovative Technology (USIT) fund but has not disclosed how much it has raised. Milo Medin, founder of Logos Space and a former vice president of access services at Google, said the company will focus on engineering and operations, relying on partnerships with others for distribution of broadband services. The company is targeting 2027 for its first launches, pending an FCC license for the constellation. [SpaceNews]
Three NASA astronauts who were briefly hospitalized after their splashdown two weeks ago are remaining quiet about that medical issue. At a briefing Friday, astronauts Michael Barratt, Matthew Dominick and Jeanette Epps declined to answer questions about what happened after their splashdown to end the Crew-8 mission that prompted them to be hospitalized, with one of them staying overnight. Barratt, a doctor, said details about the incident will come out "in the fullness of time" but cited medical privacy and "due process" for not discussing what happened. The three said they are in good health and are gradually adjusting to life on Earth after nearly eight months in space. [SpaceNews]
Maxar Intelligence has divested a small part of its business focused on supporting classified U.S. government sensor programs. Maxar sold its Radar and Sensor Technology unit to ARKA Group, a government contractor based in Danbury, Connecticut, for an undisclosed sum. ARKA has deep expertise supporting U.S. government-led synthetic aperture radar (SAR) programs. Maxar said it is not exiting the SAR business with this sale, noting its partnership with SAR satellite imagery company Umbra. [SpaceNews]
NASA is extending cargo contracts with three companies for the remaining projected life of the International Space Station. In procurement filings Friday, NASA said it is extending its Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) 2 contracts with Northrop Grumman, Sierra Space and SpaceX, which had been set to expire at the end of 2026, through 2030. NASA extended the contracts after concluding there were no other companies available to provide such services. NASA awarded the CRS-2 contracts in 2016 and has spent a little less than half of the $14 billion ceiling on them, and the agency said it does not expect to need to increase that ceiling with the extension. [SpaceNews]
A British company that worked for decades on spaceplane and hypersonic engine concepts has gone bankrupt. Reaction Engines went into administration at the end of October after an effort to raise additional capital fell through. The company has worked for decades on an engine concept called SABRE that would be air-breathing at lower altitudes and switch to a rocket engine at higher altitudes. It would enable concepts like Skylon, a single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane that the company also proposed. While Reaction Engines won backing from companies like BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce, it made slow progress on SABRE and had looked for other applications of the technology, such as on hypersonic vehicles. [SpaceNews]
| | | | | China launched four commercial radar imaging satellites late Friday. A Long March 2C rocket lifted off at 10:39 p.m. Eastern from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center and placed into orbit four PIESAT-2 (Hongtu-2) satellites. The satellites are owned by Zhuzhou Space Interstellar Satellite Technology Co., Ltd. and are described as being mainly used for high-resolution SAR imaging. The company, which launched four PIESAT-1 satellites last year, expects to have a 16-satellite constellation in orbit by March. [SpaceNews]
Another Chinese launch placed 15 satellites into orbit Sunday night. A Lijian-1 rocket lifted off from Jiuquan at 11:03 p.m. Eastern carrying 15 satellites. The rocket's payload included three Shiyan-26 satellites, six Yunyao-1 radio occultation satellites and two Jilin-1 imaging satellites, among others, as well as one Chinese-built satellite for Oman. [SpaceNews]
SpaceX launched another set of Starlink satellites late Friday night from California. A Falcon 9 lifted off at 1:14 a.m. Eastern Saturday from Vandenberg Space Force Base and placed 20 Starlink satellites into orbit, 13 with direct-to-cell payloads. The launch was scheduled for late Wednesday night but postponed two days. Another Falcon 9 Starlink launch from Florida was scheduled for Sunday night but postponed because of recovery weather. [Space.com]
A Dragon cargo spacecraft raised the orbit of the ISS slightly in a first-of-its-kind maneuver Friday. Thrusters on the CRS-31 cargo Dragon fired for 12 and a half minutes Friday, boosting the station's perigee by just over one kilometer. This was the first time that NASA used a Dragon spacecraft for an orbit-raising maneuver, a test of the spacecraft's capabilities also intended to gain experience for SpaceX's development of the Dragon-derived U.S. Deorbit Vehicle that will be used to deorbit the ISS at the end of its life. [NASA]
UP Aerospace carried out the second suborbital launch in as many months from Spaceport America Friday. The company's SpaceLoft-20 sounding rocket launched from the spaceport carrying a payload for Los Alamos National Laboratory designed to flight-qualify new components and technologies. UP Aerospace, which performed a similar suborbital launch for NASA last month, has been operating at the New Mexico spaceport since 2006. [Los Alamos (N.M.) Daily Post]
Britain's oldest satellite is not where it's supposed to be. The Skynet 1A satellite was launched in 1969 and placed into GEO over Africa to relay communications for the British military. When it stopped working several years later, it was thought it might drift to a "gravity well" in GEO over India. However, the spacecraft is instead halfway around the GEO belt over the Americas. It's unclear how Skynet 1A ended up there, but observers speculate that the spacecraft, built and launched by the United States for the U.K., might have been taken over by the U.S. at the end of its mission and moved there, for reasons still unclear. [BBC]
| | | | | | The Week Ahead
Monday: -
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying the Koreasat 6A satellite at 12:07 p.m. Eastern. -
Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 4:02 p.m. Eastern. Monday-Wednesday: Tuesday: Tuesday-Wednesday: Wednesday: Wednesday-Thursday: Thursday: Friday: Saturday: Sunday: Sunday-Tuesday Nov. 20: | | | | | | What's New With SpaceNews? | | Redesigning Space — Why Collaboration Can't Wait |  | | Join us this Wednesday, November 13, at 11:00 AM EST, for a dynamic webinar that brings together key players from across the space industry to explore the growing need for a more collaborative approach to designing the next generation of satellite systems. | | | | |
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