Plus: Determining when the (space) weather is the problem
| | | A SpaceNews daily newsletter | | 01/15/2025 | | | | | Two commercial lunar landers are on their way to the moon after an overnight launch. A Falcon 9 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 1:11 a.m. Eastern. It deployed Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost 1 lander about 65 minutes after liftoff, followed nearly a half-hour later by ispace's HAKUTO-R M2 Resilience lander. Blue Ghost 1, scheduled to land on the moon in early March, is carrying 10 NASA payloads as part of the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. Resilience, slated to make a lunar landing in four to five months, is carrying a set of payloads primarily for Japanese companies and a Taiwanese university. SpaceX paired the two missions to use the same Falcon 9 to maximize payload and reduce costs for Firefly and ispace. [SpaceNews]
Loft Orbital has raised $170 million to expand manufacturing facilities and streamline operations with more artificial intelligence. The San Francisco-based company announced its Series C round Tuesday led by Tikehau Capital and Axial Partners, bringing its total capital raised to around $325 million. Loft Orbital takes buses from multiple vendors and integrates payloads flown on behalf of customers who want to avoid the cost and complexity of operating their own satellites. Proceeds from the Series C round will support ramping up manufacturing and integration facilities, including a 4,600-square-meter factory being developed in the United Arab Emirates under a joint venture. They will also be used to further artificial intelligence that will automate satellite operations and optimize data processing to further improve efficiency. [SpaceNews]
A Chinese robotic lunar rover likely can no longer move. Images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter show that the Yutu-2 rover, which has been on the lunar farside since January 2019 as part of the Chang'e-4 mission, has not moved since March 2024. The rover had initially been moving up to 40 meters per lunar day, but in 2023 those drives became shorter before stopping entirely. It's not clear what caused Yutu-2 to become immobile, although it was reported to be still functioning last September. [SpaceNews]
A new tool will allow U.S. military satellite operators to determine if spacecraft problems can be blamed on space weather. Space Weather Analysis and Forecast System (SWAFS) 2.0, a cloud-based platform, will be available in March or April, an Air Force official said at the American Meteorological Society's annual meeting this week. The system will help operators evaluate on-orbit anomalies, communications interference and false-echo returns for radar systems to see if spacecraft problems can be linked to space weather events versus other causes. [SpaceNews]
Weather intelligence startup Tomorrow.io has rolled out a global-precipitation forecasting platform using data from its satellites. The platform, called NextGen, ingests data from Tomorrow.io satellites to provide global precipitation forecasts with a resolution of 2.5 kilometers, updated every five minutes. The system is designed to fill gaps in terrestrial weather radars to improve forecasts and monitoring of extreme weather events. Tomorrow.io operates a constellation of six satellites: two Ka-band radar satellites launched in 2023 and four satellites with microwave sounders launched in 2024. Additional satellites are scheduled to launch in 2025. [SpaceNews]
| | | | | SpaceX launched more than 130 satellites on its latest rideshare mission Tuesday. A Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 2:09 p.m. Eastern on the Transporter-12 mission. The rocket carried 131 satellites, including some in orbital transfer vehicles that will be deployed later. That payload included imaging satellites for Planet, Satellogic, Iceye and Indian startup Pixxel, which flew its first three commercial high-resolution hyperspectral satellites. Also on board was Varda Space Industries' second mission, W-2, which carries NASA and Air Force Research Lab payloads on a capsule that will return to Earth, landing in Australia. Inversion space flew its first reentry vehicle, Ray, on the mission as well; it will splash down off the California coast after spending a few weeks in orbit. [SpaceNews]
A startup is making a sharp pivot from producing metal 3D printers to orbital transfer vehicles. Rosotics had been developing Halo, a 3D printer for producing large metal structures for use in aerospace, maritime and other applications. The company is changing direction, using the Halo technology to instead produce orbital transfer vehicles and other in-space infrastructure. The company is moving from Arizona to Cape Canaveral to focus on those applications, but didn't disclose a schedule for flying those orbital transfer vehicles. [SpaceNews]
The Indian space agency ISRO may have to wait until March to attempt an in-space docking experiment. The agency's new chairman, V. Narayanan, said orbital parameters such as lighting conditions and access to ground stations means the current window for attempting a docking by the two Space Docking Experiment spacecraft closes Jan. 20 and does not reopen until late March. It was unclear if ISRO will make a docking attempt before the current window closes, but Narayanan said the agency was not "in any hurry" to try the docking, stating that the spacecraft have plenty of propellant. [India Today]
SpaceX upper stage reentries are reportedly causing flight delays for an Australian airline. Qantas says that it has had to delay several of its flights between Sydney and Johannesburg in recent weeks to avoid reentries by upper stages over the Indian Ocean on SpaceX launches. Qantas claims that it has delayed some flights by up to six hours because SpaceX has shifted reentry times on short notice. It was unclear what recent changes in SpaceX operations caused the flight delays. Qantas says it is asking SpaceX to refine the time and location of its reentries to help avoid those delays. [News.com.au]
Utah is showing new interest in a spaceport. State Sen. Jerry Stevenson introduced a bill in the state legislature that would provide $500,000 to establish a committee to study whether the state could host a launch site. A spaceport, he said, could support both the state's technology and tourism industries. More than a quarter-century ago, Utah examined establishing a spaceport that would serve flights by the VentureStar reusable launch vehicle, but those plans were shelved after the cancellation of that program. [KUTV Salt Lake City]
| | | | | | | | | "Perhaps this house on the moon can symbolize life's eternal quest to evolve, to extend our consciousness and to view our planet from a new perspective. Isn't a house on the moon exactly what the world needs right now?"
– Swedish artist Mikael Genberg, who built Moonhouse, a tiny model of a house that is included on ispace's Resilience lunar lander. [collectSPACE]
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