Plus: New Glenn's next launch date
By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: rave reviews for Jared Isaacman's renomination, the second New Glenn gets an official launch date, Iceye and Astranis roll out defense offerings and more.
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Top Stories
Jared Isaacman's renomination to lead NASA is winning support from industry. At a conference Wednesday, industry officials said they welcomed the announcement by President Donald Trump late Tuesday that he would again nominate Isaacman to be NASA administrator. That move could also help advance pending nominations of Matt Anderson to be deputy administrator and Greg Autry to be NASA's chief financial officer. The announcement came hours after Isaacman took to social media to comment on a leaked "Project Athena" document he wrote before his first nomination was withdrawn outlining his vision for NASA. Isaacman said reporting on the document misrepresented some of his views on topics such as Artemis and space science. [SpaceNews]
Astranis announced plans Wednesday to use its small geostationary satellites to extend the range of point-to-point communications for disaster relief or secure defense operations. The company said its Vanguard service enables customers to quickly set up a private network capable of voice, video and data transport anywhere within the beam footprint of an Astranis broadband satellite, roughly 2,250 kilometers. Astranis CEO John Gedmark said Vanguard is available anywhere an Astranis satellite serves as an additional service that existing and future customers can opt into "starting immediately." [SpaceNews]
Iceye is giving defense customers guaranteed access to radar imagery from its satellites. Iceye last week announced a new "tactical access" program that offers subscribers on-demand tasking of its synthetic aperture radar satellites, ensuring images can be captured wherever and whenever required. The model contrasts with the traditional "first-come, first-served" approach, in which operators queue imaging requests from multiple clients. The offering underscores how private-sector players are racing to meet growing government demand for assured satellite intelligence, a market reshaped by the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and by rising tensions in East Asia. [SpaceNews]
One company is working to defend satellites from cyberattacks using its own satellites. The Deloitte-1 satellite, launched in March, is the first of nine that the consulting firm Deloitte expects to be operating over the next 18 months to demonstrate a technology to detect cyber intrusions targeted at satellites in space. The company is building these satellites to prove that defending space networks from a cyberattack requires putting defenses in orbit and not just on the ground, comes amid a broader rethink of how to protect space infrastructure from cyber threats. [SpaceNews]
Blue Origin plans to launch its second New Glenn rocket on Sunday from Cape Canaveral. The company announced Wednesday the launch date for the NG-2 mission, carrying NASA's ESCAPADE Mars mission. NG-2 will also fly a Viasat payload to test commercial launch telemetry and data relay systems as part of NASA's Communications Services Project. The launch will be the first since the inaugural New Glenn mission in January. [SpaceNews]
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Other News
Rocket Lab launched a Japanese radar imaging satellite Wednesday. An Electron rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 2:51 p.m. Eastern and placed the QPS-SAR-14 satellite into orbit for the Japanese company iQPS. This is the sixth satellite that Rocket Lab has launched for iQPS, including five this year. This was also the 16th Electron launch of 2025, matching the company's total from 2024 with several more launches scheduled through December. [SpaceNews]
SpaceX launched more Starlink satellites Wednesday from Cape Canaveral. A Falcon 9 lifted off at 8:31 p.m. Eastern and put 29 Starlink satellites into orbit. The launch was the 141st so far this year of the Falcon 9, and a SpaceX executive said at a conference Wednesday that he expected the company to finish the year with 165 to 170 Falcon 9 launches, a record. [Space.com]
An Atlas 5 launch also scheduled for Wednesday evening from the Cape, though, was scrubbed. United Launch Alliance called off the Atlas 551 launch of ViaSat-3 F2 after detecting a valve problem that could not be resolved before the launch window closed. ULA rescheduled the launch for 10:16 p.m. Eastern tonight. [Spaceflight Now]
ESA's backing of a "space resilience" plan suggests the agency is moving from its roots as a purely civil agency. ESA will seek funding for the European Resilience from Space (ERS) program at this month's ministerial conference in Germany, which includes beginning development of a constellation of Earth imaging satellites as well as new communications and navigation capabilities. The initiative hints at a shift in how the agency envisions its mandate, positioning space systems for dual-use and defense applications rather than purely civilian missions. It also signals a growing alignment between ESA's civil mission and Europe's broader security ambitions. [SpaceNews]
The expansion of the universe may be slowing down, not speeding up. A team of South Korean astronomers argues in a new study that a class of supernova explosions used to measure the distance of distant galaxies suffers from an "age bias" that, once corrected, indicates that the universe's expansion is now slowing down rather than accelerating. Other astronomers, though, argue that the changing brightness of those supernovae are already accounted for and that previous similar work by this team has been refuted. [New Scientist]
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Priority Number One
| "If you were a customer, what would you want from a space station that you went to?"
"Really good waste removal."
| – An exchange between moderator Oliver Morton and Katina Mruk of RKF Engineering Solutions during a panel discussion about commercial space stations at the Economist Space Summit Wednesday.
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