| By Jeff Foust
In this today's edition: BlackSky's big picture, a European startup envisions human spaceflight, an artificial solar eclipse and more.
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| | | | | | Top Stories
China conducted a pad abort test for a next-generation crewed spacecraft intended for Earth orbit and lunar missions. China conducted the zero-altitude, or pad abort, test Tuesday at 12:30 a.m. Eastern at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. During the event, the launch escape system fired its solid rocket motors, propelling a Mengzhou spacecraft off the pad. The capsule deployed parachutes and airbags for a landing two minutes later. China's human spaceflight agency, CMSEO, declared the test a complete success. It will be followed by an in-flight abort test later in the year. Mengzhou is a modular spacecraft that will have two versions, one for low Earth orbit to succeed Shenzhou and another for lunar missions. [SpaceNews]
BlackSky said it will develop a new line of satellites capable of wide-field imaging. The company announced Monday its intent to develop Aros, a satellite designed to capture large areas of the planet rather than the high-resolution focus of its current Gen-3 satellites. This new satellite will target applications requiring broad geographical coverage, such as country-scale mapping, maritime monitoring and the creation of virtual replicas of physical locations. The first Aros satellite is planned for launch in 2027. BlackSky has not disclosed how many it expects to build. [SpaceNews]
The Exploration Company has plans for a crewed version of its Nyx cargo spacecraft. The company unveiled a new model of Nyx at the Paris Air Show Monday, showing off a design that can accommodate cargo or as many as five astronauts. Development of the crewed version of Nyx would take about a decade and cost one billion euros, the firm estimates. It is looking for support from European governments. The Exploration Company will fly a technology demo for the cargo version of Nyx, called Mission Possible, on the SpaceX Transporter-14 mission set to launch as soon as the end of this week. [SpaceNews]
The FCC said national security is a key driver for its efforts at satellite licensing reform and spectrum access. Jay Schwarz, chief of the FCC's space bureau, said at a conference Monday that the commission is pursuing several reforms aimed at modernizing satellite licensing and opening new spectrum bands. While commercial activity is a key motivation for those reforms, he said they also reflect a growing focus on supporting U.S. defense capabilities in space, given that many companies that provide communications services have government customers. [SpaceNews]
Astroscale won a contract from the British government for a pair of smallsats to monitor space weather. The contract, announced Monday and worth £5.15 million ($7 million), is for the Orpheus mission, set to launch in 2027. It will use two cubesats, built by Open Cosmos and operated by Astroscale UK, to study how charged particles in the ionosphere disturbed by solar activity can disrupt satellite signals, navigation systems and radio communications. The U.K.'s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory awarded the contract through BAE Systems. [SpaceNews]
| | | | | | Other News
China has sent several small spacecraft into specialized lunar and cislunar orbits as part of tests for future Earth-moon infrastructure. Those efforts include the DRO-B and Tiandu-1, which have been placed in specific Earth-moon resonance orbits: DRO-B completes three orbits around Earth in the time it takes the moon to perform two, while Tiandu-1 is in a 3:1 resonance with the moon. The spacecraft and their orbits are being used to verify the key technologies and operations for China's planned Queqiao constellation that will provide communications, navigation and remote sensing in support of lunar activities. [SpaceNews]
United Launch Alliance scrubbed an Atlas 5 launch of Project Kuiper satellites Monday because of a technical problem. ULA said in a brief statement it called off the KA-02 launch because of "an engineering observation of an elevated purge temperature within the booster engine." The company did not announce a new launch date. The Atlas 5 is carrying a second set of satellites for Kuiper, Amazon's broadband constellation, after the first set launched on another Atlas 5 in April. [Orlando Sentinel]
A Falcon 9 launch put on a show for people across the southwestern U.S. Monday evening. The rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 11:36 p.m. Eastern, putting 26 Starlink satellites into orbit. The launch, taking place at dusk, created a brilliant display as the rocket's plume was backlit by the sun, and was visible as far away as Arizona and southern Utah. [Spaceflight Now]
Rocket Lab has added a mystery customer to its Electron manifest. Rocket Lab said Monday it signed a contract with a "confidential commercial customer" for two Electron launches. The first is scheduled for as soon as Friday from its New Zealand launch site, with the other to follow before the end of the year. Both will place individual satellites into 650-kilometer orbits. Rocket Lab did not provide any other details about the customer or the launches. [Rocket Lab]
ESA released the first images of an artificial solar eclipse taken by the agency's Proba-3 mission. ESA published Monday views of a solar eclipse taken by Proba-3, a technology demonstration mission launched half a year ago. Proba-3 features two spacecraft, with one aligned precisely to block the disk of the sun as seen by the other spacecraft, 150 meters away. This will allow scientists to monitor the solar corona almost all the way down the sun's photosphere, something only possible in natural solar eclipses. [Space.com]
| | | | | | Mum's the Word
| | "I want to include others in this conversation. Sen. Kennedy, you're never at a loss for words."
"I am now."
| | – Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and John Kennedy (R-La.), discussing tariffs at a briefing during the Paris Air Show on Monday.
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