Plus: Could defense cuts favor the commercial space industry?
| | | A SpaceNews daily newsletter | | 02/25/2025 | | | | | SpaceX said it has tracked down what likely caused the loss of its Starship flight on last month's test. SpaceX said Monday it concluded that an unexpectedly strong harmonic response in the vehicle caused stress on hardware, breaking propellant lines. Those leaks fueled a fire in the aft section of Starship on its Jan. 16 flight, leading to engine shutdowns and loss of the vehicle. The company made changes to the vehicle and its operating profile to address that issue, which it tested in an extended static fire of the next Starship vehicle earlier this month. SpaceX is targeting as soon as Friday for the launch of Starship on its eighth test flight, pending approvals from the FAA. [SpaceNews]
The head of NASA's exploration mission directorate is retiring. NASA announced Monday that Cathy Koerner, associate administrator for exploration systems development, would retire at the end of the week. She had been in that role since the end of 2023, succeeding Jim Free, who moved up to associate administrator only to retire himself last week. Koerner will be replaced on an acting basis by her deputy, Lori Glaze. The departures of Free and Koerner have raised new questions about the future of the Artemis lunar exploration effort. NASA also announced Monday that Vanessa Wyche, director of the Johnson Space Center, will serve as acting associate administrator. [SpaceNews]
The U.S. Space Force is starting work to identify its role in the "Iron Dome for America" missile-defense program. Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations, said Monday that he has established an "integrated planning team" of technical experts to examine how to create a space-based missile-defense system. Saltzman said that team will look at the program "from an overarching perspective" and expected that the Space Force will play a central role in any implementation of Iron Dome. [SpaceNews]
Potential defense spending cuts and reallocations could create new opportunities for the commercial space industry. A recent report by the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald concluded that recent proposals, such as the 8% annual cut in defense spending over the next five years, will likely drive procurement reforms, such as fixed-price contracts, that could favor commercial space firms. The investment group noted that commercial space solutions are also potentially among the beneficiaries of reallocation of funds within the DoD. [SpaceNews]
| | | | | NASA's former deputy administrator says she was not aware of any proposal by SpaceX to accelerate the return of Starliner astronauts from the International Space Station. Pam Melroy, who was deputy administrator in the Biden administration, said any proposal that SpaceX offered to the White House to bring back Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore early never made it to NASA. She added that the Biden White House "was very good about letting us make safety decisions" like the agency's decision to leave the astronauts on the station rather than having them come back on Starliner. Musk has repeatedly claimed that SpaceX offered a way to bring Williams and Wilmore back earlier than currently planned, but has provided no other information to substantiate that claim. [Bloomberg]
NASA has cut off funding to support international climate science studies. The agency halted work on a technical support unit for the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which the Biden administration allocated $1.5 million for. The agency didn't explain why it cut off support for the effort, which prevented NASA's chief scientist, Kate Calvin, from attending an IPCC meeting in China. The State Department also declined to send a delegation to the meeting as previously planned. [Science]
A Chinese launch company has long-term plans for an initial public offering (IPO). Huo Liang, CEO of Deep Blue Aerospace, says his company is planning an IPO in 2028, depending on its progress on launch vehicles and overall conditions in the Chinese stock market. The company raised nearly $200 million last year and has a valuation of about $690 million as it works on its Nebula line of rockets. Huo said that the Chinese space industry is accelerating and argued that companies like his could catch up with SpaceX by 2030. [Wall Street Journal]
The Space Force has canceled a contract with one of four companies working on "resilient" GPS systems. Space Systems Command canceled a $10 million study contract with Astrion after early reviews found its concepts were not "quite at the level of maturity" as desired. Space Systems Command awarded the contract to Axient, since acquired by Astrion, last year as part of its Resilient GPS program that seeks to develop small, low-cost GPS satellites to augment the existing constellation. Similar contracts with the other three companies – Astranis, L3Harris and Sierra Space — are continuing. [Defense News]
| | | | | | As Long as We Don't Come in Second
| | | | "What unifies America more than a hockey game or some thing going on in space, right?"
– John Neal, executive director for space policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, during a CSIS panel discussion about space exploration Monday.
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