By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: calculating the costs of Golden Dome, SERVIR's new lease on life, an Australian company opens the aperture on imaging other spacecraft and more.
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Top Stories
At this week's International Astronautical Congress (IAC), the global space community learned more about NASA's new leadership and plans. NASA went into this major international space conference touting "American dominance in space," although NASA's acting administrator, Sean Duffy, said the agency wants to partner with countries that share values such as transparency and peaceful exploration. Leaders of other space organizations emphasized growing independence in space capabilities and a wider range of partnerships beyond traditional ties with NASA. An example is the Australian Space Agency, which announced a new space cooperation framework agreement with the United States but also said it would begin negotiations on a cooperative agreement with ESA. [SpaceNews]
An Australian company that has become a leader in imaging spacecraft in low Earth orbit is setting its sights higher. HEO announced this week that it is aiming to move beyond its current work using remote sensing satellites to perform "non-Earth imaging" of other spacecraft in low Earth orbit. That includes plans to place cameras on spacecraft in the geostationary belt to observe objects there. The company said it will also pursue efforts to image asteroids as they pass close to Earth, using GEO spacecraft. [SpaceNews]
An analyst who projected trillion-dollar costs for the Golden Dome missile defense system has provided new details about his assessment. Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said he is making available his "Defense Future Simulator," a tool he developed to create cost estimates for Golden Dome. He used the simulator to estimate in a recent report that Golden Dome could cost $3.6 trillion over two decades, far higher than government figures. Those higher costs, he said, come from space-based interceptors that Golden Dome will need to counter hypersonic missiles. As many as 250,000 are thought to be required to provide global coverage at any given moment. [SpaceNews]
Starlab Space used IAC to show off a mockup of its proposed station. The model in its booth showed the full eight-meter diameter of the proposed station but only a fraction of its full height. Starlab, a joint venture of Voyager Space and several other companies, recently announced new partnerships and plans to manufacture the module in New Orleans. [SpaceNews]
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Other News
A program to use Earth observation data to address global challenges continues despite the loss of support from NASA and others. As SERVIR marked its 20th anniversary earlier this year, the program officials learned that NASA was dropping its support. That move came after USAID, which had provided the bulk of SERVIR funding, pulled out. Regional institutions, universities, foundations and government agencies from around the world then came together to establish the SERVIR Global Collaborative, allowing the program to continue despite the lack of U.S. government funding. Financial support, much of which is undisclosed, is coming from public and private organizations. [SpaceNews]
Russians are attempting to jam British military satellite communications on a regular basis. Maj. Gen. Paul Tedman, head of U.K. Space Command, said in an interview that Russian satellites are flying close to British satellites in an attempt to capture transmissions being sent to them. He added that Russia is also trying to jam those communications on a weekly basis. [BBC]
A NASA smallsat space science mission will hitch a ride on a Vulcan Centaur rocket. NASA said this week that the SunRISE mission, featuring six cubesats to study radio bursts from the sun, will fly as a secondary payload on a Vulcan launch for the Space Force in 2026. NASA did not disclose the cost of the launch services. [NASA]
Spacecraft orbiting Mars will turn their attention to a passing interstellar object. The comet, called 3I/ATLAS, arrived from interstellar space and, as it passes through our solar system, will come within about 29 million kilometers of Mars on Friday. Both NASA and ESA spacecraft orbiting Mars will make observations of the comet during that close approach. Scientists hope to get better images of the comet and other data about its composition. [Sky & Telescope]
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Double It
| "One of the lessons learned about space technology, and rockets in particular, is that it always, always, always takes longer than you think to build a rocket. Anything that's super complicated, there's always things that come up and you don't realize them. One of the lessons learned is, whatever you think it's going to take to make something complicated, double it."
| – Adam Gilmour, co-founder and CEO of Gilmour Space Technologies, discussing the extended development of his company's Eris rocket during a talk Friday at the IAC.
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