Plus: AST SpaceMobile raises another $400 million and Space Capital's predictions for 2025
| | | A SpaceNews daily newsletter | | 01/24/2025 | | | | | AST SpaceMobile raised an additional $400 million to fund development of its direct-to-device constellation. The company raised the money through a convertible debt instrument where investors can convert the debt, priced Wednesday to pay interest at 4.25%, into AST SpaceMobile equity if shares rise above $45, or cash at the bond's maturity in 2032. The company now has more than $900 million of cash on its balance sheet to shift production of its Block 2 BlueBird satellites into a higher gear this year, after deploying five smaller Block 1 spacecraft to low Earth orbit in September. AST SpaceMobile has contracts to launch up to 45 BlueBird satellites in the next two years, and expects its next spacecraft to leave facilities in Texas as early as March for a launch from India. [SpaceNews]
Airbus and Boeing will divest their space businesses this year, venture capital firm Space Capital predicts. In a report released Thursday, Space Capital said it expected the two large aerospace companies to sell their space business units because of struggles keeping up with a changing market. Airbus took major losses on space programs last year and has been in talks with other major European aerospace companies on a joint venture, while Boeing is considering dropping parts of the company outside its core of commercial aviation and defense. Space Capital said it expects 2025 to be "one of the most transformative years on record for the space economy" overall. [SpaceNews]
Boeing expects to take more changes on its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew program. The company stated Thursday it would take $1.7 billion in charges against earnings for five programs in its Defense, Space and Security business unit when it reports its fourth quarter financial results next week. Most of the charges will go toward two military aircraft programs, but Starliner could see up to $400 million in charges. Boeing took $250 million in charges on Starliner in the third quarter. Neither NASA nor Boeing have provided recent updates on the status of Starliner since its uncrewed return to Earth in September on the Crew Flight Test mission. [SpaceNews]
A bid protest should not keep the Office of Space Commerce from completing a new space traffic coordination system this year. Kayhan Space filed a protest in December contesting a contract the office awarded to Slingshot Aerospace to develop the user interface for the Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS). The protest triggered a 100-day work stoppage on the contract. The office's acting director said this week that, despite the delay, the office still hopes to complete work on the first phase of TraCSS later this year. [SpaceNews]
NASA awarded studies for later phases of the Artemis lunar exploration campaign despite uncertainty about the future of Artemis. NASA has selected nine companies for studies worth a combined $24 million to study issues related to logistics and surface mobility for future lunar bases, the agency announced Thursday. The studies are meant to address gaps in the Moon to Mars Architecture NASA developed to guide Artemis and planning for later missions to Mars. The studies come amid speculation that NASA may revamp or even cancel Artemis to focus more on human missions to Mars. SpaceX's Elon Musk, an avid supporter of human Mars missions, said last month that Artemis "is extremely inefficient" and that an "entirely new" alternative is needed. [SpaceNews]
| | | | | China launched a classified geostationary satellite Thursday. A Long March 3B rocket lifted off at 10:32 a.m. Eastern from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, placing into geostationary transfer orbit the TJS-14 satellite. Chinese officials described TJS-14 as a spacecraft to provide communications and test technologies. TJS satellites are believed by outside observers to fulfill a range of functions, perform technology tests and test out new tactics, techniques and procedures. [SpaceNews]
The space industry is bracing for potential tariffs by the Trump administration. Before his inauguration, Trump said he would levy tariffs against China as well as Canada, Mexico and other nations. Experts anticipate tariffs will generally lead to higher costs for critical materials across the industry, in addition to potential supply chain disruptions and increased pressure on manufacturers to localize production. That could result in higher costs for U.S. space projects and services, or lower profit margins if companies decide to absorbs the costs of the tariff. In the longer term, though, it could drive companies to increase domestic sourcing. [SpaceNews]
Spanish defense company Indra is finalizing a deal to acquire satellite operator Hispasat. According to the Spanish newspaper El Pais, India and Redeia are set to approve a deal where Indra would buy Hispasat for 650 million euros ($679 million). Indra had expressed an interest in buying some or all of Hispsat for more than a year. [Reuters]
A Viasat bid protest could be linked to the Air Force's decision to place the head of the Space Development Agency (SDA) on leave. The Department of the Air Force announced last week it placed Derek Tournear on administrative leave but did not disclose the reason for doing so. That move is reportedly linked to a bid protest filed by Viasat over awards of Tranche 2 Transport Layer contracts to Terran Orbital and York Space Systems. Viasat alleges that the winning companies were improperly given help in the bidding process, but the complaint Viasat filed in the Court of Federal Claims does not specify what, if anything, Tournear did wrong. [Breaking Defense]
A startup planning to mine helium-3 on the moon thinks that quantum computing will be a sufficient initial market. Interlune has outlined plans to develop technologies that will allow it to harvest helium-3 from lunar regolith. The isotope, which costs $20 million per kilogram on Earth today, has long been associated with nuclear fusion. However, Interlune sees quantum computing, which uses helium-3 to cool their systems to near absolute zero, as a sufficient initial market. Many observers remain skeptical that helium-3 can be extracted from the moon profitably. [SpaceNews]
| | | | | | | | | "I used to be the head of a physics department in a U.K. university and I know the difference between the physicist in the basement who's been running their experiment with the PC attached to it for 10 years, and don't touch the PC because you'll destroy the experiment, all the way up to something like ESA missions or CERN."
– Carole Mundell, ESA's director of science, speaking at a town hall meeting Thursday.
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