Plus: Blue Origin plans New Glenn upgrades
Welcome to our roundup of top SpaceNews stories, delivered every Friday! This week, DARPA funded an air-breathing VLEO satellite, China prepares a lifeboat for Tiangong, Blue Origin announced upgrades for New Glenn and more.
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OUR TOP STORY
| | By Sandra Erwin Redwire secured a $44 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to finish building a satellite designed to operate in very low Earth orbit, the company said Nov. 19. The award expands a 2024 agreement in which DARPA tapped the Florida company for its Otter Very Low Earth Orbit mission, an effort to field an air breathing spacecraft that can function in an extremely thin but still resistant atmosphere.
"VLEO represents an exciting new frontier for defense, intelligence and communications missions," said Tom Campbell, president of space missions at Redwire.
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LAUNCH
| Blue Origin said Nov. 20 it plans make various improvements to New Glenn. The upgrades include increasing the thrust of the seven BE-4 engines on the rocket's first stage from a combined 3.9 million pounds-force to 4.5 million pounds-force.
Rocket Lab launched a payload for an undisclosed commercial customer Nov. 20, just hours after the company announced plans for the launch. This is the third time in less than six months that Rocket Lab has not disclosed the customer for a commercial mission.
China is set to launch an uncrewed Shenzhou spacecraft to the Tiangong space station to provide the Shenzhou-21 astronauts with a means of returning home. An airspace closure notice issued Nov. 17 indicates that China is preparing the Shenzhou-22 spacecraft and a Long March 2F rocket for launch at around 11:10 p.m. Eastern Nov. 24.
| COMMERCIAL
| | Voyager Technologies announced Nov. 20 it acquired Estes Energetics, a supplier of solid rocket motors and energetic materials. The move underscores Washington's push to rebuild domestic production lines for critical defense components.
Eutelsat is a step closer to the financing needed to refresh its OneWeb low Earth orbit broadband constellation, after the French operator's board approved plans Nov. 18 to raise nearly $1 billion from anchor shareholders.
Rocket engine startup Ursa Major said Nov. 18 it raised $100 million in Series E funding and locked in another $50 million in debt commitments, giving the Colorado company new equity and access to borrowed capital as it expands deeper into the U.S. defense market. | | |
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POLICY & POLITICS
| At the previous ministerial conference in 2022 in Paris, Germany was the largest contributor, providing about 3.5 billion euros ($4 billion) before inflation adjustments for three years. Now there are industry expectations that Germany will offer significantly more at the next ministerial, as ESA seeks about 22 billion euros overall for the next three years.
A U.S. government official warned that a draft European space law could "stifle innovation," as other countries also assess the potential impacts of the proposed legislation.
The Senate Commerce Committee plans to hold a second confirmation hearing next month for Jared Isaacman's nomination to be NASA administrator. Isaacman will appear at the Dec. 3 hearing alongside Steven Haines, nominated to be an assistant secretary of commerce. | | |
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SPONSORED |  | By Lockheed Martin NASA's Orion spacecraft is built around a single, uncompromising principle—crew must return home safely. From the millisecond‑response launch abort system (LAS) perched atop the capsule to the autonomous flight software that steers the vehicle when it disappears behind the Moon, every subsystem has been engineered with redundant designs to provide continuous protection throughout launch, deep‑space cruise, lunar operations and the fiery re‑entry that follows. |
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| |  | Latest Press Releases
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