Plus: Why astronauts said it's 'not the right time' to call it quits with the ISS
| | | A SpaceNews daily newsletter | | 03/05/2025 | | | | | Executives with major launch companies say U.S. spaceports are not equipped to handle a surge of launch activity. At the Air & Space Forces Association's Warfare Conference this week, the CEOs of Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance and a SpaceX vice president said the industry must collectively prepare for a future where multiple daily launches are the norm, a tempo that government-run launch ranges at Cape Canaveral in Florida and Vandenberg Space Force Base in California cannot support. They cited issues such as protocols that don't allow simultaneous launches by different providers at the Cape. They suggested federal launch ranges should conduct exercises simulating multiple daily launches to identify bottlenecks and called on the Space Force to work with launch companies to prioritize investments in spaceport infrastructure. [SpaceNews]
Astranis has successfully demonstrated it can transmit GPS signals using its geostationary broadband communications payload. The company announced Tuesday it demonstrated in the lab that its small GEO satellites can provide GPS signals as part of a Resilient GPS (R-GPS) program study. Astranis is competing with L3Harris and Sierra Space for the next phase of the program when the Space Force is expected to select a vendor to deploy eight R-GPS satellites by 2028, and ultimately up to 24 satellites. [SpaceNews]
NASA astronauts on the International Space Station say it would be a mistake to deorbit the station early. In a call with reporters Tuesday, Suni Williams argued that the station is "in our prime" and that "right now was probably not the right time to call it quits." SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently called for deorbiting the station as soon as 2027 to focus on Mars, arguing that the station has "very little incremental utility." The astronauts said they had no information about Musk's earlier claims that he offered an early return of Williams and Butch Wilmore, who arrived on the station in June on a Starliner test flight, although Wilmore said he believed what Musk said was "absolutely factual." [SpaceNews]
Apex marks one year of on-orbit operations of its first satellite. The company's Aries SN1 spacecraft launched on a Transporter rideshare mission in March 2024 and continues to work normally. The company launched SN1 as a technology demonstrator that also carried payloads for customers such as Anduril and Booz Allen Hamilton. The company is incorporating lessons learned into future Aries spacecraft and is seeing strong demand for the smallsat bus from defense customers. [SpaceNews]
Additive-manufacturing startup Raven Space Systems has secured agreements with NASA and the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL). The company is developing technologies to produce solid rocket motor nozzles and thermal protection systems using 3-D printing. The agreements with NASA and AFRL will support work to test and characterize printed solid rocket motor parts. The startup also has Air Force, NASA and the National Science Foundation contracts valued at more than $4 million to apply its patented microwave-assisted deposition process to aerospace and defense products. [SpaceNews]
| | | | | SpaceX will try again today to launch its Starship/Super Heavy vehicle. The company is targeting 6:30 p.m. Eastern for liftoff of the eighth suborbital test flight of the vehicle, two days after unspecified issues with it scrubbed an initial launch attempt. Arianespace, which scrubbed an Ariane 6 launch on Monday as well, has rescheduled that launch for Thursday at 11:24 a.m. Eastern after correcting issues with ground equipment that caused the scrub. NASA late yesterday further delayed the Falcon 9 launch of the SPHEREx and PUNCH space science missions from Thursday to Friday, citing launch availability at Vandenberg Space Force Base. Issues with the Falcon 9 have delayed that launch by a week. [Space.com | Arianespace | NASA]
NASA selected Firefly Aerospace to launch an Earth science mission. The agency said Tuesday it awarded a task order through its Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare contract to Firefly for the launch of the Investigation of Convective Updrafts mission, no earlier than late 2026 on an Alpha rocket. INCUS will fly three smallsats in formation to study the creation of storms. Firefly is preparing for the Alpha launch of a Lockheed Martin satellite as soon as this month, the first of a projected five Alpha missions this year. [SpaceNews]
Isar Aerospace won a launch contract from a Japanese company. Microgravity services startup ElevationSpace signed a contract with Germany's Isar for the launch of AOBA, a 200-kilogram spacecraft designed to test a recoverable platform for space-based experiments and manufacturing. That satellite is planned to launch in the second half of 2026 on Isar's Spectrum rocket. Isar recently announced it completed testing of the first Spectrum rocket and needs only a launch license from Norwegian regulators before attempting a launch from Andøya Spaceport in Norway. [SpaceNews]
President Donald Trump briefly mentioned Mars and Golden Dome in an address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. In the speech, Trump said "we're going to lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond." That is similar to comments from his inaugural address when he said astronauts would plant the Stars and Stripes on Mars, but did not offer a schedule or other details in either speech. He also asked Congress to fund "a state-of-the-art Golden Dome shield," a missile defense system previously called Iron Dome for America that will likely include a significant space-based component. [SpacePolicyOnline.com]
The Space Force is preparing for potential workforce reductions. Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant, head of the service's Space Systems Command, said there's "a lot of concern" about potential firings of probationary civil servants and broader layoffs directed by the Office of Personnel Management. He said he is working to make sure affected employees are taken care of while redistributing work among the remaining staff. Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman separately said he is worried about cuts to a service that is trying to grow, but added that the Space Force was designed to be "lean and agile." [Defense News]
| Startups Versus Commissions
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"I was remembering this quote from a CEO, who was mentioning, 'Why do we need more entrepreneurs in Europe when we can just have more commissions?' That's this idea that we're having more and more bureaucracy in Europe."
– Saloua Moutaoufik of Aldoria, a European space situational awareness company, discussing development of a new European Union space law during a session of the 11th Annual Space Traffic Management Conference on Tuesday.
| | | | | | | What's New With SpaceNews? |  | | Check out the latest episode of Commercial Space Transformers, our new video series featuring conversations between SpaceNews Senior Staff Writer Jason Rainbow and the people driving the space industry's commercial transformation. This week, Tess Hatch, Managing Partner at Stifel Venture Banking, covers the evolving landscape of space investment and commercialization. Hatch, a former venture investor now in a banking role, discusses the shift in financing for space startups, moving from equity investments to debt financing. She highlights a significant trend where many space companies are now branding themselves as defense tech firms due to updated government contracting methods, making defense-focused business models more attractive to investors.
Watch out for new episodes every Tuesday on SpaceNews.com and on the SpaceNews YouTube channel.
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