By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: Starship has a mostly successful test flight, the Space Force picks SES and Viasat for a military satellite network contract, Blue Origin completes its New Glenn failure investigation and more.
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Top Stories
SpaceX launched the first Starship V3 vehicle Friday night on a mostly successful test flight. Starship lifted off from the company's Starbase facility in Texas at 6:30 p.m. Eastern on the 12th test flight of Starship and its Super Heavy booster. The 66-minute test flight included deployment of Starlink mass simulators as well as two spacecraft that took images of Starship while in space. The Super Heavy booster suffered a failure of one of its 33 Raptor 3 engines during ascent and multiple engine failures during an aborted boostback burn after stage separation, preventing the booster from making a soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The Starship upper stage also suffered the loss of one Raptor engine during ascent but still flew a planned trajectory and splashed down in the Indian Ocean. The flight was the first of Starship V3, the latest version of the vehicle that SpaceX anticipates using for orbital missions as soon as later this year. [SpaceNews]
China launched a new crew to the Tiangong space station Sunday. A Long March 2F rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 11:08 a.m. Eastern, putting the Shenzhou-23 spacecraft into orbit. That spacecraft docked with Tiangong less than four hours later. It delivered Zhu Yangzhu, Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying to the station. Two of the three will return six months later but one, either Zhu or Zhang, will stay on Tiangong for a full year. That will allow China to launch a Pakistani astronaut on Shenzhou-24 late this year, returning days later on Shenzhou-23. Lai is the first astronaut from Hong Kong to go to space. [SpaceNews]
The Space Force awarded contracts to SES and Viasat for a military satellite network. The contracts, with a combined value of $437.5 million, are part of the Protected Tactical Satcom-Global (PTS-G) program, which aims to use smaller satellites based on commercial technology to strengthen U.S. military communications from geostationary orbit. The announcement did not specify how many satellites are included in the procurement but recent Pentagon budget documents indicated it would acquire four satellites for "Swarm 1" of the program. Viasat and SES would each build two satellites, which are scheduled for delivery by March 2029. PTS-G is intended to improve resilience by ensuring that the loss or disruption of a single satellite does not cripple coverage across an entire region. [SpaceNews]
NASA unveiled a major reorganization of the agency on Friday. That reorganization combined the two mission directorates responsible for human spaceflight—the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate and Space Operations Mission Directorate—into the Human Spaceflight Mission Directorate. It also combines its aeronautics and space technology directorates into the Research and Technology Mission Directorate. The reorganization also meant reshuffling personnel within those directorates and bringing in officials from field centers. NASA separately announced it plans to compete the contract for management of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which Caltech has run since before NASA was established in 1958. Caltech's current management contract for JPL runs through September 2028. [SpaceNews]
SpaceX's IPO documents show the company is planning to turn Starlink into a potential competitor for terrestrial wireless networks. The company's regulatory filing outlined how upgraded satellites and the spectrum it is acquiring from U.S.-based EchoStar would greatly improve services currently limited to messaging and light voice and data services, offering "the preferred connectivity experience" to customers regardless of location. That ambition contrasts with a more cautious view from telcos, including anchor mobile network operator partner T-Mobile, which provides the wireless spectrum Starlink Mobile satellites use to plug terrestrial coverage gaps across the United States. [SpaceNews]
NASA intends to further extend the contract it has with SpaceX for commercial crew missions. In a procurement filing last week, NASA announced it planned to add six missions to SpaceX's contract and immediately order three of them. SpaceX's contract includes 14 missions, with the 12th now at the ISS. NASA said it is extending the contract given plans to continue six-month ISS missions rather than go to eight-month missions as discussed in the last year, along with uncertainty about when Boeing's Starliner will be certified for crewed missions. The extension would provide NASA with missions to the ISS to 2030, the scheduled retirement date of the ISS. [SpaceNews]
