Plus: Arianespace CEO Stéphane Israël steps down, Space Florida backs $65M spaceport project
| | | A SpaceNews daily newsletter | | 12/19/2024 | | | | | Axiom Space is revising its plans to assemble a commercial space station. The company announced Wednesday a revised sequence of modules for Axiom Station, which will now start with a Payloads Power Thermal Module (PPTM) that will be berthed to the International Space Station as soon as 2027. The PPTM will later unberth and dock with a habitat module, forming the core of a free-flying station that will be augmented by other modules. The company originally planned to start with a sequence of habitat and research modules docked to the ISS. The change, the company said, avoids any conflicts over access to the docking port on the ISS it originally planned to use and which NASA wants to reserve for the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle. The change also enables Axiom to operate a free-flying station with just the PPTM and a habitat module as soon as 2028. [SpaceNews]
Eutelsat ordered 100 OneWeb satellites from Airbus Defence and Space. Eutelsat said the order would allow it to start replenishing aging satellites in the first-generation OneWeb constellation that will be reaching the end of their design lives in 2027 and 2028. Eutelsat is holding off on a second-generation system but said the new satellites would have "key technology upgrades." The first of the new satellites will be completed by the end of 2026, and Airbus plans to manufacture them in Toulouse, rather than the former Airbus OneWeb Satellites factory in Florida that built most of the first-generation satellites. [SpaceNews]
The NRO now has more than 100 satellites in a new constellation in orbit after a launch Tuesday. A Falcon 9 lifted off at 8:19 a.m. Eastern from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California and placed an unspecified number of satellites into orbit. With the launch, the NRO said that new constellation has more than 100 satellites developed by SpaceX and Northrop Grumman with imaging payloads. The NRO plans to continue expanding the constellation through 2028. [SpaceNews]
A Japanese small launch vehicle failed on its second flight Tuesday. The Kairos rocket lifted off from Spaceport Kii in southern Honshu at 9 p.m. Eastern. The initial phase of the flight appeared to go well, but about two minutes after liftoff the rocket could be seen tumbling. Space One, the company backed by Canon and IHI Aerospace that developed Kairos, confirmed the launch was a failure but provided few additional details. The inaugural Kairos launch in March also failed when low thrust from the rocket's first stage triggered an autonomous flight termination system seconds after liftoff. [SpaceNews]
Two Chinese astronauts performed a marathon spacewalk outside the Tiangong space station Tuesday. Shenzhou-19 commander Cai Xuzhe and crewmate Song Lingdong spent more than nine hours outside the station during the spacewalk, which ended at 8:57 a.m. Eastern Tuesday. The spacewalk appears to surpass the previous record for a spacewalk of 8 hours, 56 minutes set by NASA astronauts James Voss and Susan Helms during the STS-102 mission in 2001. The astronauts carried out installation of space debris protection devices, the inspection and handling of external equipment and facilities during the spacewalk. [SpaceNews]
The Space Force will establish a Futures Command next year to help it justify its plans and programs. Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations, said at a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) event Tuesday that the new command will help provide "the data set that we can then use in the budget fights," a crucial capability as the Space Force faces growing congressional scrutiny over its acquisition speed and strategic focus. The Futures Command will expand on work currently done by the Space Warfighting Analysis Center. In a separate talk at the CSIS event, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chair of the House Armed Services Committee, pushed for the Space Force to develop more acquisition and technology experts rather than focusing primarily on operators. [SpaceNews]
| | | | | A Falcon 9 launched a pair of O3b mPower satellites Tuesday. The rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 5:26 p.m. Eastern, deploying the seventh and eighth O3b mPower satellites into medium Earth orbits. The satellites are the first in the mPower series with redesigned power systems, correcting problems that have reduced the performance of the first six mPower satellites. SpaceX is slated to deploy the remaining five O3b mPower satellites over the next 18 months. [SpaceNews]
Ursa Major says it successfully tested a new solid rocket motor in a Raytheon missile. The approximately 10-inch diameter motor was tested on an undisclosed missile system for the U.S. Army, Ursa Major announced, calling the test a crucial milestone as defense contractors seek new suppliers amid growing demand for weapons systems. Raytheon, which invested in Ursa Major through its venture capital arm RTX Ventures during the startup's $138 million funding rounds in 2023, is exploring the company's 3D-manufacturing capabilities to reduce costs and accelerate munitions production for the U.S. military. [SpaceNews]
A power outage shut down SpaceX's mission control during the Polaris Dawn private astronaut mission in September. The outage was caused by a power surge when a cooling system malfunctioned, knocking out power at the mission control center in Hawthorne, California. The outage also affected backup systems, keeping SpaceX from activating another mission control center in Florida. The outage lasted about an hour and did not appear to adversely impact the mission itself, although SpaceX did not disclose the incident at the time or respond to subsequent inquiries. [Reuters]
Taiwan is in talks to use Amazon's future Project Kuiper constellation. Taiwan's technology and science minister said the government is considering some kind of collaboration with Amazon to use the broadband constellation after concluding the OneWeb system did not offer sufficient bandwidth. Taiwan had previously ruled out SpaceX's Starlink, which is not available in the country after SpaceX concluded it could not meet requirements such as local ownership. [Radio Taiwan International]
The federal government is reviewing alleged security violations by Elon Musk and SpaceX. At least three reviews by Pentagon organizations are underway to examine claims that the company is not complying with reporting requirements, such as disclosing meetings Musk has had with foreign leaders. Last month, a SpaceX employee who worked on security clearances at the company criticized executives for not complying with security regulations, accusing them of a "let's push it till we are caught mentality." That employee later resigned. [New York Times]
A Dragon finally returned to Earth Tuesday after lengthy weather delays. The Dragon splashed down off the Florida coast at 1:39 p.m. Eastern, a little more than a day after undocking from the International Space Station. The spacecraft was set to return in early December but NASA and SpaceX delayed its departure because of poor weather conditions at the splashdown locations. The spacecraft launched in early November and returned with science experiments and hardware. [Space.com]
A stopgap funding bill will keep the government open and provide disaster relief funding for NASA. House and Senate appropriations released a continuing resolution (CR) Tuesday that would keep the government funded at 2024 levels after the current CR expires Friday until March 14. The CR also includes a disaster relief supplemental funding bill, which allocated $740.2 million to NASA to repair facilities damaged by storms in 2023 and 2024. Another provision would allow NOAA to spend money at a higher rate on the GeoXO weather satellite program to keep that program on schedule. [Washington Post]
| | | | | | Don't Tell Elon
"Mars is a fixer-upper planet. It's probably not going to be great when you get there, right? Probably, people are going to be like, 'Wow, I spent six months coming here, really? I want to go back.'"
– SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell, expressing her preference to visit Earth-like planets in other solar systems during a talk at a CSIS event Tuesday.
| | | | | | | What's New With SpaceNews? |  | | Check out the latest episode of Commercial Space Transformers, our new video series featuring conversations between SpaceNews Senior Staff Writer Jason Rainbow and the people driving the space industry's commercial transformation. This week, James Parker, founding partner of Leonid Capital Partners, shares his career journey from NASA flight controller, where he worked on the International Space Station's robotics, to the world of private credit and finance.
Watch out for new episodes every Tuesday on SpaceNews.com and on the SpaceNews YouTube channel.
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