By Jeff Foust

In this today's edition: Starship explodes on a test stand, Space Force general formally tapped to lead Golden Dome, Varda starts building its own spacecraft, and more.

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Top Stories

A SpaceX Starship upper stage exploded on a test stand overnight. The vehicle, known as Ship 36, exploded just after midnight Eastern while on a test stand ahead of a planned static-fire test. SpaceX said all personnel were accounted for and that it was working with local officials to secure the site. Ship 36 was being prepared for the tenth Starship/Super Heavy test flight, which had been planned for as soon as late June. The explosion dealt another setback to SpaceX's development of Starship after failures of the upper stage on three previous flights. [SpaceNews]

The White House formally nominated Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein to lead development of the Golden Dome missile defense system. The Pentagon said Wednesday President Trump submitted the nomination of Guetlein to be "direct reporting program manager for Golden Dome for America" to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Trump said last month he has selected Guetlein to oversee Golden Dome, citing the general's experience leading complex programs and integrating space technologies into national defense. Guetlein has described Golden Dome as comparable in scale and ambition to the Manhattan Project. [SpaceNews]

Space manufacturing startup Varda Space Industries will use a spacecraft built in-house for its next mission. The company said Wednesday its W-4 mission is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Transporter mission lifting off as soon as this weekend. W-4 will use a spacecraft bus the company built on its own, after using a Rocket Lab spacecraft bus for its first three missions. The move to in-house spacecraft production is part of an effort to shorten the timeline between missions. Varda also hopes to increase its flexibility to tailor vehicles to customer requirements, with a goal of launching monthly. The W-4 mission will test the new bus design and also attempt a manufacturing process known as solution-based crystallization. Varda also received a new FAA reentry license Wednesday that will allow it to perform unlimited reentries of its capsule in Australia. [SpaceNews]

Ukrainian regulators will permit a telecom company to use Starlink for direct-to-cell services in the country. Kyivstar said Wednesday it was granted approval to start testing space-enabled texting services this summer using Starlink. The operator will focus on areas crippled by Russian strikes and other terrestrial coverage gaps. Kyivstar is Ukraine's largest mobile operator with more than 23 million subscribers, according to the company, and aims to deploy the Starlink direct-to-cell service commercially for unmodified handsets in the fourth quarter of 2025. SpaceX said last week it completed the first-generation deployment of Starlink satellites with direct-to-cell payloads, although the service is limited to messaging and emergency alerts. [SpaceNews]

Maxar Intelligence announced an agreement with radar imaging startup Array Labs. The companies said Wednesday that Maxar agreed to buy capacity on Array Lab satellites, which will produce high-resolution 3D imagery of the Earth using radar. The two companies will work to integrate Array Labs data into the Maxar 3D product line. Array Labs launched its first two prototype satellites in 2024. The company plans to launch its next demonstration mission in 2026, followed by the deployment of its first full production cluster. [SpaceNews]

Other News

A Russian Angara rocket launched a classified geostationary orbit satellite Wednesday. The Angara-A5 rocket launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome at about 11 p.m. Eastern. This was the fifth launch of the Angara-A5 but the first to carry an operational payload. That payload is a classified GEO satellite that some speculate may be designed to inspect or even attack other GEO satellites. [RussianSpaceWeb.com]

Firefly Aerospace announced plans to provide high-resolution images of the moon using its spacecraft. The company unveiled on Wednesday Ocula, a commercial service that will offer high-resolution optical and ultraviolet imagery. The images will come from its Elytra spacecraft, equipped with telescopes from Lawrence Livermore National Lab. The system will be able to take images of the moon with a resolution as sharp as 20 centimeters and also image other spacecraft around the moon for space domain awareness. NASA currently uses the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) for high-resolution imagery but that spacecraft, in service in 2009, is aging and NASA has been considering ways to replace it. [SpaceNews]

The Space Force is awarding SpaceX a contract for a satellite communications network. The MILNET network will consist of more than 480 satellites that will be operated by SpaceX but overseen by the Space Force's Delta 8, which handles satellite communications. SpaceX will also provide terminals based on those it uses for Starshield. The Space Force had not discussed MILNET in detail before, reportedly because while the contract is with the Space Force's Space Systems Command, the ultimate customer is the NRO. [Breaking Defense]

The SETI Institute has reached an agreement with SpaceX to prevent Starlink from interfering with a radio astronomy observatory. The SETI Institute said the agreement will protect the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a radio observatory in northern California that is used for general astronomy as well as searches for signals from any extraterrestrial civilizations. The institute and SpaceX will work to avoid interference through a technique called boresight avoidance capabilities, where SpaceX will ensure that, as Starlink satellites pass overhead, they do not direct signals that would be in the telescope's line of sight. SpaceX has a similar agreement with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. [SETI Institute]

NASA signed a new Artemis cooperation agreement with Germany despite uncertainty about the future of the lunar exploration effort. NASA signed the agreement with the German Aerospace Center, or DLR, at the Paris Air Show this week. The agreement extends an existing partnership on space medicine, including mitigating the effects of radiation exposure on deep-space missions. DLR will provide radiation sensors for the Orion spacecraft flying the Artemis 2 mission next year. The announcement comes as Europe examines effects of proposed NASA budget cuts related to Artemis. NASA had a low public profile at the air show, one of the biggest events in the aerospace industry. [NASA]

Mass Margin

"I'm less than 1.5 tons, so hopefully."

– ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen, when asked during a panel discussion at the Paris Air Show Thursday if he might fly on the agency's Argonaut lunar lander, with an initial cargo capacity of 1.5 tons.

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