Plus: Impulse Space's latest fundraising and Voyager's IPO valuation
| | | A SpaceNews daily newsletter | | 06/04/2025 | | | | | In-space transportation company Impulse Space raised $300 million to expand production of its vehicles and work on new technologies. The company announced the Series C round Tuesday led by Linse Capital, with DFJ Growth and many returning investors also participating. Impulse Space called the round a "preemptive raise" triggered by investor interest in the company. The funds will allow the company to hire more employees and expand its ability to produce its Mira and Helios transfer vehicles. The company also plans to work on electric propulsion systems to complement the chemical propulsion systems used on its current vehicles. [SpaceNews]
Jacobs Technology won a Space Force contract worth up to $4 billion over 10 years to support upgrades to launch ranges. The Space Force Range Contract covers maintenance, sustainment, systems engineering and integration services for the Eastern and Western Ranges until 2035. The contract represents a significant shift in how space launch infrastructure is funded. Under the new arrangement, commercial launch service providers, which now account for the majority of launches at both ranges, can request services or upgrades and pay for them directly, rather than having the government bear the costs upfront. This arrangement would create a more market-driven approach to range operations and potentially accelerate modernization. [SpaceNews]
Voyager Technologies is looking to raise up to $367 million in its upcoming initial public offering (IPO). The company officially started the IPO process Monday, seeking to sell up to 12.65 million shares at prices of $26 to $29 per share, which would generate up to $367 million in gross proceeds. The IPO would value Voyager at $1.6 billion. Voyager said it plans to use the proceeds to invest in research and development, acquisitions and other growth initiatives, including development of the Starlab space station. [SpaceNews]
Maxar Intelligence announced an agreement with Swedish aerospace firm Saab to develop battlefield intelligence products that use satellite data. Under the agreement, Saab will leverage Maxar's geospatial intelligence products, including imagery and 3D data, for defense applications. The agreement also gives Saab access to Maxar's Raptor, a visual-based navigation technology that serves as a proxy for GPS. Maxar said the deal is another example of the company's push in the international market as customers seek sovereign space-based capabilities for national defense. [SpaceNews]
Astroscale has completed a key review for a servicing spacecraft. Astroscale U.K., the British subsidiary of the Japanese company, said Wednesday it completed the critical design review for the ELSA-M mission, scheduled to launch next year. ELSA-M is designed to remove a OneWeb satellite from low Earth orbit and could then be used to deorbit other spacecraft. Astroscale said the review was validated by OneWeb's owner, Eutelsat, as well as the European Space Agency. [SpaceNews]
| | | | | The second mission by Japanese lunar lander developer ispace is ready to attempt a landing tomorrow. The company announced late Tuesday a new landing time of 3:17 p.m. Eastern Thursday for the Resilience lander, seven minutes earlier than previously announced. The change came after engineers reviewed the current orbit of the spacecraft. Resilience carries payloads from Japanese companies and a Taiwanese university, along with the Tenacious rover built by ispace's European subsidiary. Tenacious will collect lunar regolith to sell to NASA under a $5,000 contract as part of NASA's efforts to establish rights to use lunar resources, as well as deploy The Moonhouse, a small model of a house made by a Swedish artist. [SpaceNews]
A joint NASA-DARPA nuclear propulsion project is dead. NASA, in a statement tucked away in its detailed fiscal year 2026 budget proposal released last Friday, said that DARPA was ending its participation in the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Orbit (DRACO) project and transferring its documentation of it to NASA. DRACO had planned to launch a nuclear reactor into Earth orbit and test its ability to generate thrust by heating liquid hydrogen propellant. NASA does not plan to continue DRACO on its own, and the budget seeks to end work on nuclear propulsion in general, concluding "there are other nearer-term propulsion alternatives for Mars transit." Many experts have argued that nuclear propulsion is essential for human Mars missions as a way to greatly reduce travel times. [Ars Technica]
The launch of the next private astronaut mission to the International Space Station has slipped two days. NASA and Axiom Space said Tuesday the Ax-4 mission is now scheduled to launch no earlier than June 10, rather than June 8 as previously announced. The delay gives more time to complete final processing of the Crew Dragon spacecraft flying the mission and to work around forecasted poor weather during transport of the spacecraft and Falcon 9 launch vehicle to the pad. [NASA]
The Russian space agency Roscosmos will test an artificial intelligence model on the ISS. Roscosmos said that Gigachat, a large language model developed by Russian bank Sberbank, will be sent to the ISS in the fall along with the computing equipment it needs to operate. Roscosmos envisions Gigachat helping with tasks like processing satellite imagery. [Reuters]
An astronomer whose passion for solar eclipses gave him the nickname of "Mr. Eclipse" has died. Fred Espenak passed away June 1 at the age of 71 from a lung disease. He first witnessed a total solar eclipse as a teenager in 1970, borrowing the family car to drive from New York to North Carolina. He worked professionally as an astronomer at NASA studying planetary atmospheres, but gained fame for work he did calculating and publicizing upcoming eclipses and how to observe them, efforts that continued after he retired from NASA in 2009. He observed 31 total solar eclipses. [Space.com]
| Monochrome Space
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"On the moon it will be a monument. It will be the only colorful thing on the moon. There is no color in the space industry. They don't use colors."
– Mikael Genberg, a Swedish artist who led development of The Moonhouse, at a briefing Wednesday. The Moonhouse is a small model house, painted bright red, that will be deployed on the moon by the Tenacious rover carried on ispace's Resilience lander.
| | | | | | | | | What's New With SpaceNews? | | Don't forget to sign up for our next webinar! |  | | Join us June 10 for an exclusive one-on-one live interview with Rep. George Whitesides (D-CA), a freshman congressman representing California's 27th District. Whitesides brings years of experience to Capitol Hill, having previously served as NASA's chief of staff and as CEO of Virgin Galactic. | | | | |
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