Plus, ABL pivots to missile defense; SpaceX Starship projected to outshine Starlink in value
| | | A SpaceNews daily newsletter | | 11/18/2024 | | | | | The Exploration Company has raised $160 million to further development of a cargo spacecraft. The company announced Monday the Series B round led by European VC firms Balderton Capital and Plural. The funding brings the total raised by The Exploration Company to nearly $230 million. It will use the funding to advance development of Nyx, a spacecraft designed to transport cargo to and from future commercial space stations, with potential later applications in cislunar space. The company is working on a subscale demonstrator called Mission Possible it plans to launch next year on a three-hour orbital flight, with a test mission to the ISS proposed for as soon as 2028, pending additional support from ESA. [SpaceNews]
ABL Space Systems is pivoting from launch to missile defense. The company's co-founder and president, Dan Piemont, announced on social media that the company would move away from developing launch vehicles and instead explore uses for its technology in missile defense. ABL plans to repurpose its RS1 rocket, originally designed to carry small satellites into orbit, for military applications, such as target vehicles in weapons testing. ABL launched its first RS1 in early 2023, only to have the vehicle fail seconds after liftoff. The company had been working towards a second launch attempt this summer when the vehicle was destroyed in a pad fire in July during ground tests. ABL laid off a significant fraction of its staff in August. [SpaceNews]
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell believes the company's Starship vehicle could become more valuable than its Starlink constellation. Speaking at an investor conference Friday, Shotwell said that Starlink is going to make money this year and could "add a zero" to its valuation, currently at about $210 billion. However, she said that Starship "will be the thing that takes us over the top as one of the most valuable companies" and be more valuable than Starlink. SpaceX is gearing up for its next Starship test flight, now scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. [SpaceNews]
The FAA is moving ahead with a committee to provide advice on how to improve commercial launch and reentry regulations. The FAA announced last week it approved the charter for the aerospace rulemaking committee, also known as a SpARC, to examine ways to improve the Part 450 regulations for commercial launches and reentries. Those regulations, which went into force in 2021, were intended to streamline licensing but many companies have argued that they have found it very difficult to get licenses using them. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said Friday that her company has failed so far in getting a Part 450 reentry license for its Dragon spacecraft despite its extensive flight history. She argued for a wholesale simplification of licensing regulations: "Figure out how to do it in five pages, then everybody reads it, everybody understands it, and we can all move forward together quickly." [SpaceNews]
Optimum Technologies has won a Space Force contract to provide an optical sensor for a future responsive space mission. The company, also known as OpTech, said it received a $4.5 million award to develop an optical imaging payload for a mission called Victus Surgo scheduled to fly in 2026 on an Impulse Space vehicle. The contract covers a telescope, high-resolution camera, advanced processing electronics and proprietary software to inspect and characterize threats like anti-satellite weapons in orbit. [SpaceNews]
| | | | | A Chinese cargo spacecraft launched to the Tiangong space station Friday. A Long March 7 rocket lifted off at 10:13 a.m. Eastern Friday from the Wenchang spaceport on the island of Hainan and placed the Tianzhou-8 spacecraft into orbit. That spacecraft docked with Tiangong at 1:32 p.m. Eastern Friday. The spacecraft is carrying around 6,000 kilograms of supplies to support the current Shenzhou-19 crew at the station and the future Shenzhou-20 crew. [SpaceNews]
SpaceX launched two Falcon 9 missions less than eight hours apart this weekend. A Falcon 9 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 5:28 p.m. Eastern Sunday carrying a payload identified only as Optus-X or TD7. The payload is believed to be a GEO communications satellite for Australian operator Optus, potentially for military applications. Another Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 12:53 a.m. Eastern Monday. It deployed a set of 20 Starlink satellites, 13 with direct-to-cell payloads. [Spaceflight Now | Space.com]
Brendan Carr will be the next head of the FCC. The incoming Trump administration announced Sunday that Carr, currently one of five FCC commissioners, will take over as chairman when Trump takes office in January. Among other issues, Carr has been publicly critical of the FCC's decision to revoke rural broadband subsidies from SpaceX after the commission concluded in 2023 that the service did not meet its broadband standards. [AP]
Blue Origin has named the crew for its next New Shepard mission. The NS-28 mission will include two returning customers, Marc and Sharon Hagle, who flew on the NS-20 mission in 2022. Also among the six-person crew are science communicator Emily Calandrelli and Austin Litteral, who won his seat in a contest. Blue Origin did not disclose the date of the flight. [Blue Origin]
Texas A&M has broken ground on a space institute at NASA's Johnson Space Center. A ceremony Friday marked the formal groundbreaking for the Texas A&M University Space Institute, although construction will start in earnest in January. The $200 million facility will include simulated lunar and Martian landscapes and other laboratory space. The funding for the institute came from the state government's Texas Space Commission last year. [Houston Chronicle]
| | | | | | The Week Ahead
Monday:
Monday-Tuesday:
Tuesday:
Tuesday-Thursday:
Tuesday-Friday:
Wednesday:
Wednesday-Friday:
Thursday:
-
Baikonur, Kazakhstan: Scheduled launch of a Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying the Progress MS-29 spacecraft at 7:22 a.m. Eastern. The spacecraft will dock with the International Space Station about two hours later.
-
Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at approximately 10:53 a.m. Eastern.
-
Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at approximately 11:13 p.m. Eastern
Friday:
| | | | | | What's New With SpaceNews? | | Don't forget to sign up for our next webinar! |  | | Join us November 20 at 1:00 PM EST for a dynamic webinar that brings together key players from across the space industry for a discussion on a groundbreaking initiative from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) — a $700 million investment in data labeling to empower artificial intelligence in geospatial intelligence. | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment