Plus: Eutelsat's move away from consumer broadband
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| | | A SpaceNews daily newsletter | | 02/17/2025 | | | | | Eutelsat is moving away from consumer broadband as Starlink's dominance in that sector grows. Eutelsat announced Friday it is repurposing Konnect VHTS, the 500-gigabit-per-second satellite launched to GEO in 2022 for consumer broadband over Europe and Africa, to serve higher-paying mobility customers in other markets. Eutelsat is closely reviewing future GEO investment needs amid a general shift in the market toward LEO for connectivity. Eutelsat owns OneWeb, the only meaningful competitor today for Starlink in LEO, but a global rollout of OneWeb services continues to be delayed by ground infrastructure and regulatory issues. [SpaceNews]
Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost 1 lunar lander has entered orbit around the moon. The lander performed a maneuver late last week to enter an elliptical orbit around the moon and will maneuver in the coming days to move into a circular orbit. The lander is scheduled to touch down early March 2 near Mare Crisium on the near side of the moon. Blue Ghost 1 launched last month on the same Falcon 9 as ispace's Resilience lander, which made a flyby of the moon on Friday. Resilience is following a low-energy trajectory and the flyby put it on course to return and enter lunar orbit in early May. [SpaceNews]
Firefly also won a launch contract from the Space Force for a responsive space mission. The contract from Space Systems Command is for Victus Sol, which will launch on the company's Alpha rocket. The launch is part of the Tactically Responsive Space (TacRS) program, which aims to demonstrate the Space Force's capability to rapidly deploy satellites during national security emergencies. The Space Force did not disclose details about the payload or a launch date for the mission. Firefly successfully launched another TacRS mission, Victus Nox, in 2023. [SpaceNews]
China is seeking bids for a lunar imaging satellite. The China Manned Space Engineering Office released a call for proposals Friday for what it described as a "lunar remote sensing satellite" that would provide high-resolution images of the moon, map mineral distributions and support future crewed landings. The mission will focus on low-latitude regions of the moon, suggesting that China's first crewed mission to the moon will go to equatorial regions and not the poles as NASA is targeting with Artemis. [SpaceNews]
A European astronaut with a physical disability has been medically cleared for long-duration missions to the International Space Station. A multinational medical board has certified John McFall, an ESA reserve astronaut who lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident at the age of 19 and wears a prosthesis. ESA selected McFall in its 2022 astronaut class as part of an effort to see if people who have certain disabilities but who would otherwise qualify to be astronauts could fly in space. ESA officials said Friday that while McFall is approved medically for a flight, the agency has not assigned him to a mission yet and he will have to compete for limited opportunities to send ESA astronauts to the station. [SpaceNews]
| | | | | SpaceX achieved another booster reuse milestone on a launch early Saturday. A Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 1:14 a.m. Eastern and placed 21 Starlink satellites into orbit. The booster used for the launch made its 26th flight, a record for the company. [Spaceflight Now]
Startup Ravyn Technology is trying to enter the market for hypersonic vehicles and solid rocket motors. The company aims to bring down the cost of missiles tenfold with its Mobile Mass Missile System. Ravyn missiles are designed to travel 1,600 kilometers in space, reaching speeds of Mach 10 or higher, before gliding on reentry for extended range. It wants to cut the cost of missiles through design simplification, economies of scale and vertical integration. [SpaceNews]
Redwire has won a study contract for an ESA astrophysics mission. The company's Belgian subsidiary received a contract from ESA for initial work on the Analysis of Resolved Remnants for Accreted galaxies as a Key Instrument for Halo Surveys (ARRAKIHS) spacecraft, which would study dark matter. Another company, AVS, also received a study contract from ESA for the ARRAKIHS mission, and the agency will later pick one of the companies to build the spacecraft. [Redwire]
South Korea is working on solar sail technology. The Korea Aerospace Research Institute announced last week it has successfully tested in a lab a solar sail deployment system, unfurling a sail 10 meters across. Solar sails use sunlight to provide propulsion and have been tested in orbit on a few missions, including NASA's ACS3 spacecraft last year. The institute did not disclose when it might attempt to launch its solar sail. [Dong-A Ilbo]
A film that offers an immersive experience about the Apollo missions is now screening in Houston. The Moonwalkers, narrated by Tom Hanks, premiered in London in late 2023 and started playing earlier this month at Space Center Houston, the visitors' center for the Johnson Space Center. The film uses not just a single screen in front but also screens on the side and extending onto the floor to tell the story of Apollo. Houston The movie will also be screened this spring at the Kennedy Center's Earth to Space Festival in Washington. [collectSPACE]
| | | | | | | | | Tuesday: -
Mahia Peninsula, N.Z.: No-earlier-than launch of an Electron rocket carrying a BlackSky imaging satellite at 6:15 p.m. Eastern. -
Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 6:15 p.m. Eastern. Wednesday: Thursday: -
Online: Airbus will release its 2024 financial results and hold its annual press conference at 3:15 a.m. Eastern. -
Xichang, China: Projected launch of a Long March 3B carrying an unidentified payload at about 8:30 p.m. Eastern. Thursday-Friday: Friday:
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