|
Welcome to our roundup of top SpaceNews stories, delivered every Friday! This week, NASA indefinitely delayed the Ax-4 mission, Europe approved the SES-Intelsat acquisition and more.
If someone forwarded you this edition, sign up to receive it directly in your inbox every Friday.
| | | | | OUR TOP STORY
| | By Jeff Foust NASA and Axiom Space are indefinitely delaying a private astronaut mission to the International Space Station after detecting a "new pressure signature" in a part of the station that has had a long-running air leak.
NASA said June 12 that the agency, along with Axiom Space, has agreed to delay the Ax-4 private astronaut mission to the ISS. They did not announce a new launch date for the mission.
| | | | | | | CIVIL
| | A line in NASA's fiscal year 2026 budget proposal, released May 30, provided the first public indication that NASA's Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, or ESCAPADE, mission will launch on the second New Glenn later this summer.
China's Shijian-21 and Shijian-25 spacecraft, designed for servicing and refueling, were within about two degrees of longitude — or roughly 1,500 kilometers — of each other in geostationary orbit as of June 9, according to a social media post by space situational awareness company COMSPOC. The spacecraft are operating around geostationary orbit, approximately 35,786 km above Earth's equator.
| | POLICY & POLITICS
| | The House Appropriations Committee on June 12 approved a $831.5 billion defense spending bill for fiscal year 2026 in a 36-27 vote, advancing it to the House floor for further consideration. The vote was marked by partisan divisions, with Democrats opposing the bill due to concerns about the lack of detailed budget justification from the administration and disagreements over specific provisions.
Speaking at a SpaceNews webinar June 10, Rep. George Whitesides (D-Calif.), vice ranking member of the House Science Committee, sharply criticized the fiscal year 2026 budget proposal for NASA, full details of which were released May 30. He said that it shows that the administration does not appreciate the value of science not just to NASA but the country in general. | | | | | | | COMMERCIAL
| | Europe has unconditionally approved SES' plan to buy rival satellite operator Intelsat, leaving the United States as the final major regulatory hurdle in the way of the $4 billion deal. The European Commission said June 9 that the merged group faces sufficient competition from terrestrial alternatives such as fiber for media services, and from low Earth orbit operators like SpaceX's Starlink in the connectivity market.
Four-year-old small satellite maker Muon Space announced $89.5 million in new funding June 12 to scale production and acquire propulsion startup Starlight Engines, bringing a potential supply chain bottleneck in-house to support its rapid expansion.
Logos Space Services has raised $50 million to advance engineering plans for more than 4,000 broadband satellites, the startup founded by a former Google executive and NASA project manager announced June 12. The Series A funding came from US Innovative Technologies, an investment firm backing technologies for both civilian and military use.
CAS Space conducted the Kinetica-2 (Lijian-2) first stage hot fire test June 11, marking a big step towards the orbital launch of the Qingzhou-1 prototype cargo spacecraft later in the year, the company said in a June 12 statement.
Voyager Technologies debuted on the New York Stock Exchange June 11, raising over $402 million in an upsized IPO that investors hope will spur more space-focused companies to go public. | | | | | | | SPONSORED |  | AIAA's Uniquely Interdisciplinary Space Conference—ASCEND—Poised for a Memorable Vegas Event By Natalia Larrea Brito Next month, ASCEND 2025 kicks off in Las Vegas for the fifth annual event. AIAA's on-ramp-to-space gathering prides itself on its interdisciplinary focus: attendees will include leaders in commercial and government space as well as non-traditional disruptors in the worlds of drug discovery, agriculture, and other industries that increasingly are betting big that space will transform their future.
ASCEND stands out, attracting thought leaders with a program that enables dialogue, eliminates silos, and accelerates solutions. That's how we realize our space ambitions sooner. | | | | | | | OPINION
| | By Sean Gorman Chinese technologies are without question a double-edged sword. From DeepSeek AI to Huawei smartphones, DJI drones and industrial port cranes, many of these tools raise valid concerns about surveillance, information theft and disruption.
The United States is right to not trust them.
But not every Chinese innovation is a covert weapon. And there is one technology in particular that the U.S. would be short-sighted to decouple from — China's GPS rival BeiDou.
| | By Todd McDevitt
By Ben Tarr
| | SpaceNews is committed to publishing our community's diverse perspectives. Whether you're an academic, executive, engineer or even just a concerned citizen of the cosmos, send your arguments and viewpoints to opinion@spacenews.com to be considered for publication online or in our next magazine. The perspectives shared in these op-eds are solely those of the authors.
| | | | | |  | Latest Press Releases
| | | | | | Sign up for our other newsletters -
First Up: The latest civil, commercial and military space news, curated by veteran journalist Jeff Foust. Delivered Monday to Friday mornings. -
Military Space: Veteran defense journalist Sandra Erwin delivers news and insights for the military space professional. Delivered Tuesday. -
China Report: Analysis of China's space activities and what it means as one of the United States' top competitors from correspondent Andrew Jones. Delivered every other Wednesday. -
SpaceNext AI: Exploring the intersection of space and artificial intelligence. Delivered Thursday. -
Video & Audio: Upcoming live programs, scheduled guests, and recent Space Minds podcast episodes, webinars and other events. Delivered Friday. -
Marketing Minute: Covering PR, marketing, and advertising trends, upcoming SpaceNews opportunities, and editorial insights for communications and marketing leaders. Delivered monthly. | | | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment