Plus: Commercial space station developers make their case
By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: commercial space station developers make their case, Boeing and Millennium Space unveil a micro GEO satellite, more criticism of the EU Space Act and more.
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Top Stories
Companies planning commercial space stations pushed back on claims by NASA that there is no commercial market for those stations. During a panel at the Space Symposium this week, CEOs of three station developers said they believe there is sufficient demand for those stations. NASA said last month it was considering changes to its Commercial LEO Destinations program after concluding the market for such stations had yet to emerge. Axiom Space, Starlab Space and Vast all said they have interest in flying payloads and astronauts to their proposed stations, noting that the demand from NASA and other current ISS partners alone would be sufficient to support two stations even without new applications like in-space manufacturing or tourism. [SpaceNews]
Boeing is working with its satellite manufacturing subsidiary Millennium Space on new small GEO satellites. Boeing said Thursday it had developed a micro-GEO satellite platform called Resolute for military and commercial customers that combines Boeing's payload technology with Millennium's faster production model. Executives described the effort as part of a broader push to capture demand for smaller and lower-cost satellites and speed up delivery timelines as venture-backed startups win Pentagon contracts by offering satellites on faster timelines than traditional contractors. [SpaceNews]
American companies and government agencies see a new draft of the EU Space Act as a step backward. During a Space Symposium panel Thursday, officials said the new draft, released in late March, includes vague language that makes it difficult for companies to comply with. The draft is also in some cases overreaching, requiring companies to provide export-controlled information to European regulators. The draft is scheduled to be discussed at a committee meeting Monday, with many EU member states also opposed to the draft as "beyond the European Union's competence." [SpaceNews]
Taiwan is seeking to cooperate with other countries on a satellite communications constellation. Jong-Shinn Wu, head of Taiwan's space agency, said at the Space Symposium this week that his country was interested in teaming up with four to six other nations on a constellation to provide communications services, following the model of Europe's IRIS² sovereign broadband constellation. He spoke on a panel with other space agencies that also supported international partnerships of various types. [SpaceNews]
U.S. government agencies are working with industry to develop tools to disrupt missiles before they take flight. Such "left of launch" capabilities involve a shift to "foundational intelligence," officials said at the Space Symposium. Effective missile defense will require diverse technologies, policies and strategies, including combining data from a variety of sources. [SpaceNews]
Blue Origin is set for its next New Glenn launch Sunday. The company announced Thursday it scheduled the NG-3 mission for Sunday at 6:45 a.m. Eastern, at the opening of a two-hour window. That announcement came several hours after a static-fire test of the New Glenn booster, which previously flew in November. The payload for NG-3 is a BlueBird direct-to-device communications satellite for AST SpaceMobile. [Spaceflight Now]
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Other News
China launched an Earth science satellite Friday. A Long March 4C lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 12:10 a.m. Eastern and placed into orbit the Daqi-2 satellite. The spacecraft is designed to study greenhouse gas emissions. [Xinhua]
Two Chinese astronauts performed a spacewalk outside the Tiangong space station Thursday. Zhang Lu and Wu Fei spent five and a half hours outside the station on a spacewalk that concluded at 1:36 p.m. Eastern. The spacewalkers installed debris protection devices and inspected other equipment. This was the seventh spacewalk for Zhang, a Chinese record. [Xinhua]
China has conducted rendezvous and proximity operations tests involving a prototype cargo spacecraft. The Qingzhou prototype spacecraft launched on CAS Space's first Kinetica-2 last month along with two small companion satellites. Qingzhou approached one of those satellites, New Journey-01, which likely acted as a cooperative navigation target, providing reference signals or tracking features to support approach and departure phases. The Qingzhou prototype is one of two low-cost space station resupply spacecraft being developed under a program initiated by China's human spaceflight agency, CMSEO, to support Tiangong. [SpaceNews]
Indian startup TakeMe2Space is seeking to raise money for an orbital data center spacecraft. The company, which raised $5 million in a seed round in January, is currently working on a $55 million round to fund a 50-kilowatt spacecraft with advanced processors. The company believes that spacecraft in the range of 50 to 100 kilowatts will serve as the "building block" for future gigawatt-class orbital data centers. TakeMe2Space launched a cubesat in 2024 to test computing systems and is planning to fly a larger cubesat later this year with an Nvidia Jetson module. [SpaceNews]
Two new proposed NASA Earth science missions will attempt to address key research topics while leveraging both commercial and exploration capabilities. NASA announced last month the EAGLE and FALCON missions at its "Ignition" event focused primarily on human spaceflight. EAGLE will fly a hyperspectal imaging sensor that could also be used on future missions ot map resources on the moon and Mars. FALCON will include NASA-developed instruments but also allow companies to contribute to a fleet of spacecraft with microwave radiometers. EAGLE and FALCON are part of a broader initiative for "science as a service" within NASA as it looks at how it can leverage commercial capabilities in heliophysics and astrophysics as well as in Earth science. [SpaceNews]
All Points Logistics has signed an agreement with the Kennedy Space Center to build payload processing facilities. The company signed an enhanced use lease at the Space Symposium this week for 64 acres of KSC property south of the Vehicle Assembly Building. All Points plans to construct two facilities there to prepare satellites for launch. Payload processing facilities have become a bottleneck to the continued growth of launches at spaceports like Cape Canaveral. [SpaceNews]
The Artemis 2 astronauts say they are happy with the way the Orion spacecraft performed on their mission. At a press conference Thursday, astronauts said the spacecraft met or exceeded their expectations. The spacecraft's heat shield, a subject of concern because of the erosion seen on the Artemis 1 mission, appeared to hold up well, with only minor char loss seen on the edges. The crew said they are still processing the experience of flying around the moon, becoming the humans to travel the furthest from Earth on the nine-day flight. [AP]
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FROM SPACENEWS |
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SmallSat Europe 2026 will be one of the most important gatherings of civil, defense and commercial smallsat professionals of the year. SpaceNews joins this year's event as the official producer of the Defense Stage, bringing together military leaders, startup founders and industry executives for conversations spanning launch access, resilient communications, AI, missile defense and the evolving orbital threat environment. Check out all the programming across the defense, business and technical tracks and register today. |
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Otherworldly and Amazing
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"When the sun eclipsed behind the moon, I think all four of us — I turned to Victor and I said, I don't think humanity has evolved to the point of being able to comprehend what we're looking at right now, because it was other worldly and was amazing."
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– Artemis 2 commander Reid Wiseman, describing at a press conference Thursday his efforts to process the experience of the flight around the moon.
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