Plus: A Chinese startup plans orbital data centers
By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: the Pentagon outlines its proposed massive budget increase, a Chinese startup plans orbital data centers, NASA's Roman Space Telescope is ready for launch early and more.
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Top Stories
The Pentagon has outlined plans to seek nearly $1.5 trillion in fiscal year 2027, including a major increase in Space Force spending. The $1.45 trillion request for defense for fiscal year 2027 represents a $440.9 billion or a 44% increase from 2026. The U.S. Space Force would see its budget climb to $71.2 billion, more than double the roughly $32 billion enacted for 2026. The service plans to add about 2,800 personnel, while supporting 31 national security space launches and investing $2.2 billion to modernize U.S. launch ranges. Of the $71.2 billion proposed for the Space Force, over $12 billion would come through a budget reconciliation package separate from the standard appropriations process. [SpaceNews]
The White House has selected a Raytheon executive to lead military space acquisition. President Trump on Tuesday nominated Raytheon executive Erich Hernandez-Baquero to serve as assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration. Hernandez-Baquero, a retired Air Force colonel, is vice president for space intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) at Raytheon. The assistant secretary position was established in the 2020 defense authorization bill to give the Pentagon a dedicated civilian authority over space acquisition. [SpaceNews]
Northrop Grumman took a $71 million charge in the first quarter because of an anomaly with one of its solid rocket boosters on a Vulcan launch. The company said in its first quarter earnings announcement Tuesday it took the charge for "the evaluation and implementation of corrective actions for a solid rocket motor anomaly" involving its GEM 63XL booster. That booster is used on the Vulcan rocket, and on a February launch one of the boosters suffered an issue that caused it to shed debris but did not prevent the vehicle from completing its mission. Vulcan remains grounded as an investigation into the anomaly continues. [SpaceNews]
The Commerce Department's budget proposal would halt work on the TraCSS space traffic coordination system. The detailed budget, released Tuesday includes $11 million for the Office of Space Commerce, only a small amount of which would go toward TraCSS. The proposal states that the office will effectively put TraCSS on hold while it considers alternative approaches for running the system. That includes the potential for funding the system through user fees. [SpaceNews]
A Chinese startup has secured billions of dollars in credit lines to work on orbital data centers. Beijing Orbital Twilight Technology Co., Ltd., also known as Orbital Chenguang, announced the completion of a Pre-A1 funding round Monday. The company did not disclose the amount of money raised but said it has obtained strategic credit lines totaling 57.7 billion yuan ($8.4 billion) from 12 major financial institutions. The startup appears to represent a commercial node within a broader state-backed effort to develop space-based data center infrastructure. Orbital Chenguang is incubated by the Beijing Astro-future Institute of Space Technology, which has proposed a constellation of orbital data center satellites in sun-synchronous orbits by 2035. [SpaceNews]
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Other News
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is ready to launch ahead of schedule. NASA announced Tuesday it is planning an early September launch of the mission on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy after the spacecraft completed final tests at the Goddard Space Flight Center. That is eight months ahead of its formal launch commitment date. Project officials credited the early completion on factors such as careful technical and programmatic assessments of risk and a cost cap on the overall mission. The successful completion of Roman, though, comes as NASA's 2027 budget seeks to slash funding for agency science programs, canceling more than 50 missions. [SpaceNews]
SpaceX is considering acquiring an AI coding company. SpaceX said Tuesday it reached a deal to collaborate with Cursor, a startup that uses AI models to write computer code. The deal includes an option for SpaceX to acquire Cursor for $60 billion later this year. SpaceX merged with xAI, an artificial intelligence and social media company also run by Elon Musk, earlier this year as SpaceX prepared to go public as soon as June. [New York Times]
A new bill is intended to encourage the development of Canadian space launches. The Canadian Space Launch Act, introduced Tuesday by Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon, is intended to foster domestic launches in the country. It would create a new regulatory framework for launches and reentries, as well as set financial responsibility and indemnification requirements. [CBC]
More than 100 former astronauts have established a nonpartisan group intended to promote civil responsibility. Astronauts For America, whose members include former NASA astronauts who identify as Democrats, Republicans and independents, says it will develop scorecards to assess politicians on adherence to the rule of law, promoting civil discourse and willingness to work on a bipartisan basis. In an open letter, the former astronauts warned of "a steady erosion of our founding values and principles that weakens our democratic systems" but did not single out any particular politician. [Wall Street Journal]
A NASA Mars rover has detected the most diverse set of organic compounds found to date on the Red Planet. In a paper published this week, scientists reported on analysis of a rock studied by the Curiosity rover in 2020. The rock contained 21 organic compounds, seven of which had not been seen before on Mars. Scientists noted the compounds could have been created by either biological or geological processes but that the finding shows that early Mars did have the right conditions for life to exist. [NASA/JPL]
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Don't Try This at Yosemite
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"If we were to take a single image that is produced from our main survey and try and fully display it with a set of 4K TVs, you need more than half a million 4K TVs. And just to give you a sense of the scale of that, if I was to lay out those 4K TVs, it would cover 45 city blocks. Or to pick something that you actually look at, it would entirely cover El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. I don't suggest we actually cover El Capitan with a set of 4K TVs, but it gives you a sense of the scale."
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– Julie McEnery, Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope senior project scientist, discussing the size of the images the space telescope will produce during a briefing about the mission Tuesday.
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