Plus: Geost wins a Space Force contract extension
By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: Rocket Lab completes one launch pad while India starts work on another, Geost wins an extension of a Space Force contract, NISAR passes in-orbit checkouts and more.
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Top Stories
Rocket Lab took a step closer to the first launch of its Neutron rocket by opening the vehicle's launch site. A ceremony Thursday formally inaugurated Launch Complex 3, the pad the company built at Wallops Island, Virginia, to host Neutron. The pad features a launch stand, in place of a tower or strongback. That design, the company, said is intended to minimize refurbishment between launches. The completion of the pad is a step toward the first Neutron launch, with Rocket Lab executives holding to a "green-light schedule" that would allow that launch to take place before the end of the year, provided everything goes as planned. [SpaceNews]
A new Rocket Lab subsidiary received an extended order for optical payloads from the U.S. Space Force. Geost won an expansion of an existing contract to produce two optical payloads that will be used by missions in geostationary orbit. The award, first issued in 2021, has more than doubled in value to $80.7 million and has been extended through July 2026, when Geost is expected to finish development. The payloads will fly as hosted payloads on spacecraft yet to be identified, according to Space Systems Command's Space Combat Power Program Executive Office. Optical payloads such as those being built by Geost help operators track and characterize spacecraft, offering early warning of potentially hostile maneuvers. Rocket Lab closed a $275 million deal to acquire Geost earlier this month. [SpaceNews]
Nuview, a Florida startup building a constellation of lidar satellites, received a $5 million award from a Defense Department office. The National Security Innovation Capital (NSIC) program will provide the funding to Nuview to rapidly prototype a lidar (light detection and ranging) payload the company plans to use on a constellation of satellites that will offer three-dimensional mapping of the Earth. NSIC was established in 2021 by the Defense Innovation Unit to support early-stage startups developing dual-use technology. [SpaceNews]
Viridian Space Corp. won U.S. Air Force funding to develop propulsion for very low Earth orbit (VLEO) satellites. The $1.25 million Phase II award from Air Force technology innovation arm AFWERX will allow the Southern California startup will develop an air-fed cathode able to withstand erosion in the oxygen-rich VLEO environment. The technology will be used by an electric propulsion system capable of scooping up air for plasma thrusters that could be used to maintain the orbits of spacecraft in VLEO. [SpaceNews]
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Other News
China's southern province of Guangdong is aiming to create a fully integrated commercial aerospace ecosystem. The provincial government released a document this month outlining efforts along those lines, extending a 2024–2028 action plan on promoting the commercial space industry issued. It sets out seven domains with 21 measures to support the development of commercial space there. It follows moves by, most notably, Beijing and Shanghai, to foster commercial space ecosystems, although the Guangdong plan appears to lack measurable goals that other regions have established for promoting space activities. [SpaceNews]
Construction is set to begin on a new Indian spaceport. Officials with the Indian space agency ISRO held a pre-construction ceremony at the site of the spaceport in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The launch site will be used by ISRO's Small Satellite Launch Vehicle and small launcher being developed by Indian companies, enabling them to reach sun-synchronous orbits. The spaceport will be complete by the end of 2026, the chairman of ISRO said. [The Times of India]
A joint NASA-ISRO Earth science spacecraft is working well a month after its launch. NASA said Thursday that the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) spacecraft has successfully completed all its preliminary checkouts since its July 30 launch. That includes deployment of its 12-meter radar antenna. The progress keeps the mission on track to begin regular science operations in about two months. [NASA]
The physicist who invented the gravitational wave detector, and shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery of such waves, has died. Rainier Weiss died Monday at the age of 92. Weiss, a physicist at MIT, sketched out a concept in the 1970s to use lasers to measure ripples in spacetime caused by events such as black hole collisions. That concept became the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), which detected the first gravitational waves in 2015. Weiss won the Nobel Prize in physics in 2017 with Barry Barish and Kip Thorne. [New York Times]
Note: FIRST UP will not publish Monday. Have a great Labor Day weekend, and we will be back on Tuesday.
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To Mars, from MARS
| "This will support national security space, commercial missions, interplanetary exploration. I mean, how good would it be to get to Mars from MARS?"
| – Shaun D'Mello, vice president for Neutron at Rocket Lab, speaking Thursday at a ceremony marking the opening of the company's Launch Complex 3 at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Virginia.
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