By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: Pentagon pushes back against trillion-dollar Golden Dome cost estimates, a Chinese satellite manufacturer plans to go public, Cowboy Space's massive herd of orbital data center satellites and more.
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Top Stories
The general leading development of Golden Dome said a recent $1.2 trillion cost estimate for the system is inaccurate. Speaking at a conference Thursday, Gen. Michael Guetlein said the Congressional Budget Office's estimate released earlier this week is not for "what we're building." The Pentagon has not released details of its Golden Dome architecture. Guetlein argued the report extrapolated from older defense acquisition models rather than the emerging commercial space manufacturing and launch systems his office expects to leverage. He acknowledged, though, that affordability remains the decisive issue for space-based interceptors and defended previous comments that the Pentagon will abandon the concept if it cannot be produced cheaply enough and at sufficient scale. [SpaceNews]
Chinese satellite manufacturer MinoSpace is seeking to raise $736 million in an IPO. The company's initial public offering application to Shanghai's STAR Market was accepted earlier this week. The company plans to use the IPO as a platform to build phase one of the 112-satellite Taijing constellation, with a mix of optical, multispectral and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging satellites. MinoSpace also plans construction of an R&D center, research and development for satellite platform components, a next-gen communications satellite and a new SAR payload production facility. [SpaceNews]
Iridium is buying the rest of the Aireon aircraft-tracking venture as it pushes further into aviation services. Iridium said Thursday it has agreed to acquire the remaining 61% of Aireon it does not already own for about $367 million from five air navigation service providers in Canada and Europe. Aireon has provided a tracking service using the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) signals broadcast by aircraft since 2019. Taking over Aireon would give Iridium full control of a business that includes GPS jamming and spoofing detection, alongside real-time and historical flight data. [SpaceNews]
Cowboy Space has filed plans with the FCC to deploy 20,000 orbital data center satellites. The company, previously known as Aetherflux, filed an application with the FCC this week for the Stampede constellation, but provided few details about the system other than that the satellites would be in dusk-dawn sun-synchronous orbits to provide continuous solar power. The company announced earlier this week a $275 million funding round for the system, which includes development of a launch vehicle whose upper stage would serve as the computing platforms. While massive by historical standards, Stampede is smaller than SpaceX's plan for up to one million satellites, Starcloud's 88,000-satellite system and Blue Origin's 51,600-satellite Project Sunrise. [SpaceNews]
Intuitive Machines is buying a ground station company. Intuitive Machines announced Thursday it reached an agreement to buy Goonhilly Earth Station Ltd. and its U.S. subsidiary, Comsat, for £37 million ($49.4 million). Goonhilly operates a facility in England with two large antennas that Intuitive Machines has previously used for communications with its lunar landers, while Comsat operates two teleports in California and Connecticut. Intuitive Machines said the deal will help it build out a lunar communications network that includes ground stations as well as satellites around the moon. [SpaceNews]
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Other News
A Chinese commercial rocket launched five satellites Friday. The Lijian-1, or Kinetica-1, rocket lifted off from Jiuquan, China, at 12:33 a.m. Eastern. The rocket's payloads included Tianyan-27, a satellite to test infrared imaging systems and onboard processing. [Xinhua]
Virgin Galactic said Thursday that it remains on track to begin commercial flights with its new suborbital spaceplane by the end of the year. In an earnings call, the company said its first next-generation SpaceShip vehicle is going through ground tests now and should be complete by its next earnings call in August. The vehicle will then go to Spaceport America in New Mexico for flight tests, with commercial flights beginning by the end of the year. Virgin said it is seeing strong demand for a new tranche of tickets it is selling at $750,000 each, and reiterated it has the funding needed to get the vehicle into commercial service. [SpaceNews]
SpaceX could publish the prospectus for its IPO next week. The company is planning an investor roadshow the week of June 8, and regulations require the company to publish its prospectus at least 15 days before those presentations begin. SpaceX previously confidentially filed its prospectus with the SEC to allow it to work with the regulator on any issues before making it public. [CNBC]
A recent space wargame included a scenario that was until recently considered unlikely: a nuclear explosion in orbit. Gen. Stephen Whiting, head of U.S. Space Command, said at an event this week that it included that "notional worst-case scenario" in a recent tabletop exercise involving military organizations, international partners and companies. Two years ago, officials said they had evidence that Russia was making efforts to deploy a nuclear weapon in orbit that, if detonated, could disable large numbers of satellites. [Ars Technica]
A NASA asteroid mission will fly by Mars today. NASA's Psyche spacecraft will pass about 4,500 kilometers above the surface of Mars at 3:28 p.m. Eastern. The gravity assist maneuver will put the spacecraft on a trajectory to arrive at the metallic main-belt asteroid Psyche in 2029. Psyche will collect images and other data during the flyby, including looking for any rings of dust around the planet. [Scientific American]
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But Will It Be Kryptonite for Starlink?
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"It's not purple, it's krypton. Krypton is the color when our thrusters fire in space, so we picked that. It was obviously available in the Amazon palette… There's a lot of meaning and thought that went into our brands, and we're quite excited about that."
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– Chris Weber, vice president of business and product for Amazon Leo, describing the shade of purple used in branding for the satellite system. [GeekWire]
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