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Other News
SpaceX launched more Starlink satellites on Memorial Day. A Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 7:48 a.m. Eastern Monday, placing 29 Starlink satellites into orbit. This was the 28th flight of this Falcon 9 booster. [Spaceflight Now]
Chinese startup Mega Engine advanced its reusable staged-combustion rocket engine. A new Chinese commercial rocket engine startup has conducted a successful long-duration hot fire test of a closed-cycle kerosene-liquid oxygen engine. Xi’an-based Mega Engine Technology announced successful tests of its “Chi” engine in a Chinese social media post May 25, with a single engine accumulating 1,000 seconds of run time at rated conditions, with total program test accumulation reaching 2,000 seconds. [SpaceNews]
Blue Origin has completed its investigation into last month's failed New Glenn launch. The company said Friday that the FAA had accepted its report into the NG-3 launch, which stranded an AST SpaceMobile satellite in a low, unrecoverable orbit because of a problem with the second burn of the upper stage. The FAA said a cryogenic leak froze a hydraulic line in the upper stage causing a "thrust anomaly" in one of the upper stage's BE-3U engines. The company identified nine corrective actions but did not elaborate on the specific actions. The company has been working to prepare for the next New Glenn mission while the investigation is ongoing but has not disclosed a launch date or customer. [SpaceNews]
Two companies that help arrange rideshare launches of payloads are buying their own dedicated rideshare launches. Exolaunch announced Tuesday that it purchased two Falcon 9 launches for rideshare missions, called Exo-1 and -2, scheduled for late 2027 and 2028 respectively. SEOPS separately announced Tuesday it purchased a Falcon 9 launch for its Waymaker-1 rideshare mission in 2028. The companies said high demand for rideshare launches, like SpaceX's Transporter and Bandwagon missions prompted them to purchase their own rideshare launches. [SpaceNews]
Orbit Fab is partnering with Thales Alenia Space to study on-orbit refueling of satellites with electric propulsion systems. The companies said Tuesday they will explore integrating Orbit Fab's RAFTI refueling interface with electric propulsion systems developed by Thales Alenia Space, such as xenon-fueled Hall-effect thrusters, as part of a project supported by the U.K. Space Agency. RAFTI, short for Rapidly Attachable Fluid Transfer Interface, is a docking and fuel-transfer port designed to allow satellites to connect with orbital fuel depots or servicing spacecraft for propellant replenishment. The project focuses on adapting the RAFTI interface for electric propulsion systems, an area of growing interest in Europe as operators seek ways to extend satellite lifetimes and support more maneuverable spacecraft. [SpaceNews]
Blue Origin is further expanding its Florida manufacturing facilities. The state of Florida announced Friday that Blue Origin will invest $600 million to expand its campus just outside the Kennedy Space Center gates with an 830,000-square-foot manufacturing facility to increase production of New Glenn upper stages. The facility will create 500 jobs at the site. The state is supporting the project through its Spaceport Improvement Program by Space Florida and the Florida Department of Transportation. [The Capitolist]
Former NASA astronaut John Fabian has died. Fabian, part of the historic 35-member NASA astronaut class of 1978, flew on two shuttle missions, STS-7 in 1983 and STS-51G in 1985. He was the first to capture a satellite in orbit using the shuttle's Canadarm robotic arm on the STS-7 mission. He also served on the accident board the investigated the loss of the shuttle Challenger in 1986. He was 87. [collectSPACE]
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The Week Ahead
Tuesday:
Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 10:50 a.m. Eastern. Wenchang, China: Scheduled launch of a Long March 7 with an undisclosed payload at 12:15 p.m. Eastern. Online: CSIS hosts the webinar "Warfighting and War Winning in Space" at 1 p.m. Eastern. Tuesday-Thursday:
Tuesday-Friday:
Wednesday:
Thursday:
Friday:
Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 7:52 a.m. Eastern. Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Scheduled launch of an Atlas 5 carrying Amazon Leo satellites at 7:33 p.m. Eastern. Saturday:
Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 10 a.m. Eastern. Xichang, China: Anticipated launch of a Long March 2S carrying an undisclosed payload at 2:07 p.m. Eastern.
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