| By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: Eutelsat wraps up financing for OneWeb and IRIS², the next Starship launch slips, China sets its sights on Neptune and more.
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| | | | | | Top Stories
Eutelsat has completed the last step in a financing plan valued at 5 billion euros ($5.8 billion) to support the OneWeb and IRIS² constellations. The company said Friday it closed a 1.5 billion euro bond that activates other debt financing it recently arranged to fund investments for 2026 through 2029, alongside an equity infusion last year led by the French government, its largest shareholder. The financing plan covers the 2.2 billion euros Eutelsat expects to need to replenish OneWeb over the next three years as its first generation of satellites approaches the end of their design life. Eutelsat has also committed about 2 billion euros for its share of Europe's IRIS² public-private partnership to develop a multi-orbit broadband constellation. [SpaceNews]
NASA has picked ULA's Centaur upper stage for future flights of the Space Launch System. In a procurement filing Friday, NASA said it would use Centaur as the SLS upper stage on the Artemis 4 and 5 missions, replacing the Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) originally planned as part of upgrades to the vehicle. NASA announced in late February it was canceling those upgrades to standardize on a "near Block 1" version of SLS to increase its flight rate. NASA said the only other option to replace the EUS besides Centaur was the second stage of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket, but concluded Centaur was more mature and would require fewer modifications to adapt it for SLS. [SpaceNews]
BlackSky won a contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) for a large optical imaging payload. The $99 million contract announced Friday is an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity Small Business Innovation Research Phase 3 agreement that runs through 2032. Under the contract, the company will develop and test a large-aperture optical imaging system designed around a segmented mirror architecture, allowing the deployment of larger apertures. Such technologies could support wide-area surveillance missions, enabling satellites to scan large geographic regions while still identifying relatively small objects such as vehicles, ships, aircraft or equipment movements. [SpaceNews]
Voyager Technologies is investing in expandable module developer Max Space. The companies announced Monday that Voyager will make an investment in the "low eight figures" in Max Space to accelerate that startup's development of inflatable modules. The companies announced last month they would partner to combine their capabilities to offer lunar habitats to NASA as the agency begins plans for a lunar base. [SpaceNews]
SpaceX is pushing back the first flight of the next version of Starship. In a social media post Saturday, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said the next Starship launch would be in four weeks, or early April. He said in late January that SpaceX was then six weeks away from a first launch, which would have been in early March. Neither Musk nor SpaceX disclosed reasons for the slip, although the recent pace of development of the next Starship vehicle suggested a launch was not imminent. This will be the first launch of version 3 of Starship, with upgrades to improve performance. SpaceX plans to use this version of Starship for Artemis lunar landings and other missions. NASA requested both SpaceX and Blue Origin, the two companies with contracts to develop Artemis crewed lunar landers, to provide plans to accelerate their work, but neither the agency nor the companies have yet released details about those plans. [SpaceNews]
A senior Chinese space scientist and delegate to the country's national congress wants China to develop a Neptune orbiter mission. Wang Wei, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and a researcher at the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), made the proposal to prioritize a Neptune orbiter mission as a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC). Wang is now calling for China to seize a historic opportunity to conduct a world-first orbital study of Neptune, building on the country's recent advances in deep space exploration capabilities and progress in space nuclear power technologies. The most recent planetary science decadal survey in the United States placed as its top priority for a flagship-class mission a Uranus orbiter, but NASA has been slow to implement that recommendation. [SpaceNews]
| | | | | | Other News
SpaceX launched more Starlink satellites early Sunday. A Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 7 a.m. Eastern Sunday, putting 25 Starlink satellites into orbit. SpaceX now has more than 9,900 Starlink satellites in orbit with this latest launch. [Space.com]
German launch startup Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) says it is planning its first launch this summer. The company said Friday the lower two stages of its RFA ONE rocket have arrived at the launch site at SaxaVord Spaceport in the Shetland Islands, although the engines for the first stage are still undergoing acceptance testing in Sweden. The company said it is projecting a launch this summer but did not offer a more precise launch date. RFA is one of several European launch startups seeking to make their first orbital launches in the next year. [SpaceNews]
Planet is delaying the release of some imagery of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The company said it will delay by 96 hours imagery it takes of the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and "adjacent conflict zones" but will immediately release imagery of Iran. The company said it wants to limit the use of its imagery for battle damage assessments of attacks after images released in the first days of the conflict showed damage from Iranian missile attacks. However, Iran has been receiving intelligence from Russia, presumably including satellite imagery, to identify U.S. assets in the region for attacks. [Ars Technica | Washington Post]
HawkEye 360 has added money to its latest funding round. The company announced last week it added $23 million to a $150 million Series E round announced in December. Three new investors and one existing investor contributed to the additional funding. HawkEye 360, which operates a constellation of satellites to collect radio-frequency intelligence data, said the Series E round would support the acquisition of Innovative Signal Analysis and other strategic growth priorities. [HawkEye 360]
Scientists have measured a very small change in the orbit of an asteroid that was the target of a NASA planetary defense mission. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft deliberately collided with Dimorphos, a moon of the asteroid Didymos, changing the orbit of Dimorphos. Project officials said they did not expect to be able to measure the change in the orbit of Didymos around the sun, but a study published last week said that the asteroid's 769-day orbit around the sun had decreased by 0.15 seconds. The findings confirm the ability to use such collisions to alter the orbit of any future potentially hazardous asteroid. [AP]
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Monday: -
Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.: Rescheduled launch of a Firefly Aerospace Alpha rocket on its return-to-flight missions at 8:50 p.m. Eastern. -
Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying the EchoStar 25 satellite at 11:14 p.m. Eastern. Tuesday: Tuesday-Wednesday: Thursday: -
Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 6 a.m. Eastern. -
Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 6:58 a.m. Eastern.
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International Space Station: Planned departure of the NG-23 Cygnus spacecraft from the station at about 7 a.m. Eastern.
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Washington: The Senate Commerce Committee meets to vote to advance the nomination of Matt Anderson to be NASA deputy administrator at 11:30 a.m. Eastern. -
Wenchang, China: Projected launch of a Long March 8A rocket with a set of broadband constellation satellites. Thursday-Friday: Friday: -
Online: The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies holds a webinar with Lt. Gen. Dennis Bythewood, Commander, U.S. Space Forces - Space and U.S. Space Command's Combined Joint Force Space Component Commander, at 10 a.m. Eastern. Friday-Wednesday March 18: Sunday: -
Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 7:11 a.m. Eastern. -
Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 10:37 p.m. Eastern.
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