Plus: The case for investing in hypersonic weapons
By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: a potential second chance for Jared Isaacman, a call for increased investment in hypersonics, Starship prepares for its next test flight and more.
If someone forwarded you this edition, sign up to receive it in your inbox every weekday. Have thoughts or feedback? You can hit reply to let me know.
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Top Stories
Jared Isaacman could get a second shot at becoming NASA administrator. Isaacman has reportedly met with President Trump multiple times to discuss Isaacman's vision for NASA, suggesting that Trump could consider renominating him. The move comes after Trump withdrew Isaacman's nomination to lead the agency at the end of May. Isaacman was only days away from Senate confirmation when Trump revoked the nomination, an apparent byproduct of the falling out between Trump and Elon Musk. Neither the White House nor Isaacman have commented on the discussions. [Bloomberg]
A group of former senior U.S. defense officials is urging the Pentagon to dramatically expand investment in hypersonics. A report released Thursday by the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security urges the Pentagon to rapidly field both offensive hypersonic strike weapons and counter-hypersonic interceptors at a scale sufficient to achieve meaningful deterrence and, if necessary, defeat attacks from adversaries. The report warns that China and Russia are outpacing the United States in developing high-speed, maneuverable missiles that threaten to erode U.S. military deterrence. The report was written by a task force co-chaired by former Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James and former Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy. [SpaceNews]
The New Zealand government says it is making good progress growing its space industry. The government released a strategy for its space and advanced aviation sectors a year ago, calling for them to double in size by 2030. In a speech this week at the New Zealand Aerospace Summit, Judith Collins, the country's space minister, said the government was implementing various parts of that strategy, from regulatory reform to encouraging more investment in the industry. She said separate plans by the government to increase defense spending could also fuel the space sector through "targeted investments" in communications, reconnaissance and other systems. [SpaceNews]
Momentus announced Thursday it won two NASA contracts to fly technology demonstration payloads. The contracts, with a combined value of $7.6 million, will fund the flights of an in-space manufacturing experiment and an advanced propulsion system on the company's Vigoride spacecraft no earlier than October 2026. The company developed Vigoride as an orbital transfer vehicle and hosted payload platform but has not flown the vehicle since 2023, citing a cash crunch. The company's next Vigoride mission is planned for February, with a DARPA in-space assembly payload as the prime customer. [SpaceNews]
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Other News
Weather will delay the launch of a set of Amazon Project Kuiper satellites on a Falcon 9. The launch of the KF-03 mission was scheduled for Thursday night but delayed by heavy rain at Cape Canaveral. The launch is now planned for Saturday night. The launch will be the third and last in a set of three Falcon 9 launches Amazon procured as a stopgap given delays in the Ariane 6, New Glenn and Vulcan Centaur rockets that will launch the bulk of the 3,200-satellite constellation. [Orlando Sentinel]
SpaceX is preparing for the next Starship test flight. SpaceX rolled out the Super Heavy booster for the Flight 11 mission to the pad on Wednesday, part of preparations for a launch scheduled for Monday evening from its Starbase facility in Texas. This will be the last launch of version 2 of Starship before the company moves to the more advanced version 3. Flight 11 will fly a profile similar to the Flight 10 mission in late August. [Space.com]
The Australian military is considering investing in space control capabilities. The country's space and cyber attaché in Washington said in a webinar this week that the Australian Space Command has included space control among its four priorities that also include communications, space domain awareness and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The military has not disclosed further details about its space control plans but other documents note it would include "temporally assuring access and disrupting or denying an adversary use of the space domain, as required," such as through jamming or spoofing. That capability would be available to allies as well. [Breaking Defense]
A space investment firm reported record funding for the industry in the third quarter. A report by Seraphim Space released Friday said there was $3.5 billion invested in space companies in the last quarter, a record. The figure was nearly double the funding in the same quarter a year ago. Seraphim said that investment is spread out among more companies than in the past, when it was concentrated in a few companies such as SpaceX. The report cited a surge in defense spending as a key reason for the growing investment. [Reuters]
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Ready, Fire, Aim
| "The whole idea of trying to design a space mission before you know where you're going is a slightly crazy way of doing things. But it's the only way to do this mission."
| – Colin Snodgrass, a professor at the University of Edinburgh and science team leader for Comet Interceptor, an ESA mission under development that will launch and then wait for the right comet to come by to perform a flyby. [Ars Technica]
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