By Jeff Foust

In this today's edition: the latest twist in the NASA administrator saga, Chinese satellite maneuvers alarm the U.S. military, Starlink gets closer to operating in India and more.

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Top Stories

President Trump has named Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy as the new acting NASA administrator. In a social media post Wednesday night, Trump said that Duffy would serve as the "interim" administrator while continuing to lead the Transportation Department. Janet Petro, director of the Kennedy Space Center, had been the acting NASA administrator since the start of the current administration. Trump did not give a reason for the change other than praising Duffy's work on air traffic control upgrades and other work at the department. Duffy, a former member of Congress, does not have a space background. Having a Cabinet member take over leadership of NASA, even on an interim basis, is unprecedented in the nearly 70-year history of the space agency. [SpaceNews]

Chinese satellites are experimenting with increasingly sophisticated maneuvers in space. Between late 2023 and December 2024, five Chinese satellites executed a series of close approaches that space analysts called unprecedented due to the number of spacecraft and the complexity of their movements. That is making U.S. officials uneasy that these orbital behaviors could give Beijing an advantage in a future conflict. Given the growing complexity of the operations, the Pentagon is enlisting commercial firms to help decipher China's intentions. [SpaceNews]

SpaceX is a step closer to beginning Starlink service in India. The Indian National Space Promotion Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe) approved services for Starlink on Tuesday, two months after giving similar authorization for Eutelsat's rival LEO network OneWeb. The nod from IN-SPACe marks one of the final major regulatory steps before Starlink can begin operations. However, SpaceX still needs spectrum and other clearances before it can provide broadband in the world's most populous nation. If successful, India would offer Starlink access to a vast user base and a strategic foothold in Asia. [SpaceNews]

Chinese commercial launch firm Orienspace is aiming for a late 2025 debut of its Gravity-2 rocket after a recent engine test. Orienspace announced Tuesday that it had successfully conducted a hot fire test of a Gravity-2 first stage engine, including gimbal and valve system evaluations. There is confusion, though, about the specific engine tested: the company had been developing its own Yuanli‑85 kerosene-liquid oxygen engines, while test footage appeared to show a YF-102 engine, developed by state space giant China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. Orienspace said Gravity-2 will achieve flight readiness by the end of 2025. [SpaceNews]

Japanese company Interstellar Technologies raised 8.9 billion yen ($61.8 million) for work on a launch vehicle and satellite technologies. The company said it raised 6.5 billion yen from several investors, with the remaining 2.4 billion yen in the form of debt financing. Interstellar said the Series F round would support work on its Zero launch vehicle, whose first flight has slipped to 2027. It will also aid in development of communications satellites that could be launched by that vehicle. [SpaceNews]

A former DARPA official is the new head of smallsat manufacturer EnduroSat's US office. Paul "Rusty" Thomas is a former DARPA program manager that led Project Blackjack, a demonstration of proliferated low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite systems. He also worked for SpaceX and Amazon's Kuiper Government Solutions business. Thomas will help EnduroSat, a Bulgarian producer of smallsats, expand its work in the United States. [SpaceNews]

Other News

New Trump administration policies have international partners recalibrating their approach to cooperation. After decades of working closely with international space agencies, the Trump administration is reevaluating programs through an "America First" lens, which prioritize domestic prosperity over foreign-policy considerations. That has led officials in Canada, Europe and elsewhere that have worked with the U.S. on space projects to rethink their plans, including stronger ties with each other and greater domestic spending as links with the U.S. weaken. [SpaceNews]

Spaceports now have the same ability as airports to issue tax-exempt bonds. A provision in the budget reconciliation bill enacted last week allows spaceports to issue such bonds to support investment in new infrastructure. Spaceport advocates have argued that allowing spaceports to offer tax-free bonds, like airports and seaports, will make it easier and less expensive to finance projects. While the provision, as an earlier standalone bill, had bipartisan support, some criticized it as a handout to Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that tax-exempt spaceport bonds will cost the government about $1 billion in lost tax revenue over the next decade. [SpaceNews]

Japanese launch services provider Space BD is partnering with Australia's Gilmour Space. The two companies announced Wednesday an agreement where Space BD will sell space on Gilmour's Eris small launch vehicle, and also provide payloads and components for Gilmour's ElaraSat smallsat bus. The agreement comes as Gilmour prepares for the first launch of Eris, now scheduled for as soon as next week after months of delays. [SpaceNews]

The British government is reportedly making an investment in Eutelsat. A French newspaper reported that Britain will invest 163.3 million euros ($191 million) in the satellite operator after French President Emmanuel Macron met with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer this week. The investment will allow the U.K. government to retain a roughly 10% stake in Eutelsat that came from Eutelsat's acquisition of OneWeb. A new round of investment by the French government would have diluted that stake. [Reuters]

Airbus has won a contract to build two radar imaging satellites for the Spanish government. Airbus Defence and Space will build two PAZ-2 satellites, providing continuity for the PAZ satellite in operation since 2018. The first of the PAZ-2 satellites is scheduled to enter service in 2031. [Airbus]

More than 2,000 NASA employees plan to leave the agency through buyouts. Those totals, according to agency documents, include many senior civil servants who are taking deferred retirement or other buyout options offered by the agency. The totals, though, fall well short of the projected reduction of 6,000 civil servants, a third of its workforce, outlined in the agency's fiscal year 2026 budget, suggesting that layoffs remain an option. [Politico]

Cosmological Consternation

"There is a raging, emotional debate happening in the world of cosmology right now, and if your nerd factor isn't running around 9.7, 9.8, you might not notice. It's kind of hard to tell because cosmologists, when they're yelling at each other and they're getting very emotional, it's actually difficult for normal people to actually notice that."

– ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno during the latest episode of his podcast, The Burn Sequence. [YouTube]

FROM SPACENEWS

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