Plus: Vantor teams with Google AI
| By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: The Pentagon seeks proposals for commercial satellites to monitor GEO, Vantor uses Google AI to automate imagery reports, Northrop is not interested in government investment for solid rocket motor production and more.
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| | | | | | Top Stories
The Pentagon is seeking proposals for commercially built and operated satellites to monitor geosynchronous orbit. The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) released a solicitation for the Geosynchronous High-Resolution Optical Space-Based Tactical Reconnaissance program to fast-track the deployment of spacecraft for surveillance of GEO. DIU is using a Commercial Solutions Opening, a streamlined contracting approach that relies on Other Transaction Authority to award prototype agreements more quickly and with fewer regulatory requirements than standard federal procurement. Companies selected for prototypes must be able to deliver a high-resolution electro-optical image of a resident space object in GEO using a commercially operated satellite within 24 months of award, and within 36 months shift from a commercially owned and operated model to a government owned and operated one. DIU did not specify how many vendors it plans to select or how many satellites could ultimately be procured. [SpaceNews]
Earth observation company Vantor plans to use AI models from Google to automate imagery analysis in classified settings. Under the partnership, Vantor will deploy Google Earth AI models within air-gapped government data centers. The models will generate text reports from Vantor's satellite imagery, third-party commercial imagery or customers' sovereign data. While Google Earth AI already works with other commercial Earth observation data providers, such as Planet and Airbus, under partner programs, Vantor would be the first to deploy Google models in sovereign government environments. The agreement with Google brings a new layer of AI capability that reduces the human labor required to generate intelligence reports from satellite imagery, Vantor says, with reports generated in minutes rather than hours. [SpaceNews]
Japanese lunar lander developer ispace says issues with a new engine may delay future lander missions. In a recent earnings call, ispace executives said it was taking longer than expected to achieve the required thrust and efficiency levels for VoidRunner, an engine ispace U.S. is jointly developing with Agile Space Industries. The issues threaten to delay Mission 3, a lander ispace U.S. is building for Draper to fly a NASA CLPS payload, and Mission 4, a Japanese-built lander. During the call, ispace said that if delays continue it would consider switching to another engine. [SpaceNews]
Orbex, a U.K.-based launch vehicle developer, has formally entered bankruptcy. Advisory firm FRP was appointed Wednesday as administrator for the company, which announced last week its intent to enter administration after efforts to raise money or sell the company fell through. Orbex had employed more than 150 people at its Scottish headquarters, who have now been laid off as Orbex halts operations. FRP said it has received more than 20 expressions of interest from companies interested in acquiring Orbex or its assets. [Aberdeen (Scot.) Press and Journal]
| | | | | | Other News
A second Artemis 2 wet dress rehearsal is underway. The two-day test started Tuesday night and will culminate this evening with fueling of the Space Launch System and a practice countdown. NASA wants to see if replaced seals in a fueling interface will prevent the liquid hydrogen leaks seen after the first wet dress rehearsal early this month. The agency said it will not set an Artemis 2 launch date until after successfully completing the wet dress rehearsal, with the next launch opportunity March 6-11. [NASA]
Northrop Grumman has no plans to follow L3Harris and take government investment to support solid rocket motor production. Northrop CEO Kathy Warden said at an investment conference Wednesday that her company has not talked with the government about any investment into the company or a spinout of its solid rocket motor production line. L3Harris said in January it agreed to accept a $1 billion investment from the Defense Department and spin out its missiles division into a separate publicly held business. Warden said that while Northrop is not interested in accepting government investment, some of its suppliers might be willing to do so. [Breaking Defense]
Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp says he expects the company to resume New Shepard suborbital flights in the future. The company announced last month it was halting New Shepard flights for at least two years to focus company resources on its lunar programs. That led to industry speculation that the decision was effectively a cancellation of the program. At a conference this week, Limp said "we'll likely go back into that business," citing a multi-year customer backlog. He did not set a schedule for doing so, noting it made more sense for the company now to devote resources to lunar programs. [Bloomberg]
Private equity firm Cerebus has acquired aerospace manufacturer Vivace International. Cerebus said Wednesday that it completed an acquisition of Vivace after making a strategic growth investment in the company in 2024. Vivace is an aerospace structures manufacturer that operates out of the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans and works on spaceflight and hypersonics programs. It won a contract last fall to produce the primary structure for Starlab Space's planned commercial space station. Vivace also announced that former NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins had joined the company as a senior adviser. [Business Wire]
| | | | | | | FROM SPACENEWS |  | | Join Leidos and SpaceNews on Thursday, Feb. 19 at 2 p.m. ET to hear how the U.S. Space Force is partnering with industry to accelerate new approaches for collapsing space kill chains through rapid commercial integration and unclassified technology cohorts. In this virtual event, experts from the Space Force and industry will explore how advanced sensors, analytics and workflow automation can deliver faster decision advantage and operational impact. Register now. | | | | | | Careful Driver
| "Starlink is 100 times more careful in space than the average operator. They move if the probability of a collision is 1x10-6. Most do 1x10-4. People say, 'Oh, they've done 150,000 risk reduction maneuvers. Oh, they're so bad.' No, they're like granny pumping the brakes on the highway, putting their blinkers on all the time."
| | – Darren McKnight, senior technical fellow at LeoLabs, explaining the high number of collision avoidance maneuvers done by Starlink in a talk Wednesday at the Space Traffic Conference.
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