Plus: K2 Space lands $30M Space Force contract, FAA updates Starship license
| | | A SpaceNews daily newsletter | | 12/20/2024 | | | | | Maxar Intelligence has secured contracts worth $35 million to provide satellite imagery and analytics to two Asia-Pacific governments. The deals, announced Thursday, will give these undisclosed governments access to Maxar's newly deployed WorldView Legion satellites, which provide high-resolution Earth observation imagery, as well as synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data from partner company Umbra. The contracts are part of Maxar's "direct access program," which enables customers to directly control satellite tasking through their own ground stations, with the ability to request image captures just 15 minutes before an imaging event and receive data in real-time. [SpaceNews]
K2 Space won a $30 million Space Force contract for the first launch of its Mega Class satellite. The deal is part of the Strategic Financing Initiative (STRATFI) program, which matches government funds with private investment to bolster cutting-edge space technologies. With contributions from the Space Force's SpaceWERX organization, the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Pentagon's Space Test Program, the total value of the agreement is $60 million. The contract covers the launch of a Mega Class satellite on a mission called "Gravitas" in February 2026, carrying multiple experimental payloads from the Space Test Program. The satellite will launch to low Earth orbit and later use electric propulsion to move to medium Earth orbit. [SpaceNews]
The FAA has updated the launch license for SpaceX's Starship/Super Heavy vehicle well ahead of its next flight. The FAA announced this week that it issued a license modification for Flight 7, the next launch of the vehicle. SpaceX has not announced a launch date for Flight 7 but it is expected to be in the first half of January. The early license is a contrast to a Starship launch in October where the updated license was issued less than 24 hours before the scheduled liftoff. Flight 7 will follow a similar profile as recent flights, with an attempt to catch the Super Heavy booster back at the launch tower, while Starship splashes down in the Indian Ocean. [SpaceNews]
A crew on the International Space Station will get an additional month in space. NASA announced this week it was delaying the launch of the Crew-10 mission from February to late March. That mission will use a new Crew Dragon spacecraft that needs additional time to be readied for the flight. That will extend the time of the Crew-9 mission on the ISS, including astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been on the ISS since arriving on a Starliner test flight in June. [SpaceNews]
China is about to eclipse a launch record for the country set just last year. A launch of a Ceres-1 rocket Thursday, deploying four Internet-of-Things satellites, was the 66th launch of the year. China launched 67 times in 2023, and several more launches are planned through the rest of this year. Those launches have carried more than 260 satellites, exceeding the 221 launched in 2023. [SpaceNews]
| | | | | Three rideshare launch services companies are joining forces for flying spacecraft to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). Innovative Solutions in Space (ISISPACE), Maverick Space Systems and SEOPS announced Thursday a partnership to support missions to GTO. SEOPS announced in November that it acquired a dedicated Falcon 9 launch in 2028 for a GTO rideshare mission, and it will work with the other two companies on that mission. The three companies will continue to work on their own for other rideshare launch opportunities. [SpaceNews]
Two Russian cosmonauts conducted a spacewalk outside the International Space Station Thursday. Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner spent 7 hours and 17 minutes outside the station, installing an X-ray spectrometer instrument on the exterior of the Zvezda module. They also replaced electrical connectors on the hull of Zvezda and collected experiments that had been exposed to the space environment. [Space.com]
The head of Roscosmos says he expects Russia to stay on the ISS to 2030. In an interview with Russian television, Yuri Borisov said Roscosmos would work with NASA to deorbit the station "around the beginning of 2030." Those comments suggest that Roscosmos will continue to be part of the ISS partnership until that time, after previously stating it would leave the station in 2028 to focus on a new Russian space station. Borisov noted that the aging station is more difficult to maintain, with cosmonauts now spending more time on repairs and less on experiments. [Ars Technica]
The German government plans to provide nearly $100 million in additional funding to three launch companies. The government announced Thursday that it would provide 95 million euros ($98.7 million) to HyImpulse, Isar Aerospace and Rocket Factory Augsburg, three German companies working on small launch vehicles. The funding will help the companies as they approach first flights of the vehicles in the next year or so. The government said that budget reallocations and higher subscriptions to ESA programs enabled the funding. [European Spaceflight]
The federal government is headed for a shutdown after the House rejected a revised continuing resolution (CR) Thursday. The revised CR, which would have funded the federal government through mid-March and provided disaster relief funding, but which removed other provisions in an earlier CR, fell well short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage under suspension of the rules. Most Democrats voted against the bill as well as some Republicans, who opposed the addition of a two-year suspension of the debt ceiling added at the insistence of President-elect Trump. The current CR funding the government expires early Saturday, and House leadership offered no details on what their next steps will be. [Washington Post]
| | | | | | Slide Rules
"I remember going to the Smithsonian a few years ago and they had a slide rule in a display case, and I was insulted because I used a slide rule, right? So things change. And today, they don't even let me go into a lab by myself."
– Clayton Turner, NASA associate administrator for space technology, discussing the changing tools of technology. [Federal News Network]
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Watch out for new episodes every Tuesday on SpaceNews.com and on the SpaceNews YouTube channel.
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