Plus: China eyes a crewed lunar landing site
| By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: Lux Aeterna raises money for reusable spacecraft, a smallsat pioneer is picked to work on a large space telescope, China identifies a potential crewed lunar landing site and more.
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| | | | | | Top Stories
BAE Systems has passed a key milestone in the development of a missile-tracking satellite constellation. The Space Force's Space Systems Command said Monday that the 10-satellite program passed a preliminary design review, clearing it to proceed toward final design. BAE Systems won a $1.2 billion contract last May to develop the satellites, which will operate in medium Earth orbit and are designed to detect and track missile launches, including advanced threats such as hypersonic weapons. The satellites are part of the Space Force's proliferated resilient missile warning and tracking program, a new constellation intended to complement existing missile-warning satellites while improving the military's ability to follow maneuvering threats throughout flight. [SpaceNews]
Denver-based Lux Aeterna has secured $10 million in seed funding to develop a reusable satellite. Early-stage investor Konvoy led the round, announced Tuesday, bringing the funding raised by the startup to date to $14 million. The company is working on spacecraft designed to fly payloads in space and then return to Earth to be reused. Its first spacecraft, Delphi-1, is fully booked with customer payloads for a launch in early 2027 on a SpaceX rideshare mission. The company argues its technology could open new opportunities in a growing market for short-duration space missions and returning hardware from orbit. [SpaceNews]
Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) will build the spacecraft platform for a private space telescope. The British company said Monday it had been selected by Schmidt Sciences to provide the spacecraft platform for Lazuli, a space telescope with a primary mirror larger than that of the Hubble Space Telescope. SSTL, a company best known as an early innovator in small satellites, argued that its approach for building smallsats, including rapid development and use of flight-proven hardware, was suited for building the Lazuli spacecraft. That mission is scheduled for launch as soon as 2028. [SpaceNews]
Landspace has completed testing of a new engine for future launch vehicles. The Chinese company said it performed a long-duration full-system hot-fire test of its new 220-ton-class methane rocket engine. The engine, called BF, is intended as a core propulsion element for Landspace's next-generation heavy-lift launch vehicles. The company already operates the Zhuque-2 and Zhuque-3 rockets, and successful development of the BF engine would further cement Landspace's position in a crowded Chinese commercial launch ecosystem. [SpaceNews]
Chinese scientists have identified a potential landing site for the country's first crewed lunar landing. A paper published Monday discussed the merits of Rimae Bode, a volcanic region on the moon's near side near the equator. The site offers a mix of terrain of scientific interest as well as safe landing conditions. Rimae Bode is one of 14 candidate sites for a crewed lunar landing by China, but with no details on how officials plan to select a site for a landing projected around the end of the decade. [Space.com]
| | | | | | Other News
A Falcon 9 launched a direct-to-home TV broadcasting satellite for EchoStar overnight. A Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 12:19 a.m. Eastern, placing the EchoStar 25 satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit. The spacecraft, built by Lanteris Space systems, will be used by EchoStar's Dish Network to provide TV broadcasting services for its customers at 110 degrees west in GEO. [Spaceflight Now]
Firefly Aerospace again delayed the return-to-flight launch of its Alpha rocket. The company called off the "Stairway to Seven" launch a few hours before the scheduled 8:50 p.m. Eastern liftoff time because of a sensor reading that was outside of its allowable range. The company has not disclosed a new launch date, which could be as soon as Tuesday evening. This will be the first launch for Alpha since a failure in April 2025. [NASASpaceFlight.com]
The director of NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center is retiring. NASA said Monday that Brad Flick would retire from the agency this Thursday. Flick has been at NASA since 1986 and served as director of Armstrong since 2022. Troy Asher, director of flight operations at the California center, will take over as acting director. [NASA]
A defunct NASA satellite is about to reenter. The Van Allen Probe A satellite is scheduled to reneter at 7:45 p.m. Eastern Tuesday, with a margin of error of 24 hours. NASA said some components of the 600-kilogram spacecraft are expected to survive reentry but that the risk of injury from that debris is very low. Van Allen Probe A, along with its twin B spacecraft, launched in 2012 to study the Van Allen radiation belts. The spacecraft's mission ended in 2019 and, at the time, the spacecraft was expected to reenter in 2034. High solar activity, though, accelerated its orbital decay. [NASA]
A reentry of a more natural kind took place over Europe Sunday. A bright fireball was seen Sunday evening in northwestern Europe, traced to a meteor. Several meteorites landed in western Germany, with one larger one making a hole in the roof of a home in the town of Koblenz. Scientists believe the meteor was a small asteroid, about one to three meters across. [New York Times]
A member of the U.S. Army's First Space Brigade was killed in the conflict in the Middle East. The Army said Sgt. Benjamin N. Pennington died Sunday of injuries sustained a week earlier when Iranian missiles struck Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. Pennington had been a member of the First Space Brigade, part of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, since 2025. [U.S. Army]
| | | | | | | FROM SPACENEWS |  |  | | A new way to work with SpaceNews: SpaceNews Brand Studio brings together editorial expertise, trusted reputation and unparalleled industry reach to create high-impact custom content, campaigns and experiences for the global space community. From bespoke features to custom events, surveys and digital series, we help brands turn complex ideas into influential industry moments. Start a conversation today. | | | | | | Blowtorched
| "That snowy morning at Aunt Effie's farm, the professor's assistant took a blowtorch to Nell. Moments later Nell ascended."
| | – From a NASA account of the launch of "Nell," the first liquid-fueled rocket, 100 years ago this month by Robert Goddard.
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