Plus: MAVEN remains out of contact
| By Jeff Foust
In this today's edition: Tory Bruno's new job at Blue Origin, AST SpaceMobile launches first next-gen satellite, MAVEN remains out of contact and more.
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| | | | | | Top Stories
Days after leaving United Launch Alliance, Tory Bruno is joining Blue Origin to lead its national security business. Blue Origin announced Friday that it hired Bruno as president of a new National Security Group in the company, reporting to CEO Dave Limp. Blue Origin is working to win more military business for its New Glenn rocket and Blue Ring spacecraft. The announcement came four days after ULA said that Bruno had resigned as president and CEO of the company for an unspecified venture. [SpaceNews]
A group of Japanese companies has won a contract from the Japanese military to provide imagery. Japan's defense ministry selected a group of seven companies last week to develop and operate a constellation under a framework known as a Private Finance Initiative, under which firms finance, build and operate infrastructure while the government commits to buying services over a multiyear contract. Under the arrangement, Mitsubishi Electric will work with trading house Mitsui & Co. and satellite operator SKY Perfect JSAT to establish a joint venture. Among the companies are iQPS and Synspective, which will provide radar imagery, and Axelspace, which will provide optical imagery. [SpaceNews]
AST SpaceMobile has launched the first of a new generation of direct-to-device satellites. An Indian LVM3 rocket lifted off at 10:25 p.m. Eastern last Wednesday, putting into orbit the BlueBird-6 satellite. The satellite features a phase-array antenna spanning roughly 223 square meters when unfolded, about three times the size of the antennas on the company's earlier BlueBird satellites. AST said it is on track to launch 45-60 satellites by the end of 2026 to enable full text, voice and 5G data services across the United States and other initial markets. But those capabilities depend on the company's ability to scale up production of the satellites as well as availability of launch vehicles such as New Glenn, which can carry eight BlueBirds at a time. [SpaceNews]
NASA's Perseverance rover is continuing its mission to collect samples on Mars despite uncertainty about when or if those samples will be returned to Earth. At the recent AGU Annual Meeting, project officials said that Perseverance is continuing to work well nearly five years after landing, having climbed out of Jezero Crater to study rocks on the crater's rim. The rover, designed to travel at least 20 kilometers on Mars, has driven more than 40 kilometers to date and is being certified to go at least 100 kilometers. Perseverance is designed to cache samples to be returned by later missions in the Mars Sample Return (MSR) program, but NASA proposed canceling MSR in its 2026 budget request. Project officials said the uncertainty about the future of MSR has not hurt science operations for the rover, including collecting additional samples. [SpaceNews]
The European Space Agency plans to hire several hundred additional employees next year. At a briefing earlier this month, ESA said it would hire 520 people next year, 120 of whom would replace departing staff. The other 400 represent an expansion of the agency's staff, bringing its workforce to 3,400 employees plus contractors. The agency said it will be hiring data scientists, IT specialists, project officers, business analysts and others alongside traditional positions in science and engineering. [SpaceNews]
| | | | | | Other News
China reached 90 orbital launches in 2025 with a pair of launches last week. A Long March 8A lifted off at 6:26 p.m. Eastern Thursday from the Hainan Commercial Space Launch Center on Hainan Island, putting a group of Guowang broadband constellation satellites into orbit. A Long March 3B lifted off at 11:07 a.m. Eastern Friday from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center and put into geosynchronous transfer orbit the Fengyun-4C weather satellite. With those two missions, China has now conducted 90 launches so far this year, a record for the country. Two more launches are expected before the end of the year. [SpaceNews]
Russia also conducted a pair of launches in recent days. A Soyuz-2.1a rocket lifted off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome at 9:11 a.m. Eastern Thursday, putting into orbit the first Obzor-R radar imaging satellite. The spacecraft is designed for civilian applications, but the launch was given the same level of secrecy of a classified mission. A Soyuz-2.1b lifted off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome at 8:18 a.m. Eastern Sunday, with the primary payload a pair of Aist-2T imaging satellites. The launch also carried 50 smallsat secondary payloads, including three imaging satellites from Iran. [RussianSpaceWeb.com]
South Korean launch startup Innospace said it will make a second launch of its Hanbit-Nano vehicle next year after the vehicle failed on its inaugural launch. In a letter to shareholders last week, the CEO of Innospace said that the company was still investigating the failed launch last Monday from the Alcântara Space Center in Brazil. The company said the vehicle suffered an unspecified anomaly 30 seconds after liftoff that caused the vehicle to crash in a safety zone around the launch pad. The company said it will attempt a second launch of Hanbit-Nano in the first half of 2026 after implementing "necessary technical improvements" in the rocket. [SpaceNews]
A Japanese bank is investing in commercial space station company Starlab Space. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank Ltd. said Friday it was investing in Starlab, a joint venture led by Voyager Technologies. Neither Sumitomo Mitsui nor Starlab disclosed the size of the investment and Starlab did not respond to questions about the investment. Janus Henderson Group, an asset management firm, also invested an undisclosed amount in Starlab last month. [Starlab Space]
NASA's MAVEN Mars orbiter remains out of contact with Earth. NASA said last week that recent efforts to restore communications with MAVEN had not been successful. Controllers also used a camera on the Curiosity rover on the Martian surface to try to take images of MAVEN, but were not able to see it in its expected orbit. MAVEN has been out of contact with Earth since Dec. 6 and NASA said it will resume efforts to restore communications in mid-January after the end of a solar conjunction period where Mars passes behind the sun as seen from Earth. [NASA]
NASA astronaut Nick Hague has left the agency. NASA announced last week that Hague had retired from the agency's astronaut corps. Hague flew two long-duration missions to the International Space Station, one on a Soyuz in 2019 and another on a Crew Dragon in 2024-2025. He also launched on a Soyuz in 2018 that suffered an in-flight abort when its booster malfunctioned, with the Soyuz capsule landing safely downrange from the launch site. Hague remains in the U.S. Space Force as a brigadier general, and since September has been the assistant deputy chief of space operations for operations for the Space Force. [NASA | SpaceNews]
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