09/09/2025

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By Jeff Foust

In today's edition: Derek Tournear steps down as director of the Space Development Agency, Europe scales up its direct-to-device investments, China proposes an asteroid mission and more.

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Top Stories

The head of the Space Development Agency has stepped down to take a position in academia. Auburn University announced Monday that it had hired Derek Tournear, who had been director of SDA since 2019, to be its inaugural director of space innovation at the university's Washington, D.C. office. His appointment comes as Alabama seeks to expand its role in the military space sector. Tournear earned widespread praise for the agency's disruptive procurement methods and fast-paced contracting, but also ran into controversy, such as being placed on paid administrative leave earlier this year to investigate alleged procedural irregularities involving SDA contracts. Gurpartap Sandhoo, who had been SDA's deputy director, will serve as acting director of the agency. [SpaceNews]

The Office of Space Commerce has lost 40% of its current-year budget in a rescission. Industry sources said the office was informed in late August of the rescission affecting 40% of its $65 million budget for fiscal year 2025. The move may slow work on the TraCSS space traffic coordination system, primarily how the office parters with companies on pathfinder projects. Neither NOAA, within which the office is located, nor the Commerce Department responded to questions about the rescission. [SpaceNews]

As SpaceX expands its plans for direct-to-device services, Europe is investing more in key technologies for it. Thales Alenia Space announced Monday it is leading a 55 million euro ($65 million) project called U DESERVE 5G, aiming to test connectivity compliant with terrestrial 3GPP mobile standards from low Earth orbit by early 2028. The payload would feature an active antenna designed to enable voice calls and data services directly with a standard mobile device, without routing via a ground station. The announcement came the same day as SpaceX's deal to acquire EchoStar spectrum for direct-to-device services for $17 billion. One analyst said the EchoStar spectrum will "dramatically change the throughput capacity" for Starlink direct-to-device services. [SpaceNews]

Three companies joined forces to demonstrate the ability to track hypersonic objects. The test involved the reentry of a Varda Space Industries capsule in May, which was monitored by radars operated by LeoLabs and software from Anduril. Although the companies are highlighting the value of this technology for broad space domain awareness, the timing of the announcement and the specific details of the test highlight its potential military applications, particularly for the Golden Dome missile defense program. The test was funded through internal R&D money and the companies said they would try the test again in the future. [SpaceNews]

Earth imaging companies BlackSky and Iceye are joining an effort to create a digital twin of the Earth. The joint campaign with AI-visualization specialists Aechelon Technology and Niantic Spatial intends to create a planetary-scale geospatial model called Project Orbion that can be frequently refreshed with satellite observations. BlackSky high-resolution visual imagery and Iceye synthetic aperture radar data will feed into Skybeam, Aechelon's three-dimensional global database. Applications ranging from wildfire monitoring to military targeting require background global models with accurate coordinates. [SpaceNews]

Other News

China conducted a pair of launches Monday. A Jielong-3, or Smart Dragon-3, commercial rocket lifted off from a ship in waters near the city of Rizhao at 3:48 p.m. Eastern. It put into orbit a group of satellites called Geely-05, part of a constellation being developed by GeeSpace to provide Internet-of-Things services. Additionally, a Long March 7 rocket lifted off at 10 p.m. Eastern from the Wenchang spaceport on the island of Hainan. It put into orbit the Yaogan-45 satellite, described by Chinese media as a remote sensing satellite but likely with military applications. [SpaceNews]

Weather scrubbed a Falcon 9 launch Monday night. SpaceX called off the launch from Cape Canaveral Monday evening because of poor weather in the area, including clouds and lightning. The launch of the Nusantara Lima communications satellite has been rescheduled for Tuesday evening, but with a similar weather forecast. [Orlando Sentinel]

Chinese scientists are proposing a mission to the asteroid Apophis when it makes a close approach to the Earth in 2029. The mission, discussed at a planetary science conference Monday, would consist of two small satellites sent into a halo orbit around Sun-Earth Lagrange point 1 to await the approach of Apophis. They would then transfer into a flyby orbit to meet the asteroid shortly after its close encounter with the Earth in April 2029. The mission would build upon a related proposal called CROWN to place six spacecraft into Venus-like, heliocentric orbits intended to substantially improve the searching and tracking of near Earth objects. [SpaceNews]

Iceye has won a contract from Finland's military for radar imaging satellites. Iceye said Monday it signed a contract with the Finnish Defence Forces for an undisclosed number of SAR satellites. The contract is worth 158 million euros and includes options to both extend the life of the satellites and acquire additional ones. The announcement did not disclose when the satellites would be launched. [European Spaceflight]

Observations of an exoplanet have turned up hints of habitability. Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to take the spectra of the exoplanet TRAPPIST-1e as it transited in front of its parent star. One explanation for the data is that it shows signs of an atmosphere with nitrogen, a sign that it could be habitable given that the planet is in an orbit where it could support liquid water on its surface. However, astronomers said the data is also consistent with a planet with no atmosphere. Astronomers said they are planning additional observations of the exoplanet in the next few years to see if they can determine which explanation holds up. [Space.com]

Lower Price per Eyeball

"Ramses will feed live images of the asteroid, direct images, while two billion people are seeing the light with the naked eye. I mean, some people pay a lot of money to have an advertisement at the Super Bowl, which has less people watching."

– Planetary scientist Patrick Michel, defending the cost of the planned Ramses mission to the asteroid Apophis during its April 2029 Earth flyby that will be visible by billions on people on the ground during a press conference Monday at the EPSC-DPS planetary science conference.

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