| By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: NISAR is in orbit, but Eris didn't get far off the pad; the Pentagon selects five companies for satcom studies; Firefly lands another mission.
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| | | | | | Top Stories
An Earth science mission jointly developed by NASA and the Indian space agency ISRO is in orbit after a launch this morning. A GSLV Mark 2 rocket lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at 8:10 a.m. Eastern, deploying the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) spacecraft into sun-synchronous orbit nearly 19 minutes later. NISAR is a joint mission of the two space agencies, equipped with L- and S-band radars to measure changes in land and ice surfaces as well as to study vegetation. The radars will use an antenna 12 meters across that will be deployed starting in about 10 days. [SpaceNews]
The first flight of an Australian small launch vehicle didn't get far off the pad. The Eris rocket, developed by Gilmour Space Technologies, lifted off from a company launch pad in north Queensland at about 6:35 p.m. Eastern Tuesday. The rocket, though barely cleared the launch tower when it faltered, hovering and drifting for several seconds before falling back to the ground 14 seconds after liftoff. Gilmore Space said that despite failing to get to orbit, the company still considered the launch useful in collecting data about the vehicle in flight. Eris is a small launch vehicle that can place a few hundred kilograms into low Earth orbit. Gilmour Space did not disclose plans for the next test flight. [SpaceNews]
The U.S. Space Force has awarded contracts to five companies to develop satellite communications concepts. Space Systems Command announced the contracts this week to Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Viasat, Intelsat and Astranis, worth a combined $37.2 million. The companies will use the six-month contracts to advance system designs and demonstrations for the Protected Tactical Satcom-Global (PTS-G) program. PTS-G is the spacecraft component of the broader Protected Tactical Satcom (PTS) initiative, which is aimed at providing secure, jam-resistant military communications in contested environments using a constellation of satellites in geostationary orbit. [SpaceNews]
Firefly Aerospace won its fourth NASA lunar lander award. NASA announced Tuesday it picked Firefly Aerospace for a mission to land in the south polar region of the moon in 2029. The $176.7 million award will fund the Firefly Blue Ghost 4 lander carrying two small rovers, one developed by NASA Ames, Carnegie Mellon University and Astrobotic, and the other from the Canadian Space Agency. The lander will also carry three instruments. Firefly is the only company part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program to have a fully successful landing mission, with its Blue Ghost 1 touching down and standing upright on the moon in March. [SpaceNews]
Three Canadian companies won study contracts for a lunar utility rover. Canadensys Aerospace Corporation, MDA Space and Mission Control were awarded contracts worth 14.6 million Canadian dollars ($10.6 million) combined to assess different options for the rover over the next 18 months, exploring capabilities across different sizes and mission scopes. The contracts are part of a 13-year, 1.2 billion Canadian dollar program the country announced in 2023 to develop a utility rover for supporting human exploration of the moon. The rover is meant as a contribution to Artemis, in exchange for seats for Canadian astronauts on future missions under the U.S. program. [SpaceNews]
| | | | | | Other News
A Falcon 9 launched a set of Starlink satellites overnight. The Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:37 p.m. Eastern Tuesday on the Group 10-29 mission. The upper stage placed 28 Starlink satellites into orbit while the first stage landed on a droneship to complete its 26th flight. [Spaceflight Now]
A Chinese company says it will continue to launch a small solid-fuel rocket after its successful return to flight. The Hyperbola-1 rocket launched early Tuesday, putting into orbit the HS-9 commercial remote sensing satellite. The launch was the first for the Hyperbola-1 since a failure in July 2024, and the vehicle has a record of four successes and four failures. After the launch, iSpace said it will continue launching Hyperbola-1, noting the event verified the reliability and stability of a new production batch. The company is also working on the Hyperbola-3 methane-liquid oxygen rocket, with iSpace recently progressing with plans to conduct a test flight of the launcher by the end of the year. [SpaceNews]
The Japanese military has released new plans for space defense. The Defense Ministry released Monday space domain defense guidelines that highlight the need for cooperation between the public and private sectors. The guidelines include the need to use space assets to track forces on the ground and to protect those assets from Chinese and Russian anti-satellite weapons. [Jiji Press]
NASA astronaut Kate Rubins has left the agency. NASA announced that Rubins retired from the astronaut corps on Monday and did not disclose hew future plans. She was a member of the astronaut class of 2009 and flew two long-duration missions to the International Space Station in 2016 and 2020, spending 300 days in space. A microbiologist, she was the first to sequence DNA in space. [NASA/JSC]
For the first time in the 350-year history of the position, Britain's Astronomer Royal is a woman. Michele Dougherty, a space scientist at Imperial College London, was named Wednesday to the honorary post, succeeding the retiring Martin Rees. Dougherty has worked on the Cassini mission, detecting magnetic field variations that provided evidence of subsurface oceans on the Saturnian moon Enceladus, and is part ESA's JUICE mission to the icy moons of Jupiter. The position of Astronomer Royal was created in 1675 to advise the king on topics like using the stars for maritime navigation. [The Guardian]
| | | | | | Eris-Shattering Kaboom
| "It feels devastating right now and I'm disappointed — I'm not disappointed. The boom was kind of fantastic. It kind of hits your chest really well."
| | – Josh Keegan, host of the "Aussienaut" YouTube channel, providing livestream commentary after the failed inaugural launch of the Eris rocket.
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