| By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: a Senate committee wants to know more about super heavy launch capacity, Firefly Aerospace files to go public and China's efforts to compete with Starlink.
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| | | | | | Top Stories
The Senate Armed Services Committee has advanced a defense bill that includes provisions on space launch safety protocols, spectrum protection and homeland missile defense. The committee voted 26-1 to send its version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2026 to the full Senate. The NDAA sets policy direction and outlines congressional priorities for the Department of Defense. Among its provisions, the bill directs the Air Force to conduct a comprehensive study of future heavy and super heavy space launch capacity, reflecting concerns about ensuring adequate access to space as national security launch requirements expand. It also requires the Air Force to publish a blast damage assessment guide tailored to liquid oxygen and methane propellants, which are being more widely used but pose issues about their explosive potential. The bill supports work on the Golden Dome missile defense system and directs the Defense Department not to give up radio-frequency spectrum for commercial applications unless it can guarantee it won't impact military systems. [SpaceNews]
The House, meanwhile, is expected to direct the Pentagon to maintain a commercial satellite imagery program. The House Armed Services Committee is expected to include language in its version of the NDAA directing the Pentagon to establish the Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Tracking (TacSRT) program as a "program of record" with annual budget funding. The move comes after the Trump administration's fiscal year 2026 defense budget proposal omitted funding for TacSRT, despite the Space Force touting the program as critical for filling military demands for faster access to space-based intelligence in rapidly evolving situations. Under TacSRT, companies offer unclassified analytical products derived from satellites to U.S. and allied military commanders delivered within hours of requests. [SpaceNews]
Firefly Aerospace has filed to go public. The launch and spacecraft company filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday for an initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Market. Firefly did not disclose how many shares it plans to sell and at what price, although even after the IPO current majority owner AE Industrial Partners will retain control of the company. Firefly reported $60.8 million in revenue in 2024 and a net loss of $231.1 million, and it said it would use the proceeds of the IPO to pay off $173.6 million in current debts. [SpaceNews]
Varda Space Industries raised $187 million to support expanded work in in-space pharmaceutical research. The company announced last week it closed a Series C round led by Natural Capital and Shrug Capital with participation by several other investors. Varda has completed three missions of the W-series spacecraft, which are designed to conduct pharmaceutical research in orbit and return the results in reentry capsules that can also collect hypersonic data. The additional funding will assist efforts by Varda to increase its launch cadence and expand work in microgravity life sciences. [SpaceNews]
SpaceX is reportedly investing $2 billion in another Elon Musk venture, xAI. According to a report, SpaceX is providing $2 billion of capital toward a $5 billion round being raised by xAI to help that company catch up with market leaders in the artificial intelligence field like OpenAI. SpaceX currently uses xAI to power customer support services for Starlink, with the potential for additional, unspecified, partnerships between the companies in the future. [Wall Street Journal]
China's effort to compete with Starlink is accelerating. China's Spacesail has deployed about 90 of a planned 14,000 satellites for its Qianfan constellation since August 2024, but the operator is counting on a sharp increase in launch cadence to add roughly 500 more satellites this year, enabling at least a limited degree of services. Unlike Starlink, Qianfan is not initially targeting mass-market consumers. Instead, the constellation is being positioned as a state-backed space backbone, focused on telecom operators, government clients and enterprise users. In December, the country began deploying a far more secretive constellation dubbed Guowang that is projected to include 13,000 satellites. The lack of transparency surrounding Guowang has fueled speculation that it carries dual-use or national security payloads, drawing comparisons to SpaceX's Starshield. [SpaceNews]
| | | | | | Other News
A Crew Dragon spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station this morning. The Crew Dragon spacecraft Grace undocked from the station at 7:15 a.m. Eastern after two and a half weeks on the ISS for the Axiom Space Ax-4 private astronaut mission. The spacecraft is scheduled to splash down early Tuesday off the California coast. [NASA]
SpaceX launched an Israeli government communications satellite early Sunday. A Falcon 9 lifted off at 1:04 a.m. Eastern from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission SpaceX designated only as "Commercial GTO-1." The payload was Dror-1, a satellite built by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) for the Israeli government. SpaceX did not disclose the name of the satellite or other details about the payload during the launch webcast, although the rocket had a large IAI logo on its payload fairing. Dror-1 will provide a "national strategic capability" for Israel in satellite communications, IAI said after the launch. [Spaceflight Now]
The FAA's new ability to charge launch licenses fees may not do much to help a budget-constrained office. A provision in the budget reconciliation bill passed earlier this month directs the FAA to charge launch and reentry license fees. The fees are intended to provide an additional revenue stream for the FAA's commercial spaceflight office, known as AST. However, some note that fees would generate only a tiny fraction of the AST's budget and thus would do little to address industry concerns that AST lacks resources to keep up with growing launch activity. A House spending bill released Sunday would keep AST's budget flat at just under $42 million in fiscal year 2026. [SpaceNews]
A launch of a Taiwanese suborbital rocket from a Japanese site failed on Saturday. The VP01 rocket lifted off from the Hokkaido Spaceport but malfunctioned around separation of the first stage. The upper stage lost control but its engine continued to fire, causing the vehicle to tumble until the engine shut down and the stage fell back to earth. The rocket was developed by Taiwanese company TiSpace through a Japanese subsidiary, jtSPACE, with the goal of reaching an altitude of 100 kilometers. TiSpace had previously, and unsuccessfully, attempted launches from Australia. [Taipei Times]
NASA astronaut Shannon Walker has retired. Walker retired from NASA last week after 30 years of federal service, 21 of which was as an astronaut. She spent 330 days in space on two long-duration ISS missions, one in 2010 on a Soyuz and the other in 2020 and 2021 on the SpaceX Crew-1 mission. She was most recently deputy chief of the astronaut office. [NASA]
A former NASA official has joined a space entertainment company. Bert Ulrich, who previously worked at NASA as its liaison to filmmakers, is the new executive vice president of production development and communications at Space 11 Corp. That company, founded by Italian film producer Andrea Iervolino, is devoted to making entertainment about space, and eventually in space. [Deadline]
| | | | | | The Week Ahead
Monday: -
Wenchang, China: Scheduled launch of a Long March 7 carrying the Tianzhou 9 cargo spacecraft to the Tiangong space station at 5:40 p.m. Eastern. -
Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 10:13 p.m. Eastern. Monday-Friday: Tuesday: Wednesday: Wednesday-Thursday: Thursday:
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