Plus: Varda wins Air Force contract, and Commercial Space Federation expands its focus.
| | | A SpaceNews daily newsletter | | 12/03/2024 | | | | | Varda Space Industries won a $48 million contract to test military payloads on its reentry vehicles. The four-year contract from the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) leverages Varda's W-Series reentry capsules as platforms to test payloads at hypersonic speeds. Commercial reentry capsules would give the Air Force an operational environment to test vehicle subsystems under real flight conditions in a more cost-effective manner. Varda's next mission, scheduled for launch in early 2025, will showcase the Varda Hypersonic Testbed vehicle and carry an AFRL spectrometer to collect data during reentry. [SpaceNews]
Quantum technology firm Infleqtion won a Defense Department contract to develop atomic timing technology with implications for satellite navigation. The $11 million contract, announced Monday, supports work on Tiqker, a compact optical atomic clock that can be integrated into standard server racks. The award underscores growing military interest in GPS-independent navigation tools amid concerns about potential weaknesses in GPS, whose signals can be jammed or spoofed. [SpaceNews]
An industry group is changing its name slightly to reflect an expanded focus. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) announced Tuesday it has changed its name to the Commercial Space Federation. The name change reflects the fact that most of its members work in other parts of the space industry than launch, CSF said. The organization is establishing six "industry councils" in specific sectors, from launch to remote sensing, to allow members to focus on specific priorities. CSF is also creating a political action committee to support members of Congress advocating for commercial space. [SpaceNews]
PLD Space secured a loan to fund development of the launch facility for its Miura 5 rocket. The company announced Monday it obtained an 11 million euro loan from COFIDES, a Spanish financing agency. The loan will go towards development of facilities at the European spaceport in French Guiana for the company's Miura 5 small launch vehicle. That rocket is scheduled to make its first launch there as soon as the end of 2025. [SpaceNews]
| | | | | China launched a communications satellite on the 100th flight of the Long March 3B. The rocket lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 12:56 a.m. Tuesday and placed into a geostationary transfer orbit the Tongxin Jishu Shiyan-13 (TJS-13) satellite. TJS-13 will be used for satellite communication, radio and television, data transmission and other services, Chinese state media reported, along with technology tests. The spacecraft, like previous TJS missions, likely also has military applications. The launch was the 100th for the Long March 3B, of which 96 have been successful. This was also China's 60th orbital launch of the year, with the country likely to fall far short of its goal of 100 launches for the year. [SpaceNews]
SpaceX's valuation could soar in a new stock offering. The company is reportedly planning to offer insider shares to sell in a tender offer at a price that would value the company at about $350 billion. That would be far higher than the $210 billion valuation from the previous tender offer earlier this year and well above earlier reports the company was seeking a $255 billion valuation. SpaceX would be the most valuable private company if the deal goes through. [Bloomberg]
A facility called Spaceport 1 will be Scotland's third spaceport. Work is underway on the site on North Uist in the Outer Hebrides. The facility, with an estimated cost of $3.3 million, will be completed by next spring and support suborbital launches, although spaceport officials have not disclosed what vehicles will operate from the site. More than 1,000 local residents signed a petition opposing the spaceport on environmental concerns. Spaceport 1 will join SaxaVord Spaceport and Sutherland Spaceport, both of which are designed for orbital launches. [STV]
A new study suggests Venus may not have had oceans early in its history. Research published Monday studied the planet's dense atmosphere to gain insights on the planet's interior, since the current atmosphere is the result of gases released by volcanic activity. That assessment concluded the planet's interior was too dry to once have had liquid water on its surface, as some scientists had hypothesized. That would also make it unlikely that the planet could have been habitable early in its history. [Sky & Telescope]
| | | | | | Sky-High Rates
"On the ISS, NASA charges an astronaut's time at, I think, $130,000 an hour. I always tell this to lawyers to annoy them. They think they're cool making $1,000 an hour."
– Raphaël Roettgen, founder of E2MC Ventures, discussing the challenges of commercial activities on the International Space Station during a panel discussion Tuesday at the NewSpace Europe conference.
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