By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: China and the U.S. improve space safety communications, the Pentagon makes another stab at space acquisition reform, Lockheed Martin considers commercial Orion missions and more.
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Top Stories
China is improving communications with the United States on space safety. During a panel Thursday at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC), Alvin Drew, NASA's director of space sustainability, said the agency heard from its Chinese counterpart, the China National Space Administration (CNSA), recently about a potential close approach of their spacecraft. CNSA informed NASA it would maneuver to avoid a close approach. That is a change from past interactions, he said, which primarily involved one-way communications from NASA to CNSA with little or no acknowledgement from China. Others at the conference said that Chinese constellation operators have contacted OneWeb and SpaceX about conjunctions, suggesting a change in policy in China about such interactions. [SpaceNews]
The U.S. military is taking steps to better understand how startups can fit into its plans. In recent weeks, Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, who leads procurement for the Space Force, paid visits to Northwood Space, a startup building next-generation antennas, as well as commercial space station developer Vast. These visits by Purdy and other military officials are meant to size up the commercial space sector's progress firsthand, and how their work might fit national security needs as the Pentagon works to improve procurement. A mix of executive orders, new contracting approaches and closer ties between defense leaders and investors has some experts believing this latest reform drive may be different from the past. [SpaceNews]
The Space Force is seeking proposals for satellite antennas that can communicate directly with SpaceX's Starlink constellation. Space Systems Command (SSC), through its spectrum warfare office, said the project is in support of the Golden Dome missile defense initiative. The planned demonstration would use radio-frequency communications terminals to establish satellite-to-satellite links between a Starlink payload and a mock space-based interceptor. SSC is seeking low size, weight and power radios that can be demonstrated on-orbit within 12 months. [SpaceNews]
Germany's planned massive investment in military space systems could be a game-changing moment for the German and European space industry. German defense minister Boris Pistorius said last week that the country would spend 35 billion euros ($41 billion) on military space projects over the next five years. While details about the projects that will be funded remain scarce, space industry officials in Europe say the program could be a watershed moment for the industry and encourage other European countries to invest more in space. [SpaceNews]
Lockheed Martin is studying what it would take to offer the Orion spacecraft as a service, including to non-NASA customers. At the IAC this week, Lockheed announced an agreement with a nonprofit, BioAstra, to study a concept for a deep space biomedical research mission using Orion. Lockheed intends to use the study to see what is required to offer Orion to customers other than NASA. The company announced in July it was exploring a shift from traditional contracts to a service-based approach for Orion in response to NASA policy changes on Artemis. Lockheed believes that it can move gradually towards a services model, taking over capabilities currently provided by NASA. [SpaceNews]
The Exploration Company is still investigating what went wrong in the final phases of a test flight of a reentry capsule in June. The Mission Possible spacecraft successfully operated in orbit after launch on a SpaceX Transporter rideshare mission and survived reentry, but controllers lost contact soon after reentry and the capsule's parachutes did not deploy. At the IAC Thursday, an executive with The Exploration Company said the firm is still working to figure out what happened during that final phase of the mission. The European company is pressing ahead with its Nyx capsule, slated to make a flight to the International Space Station in 2028, and the company doesn't expect what happened to Mission Possible to have a major effect on those plans. [SpaceNews]
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Other News
Blue Origin says it is making good progress toward its second New Glenn launch. At an IAC presentation this week, a company executive said processing of the rocket and its payload, NASA's ESCAPADE Mars mission, is going well. The company has not disclosed a specific launch date, although a NASA official said last week that the launch would likely take place in late October or early November. [SpaceNews]
A former White House official says states have a responsibility to inform citizens, including commercial spacecraft operators, of cyber threats. In a paper presented at IAC this week, Diane Howard, former commercial space policy director for the National Space Council, said states have a responsibility to "share credible threat intelligence proactively" to provide warnings of cyber threats, including to space systems. That is based on the experience from Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which included cyberattacks on ViaSat's KA-SAT network and SpaceX's Starlink. Government action to help satellite operators ward off cyberthreats could also help stabilize markets, she noted. [SpaceNews]
Startup ExLabs won a Space Force contract to support work on its reconfigurable satellites. The $1.9 million "direct to phase 2" SBIR award from Space Systems Command will allow ExLabs to advance development of SERVSAM, a "heavy-class" reconfigurable spacecraft. SERVSAM will be based on the company's Space Exploration and Resource Vehicle that it has been developing for deep space missions, such as to the asteroid Apophis. [SpaceNews]
The University of Western Australia has completed what it calls the first optical ground station network in the Southern Hemisphere. TeraNet, announced Thursday, includes two ground stations in Western Australia and a third, mobile ground station. The network is designed to support high-speed laser communications with satellites. [SpaceNews]
The manifest for Blue Origin's next New Shepard flight includes both a repeat customer and an anonymous one. The company announced Wednesday five of the six people who will fly on the NS-36 mission in the near future. They include Clint Kelly III, who flew on the NS-22 mission in 2022. Four others are executives and entrepreneurs. Blue Origin said a sixth person elected to remain anonymous until after the flight. [Blue Origin]
SpaceX is no longer the world's most valuable private company. A sale of shares by OpenAI employees to a group of investors valued the AI company at $500 billion. That eclipses SpaceX's valuation of $400 billion set in its most recent sale of shares on the secondary market. OpenAI had previously been valued at $300 billion. [Bloomberg]
Editor's note: Yesterday's subject line misspelled the name of the company formerly known as Maxar Space Systems. The company is Lanteris.
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So Melting Glaciers Must Mean Deregulation
| "The pace of regulation is maybe not what any of us would like. I sometimes liken it to the speed at which glaciers flow."
| – Philip Diamond, director-general of the Square Kilometre Array Observatory, discussing how regulations are failing to keep up with space technology development during a panel Thursday at the International Astronautical Congress.
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Sign up for our other newsletters Military Space: Veteran defense journalist Sandra Erwin delivers news and insights for the military space professional. Delivered Tuesday. China Report: Analysis of China's space activities and what it means as one of the United States' top competitors from correspondent Andrew Jones. Delivered every other Wednesday. SpaceNext AI: Exploring the intersection of space and artificial intelligence. Delivered Thursday.
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