By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: EchoStar's satellite TV unit files for bankruptcy protection, NASA awards nearly $600 million for lunar lander missions, Blue Origin's plans to return New Glenn to launch and more.
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Top Stories
EchoStar subsidiaries tied to its satellite TV and abandoned 5G network businesses have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The filings Tuesday advance a prepackaged restructuring plan to repay debt early after selling spectrum to SpaceX and AT&T. The reorganization plan leaves untouched a $2.4 billion escrow that EchoStar must set aside to cover disputes over its abandoned terrestrial wireless buildout, a condition the FCC attached to its approval of spectrum sales totaling more than $40 billion. The bankruptcy filings follow delays closing the spectrum sale to AT&T, which DISH DBS said left it unable to cover $2 billion of debt payments due July 1. Satellite broadband provider Hughes Satellite Systems is among the EchoStar business entities not part of the bankruptcy process. [SpaceNews]
NASA awarded four more lunar lander missions Tuesday as the agency considers sending a Mars rover prototype to the moon. NASA announced Tuesday it will send four landers to the moon in late 2028: two built by Astrobotic and one each by Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines. The awards have a combined value of $590 million. The landers will carry an identical set of payloads that include instruments to measure radiation levels and the cloud of regolith created by the landers' engines. NASA also said at the briefing it was studying modifying an engineering model of the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers, currently used for testing at JPL, into a lunar rover. That rover, dubbed PROMISE, would use a nuclear power source like its Martian counterparts to enable long-term lunar exploration without solar power limitations. NASA did not disclose when PROMISE might fly or at what cost. [SpaceNews]
Blue Origin outlined its new approach to New Glenn launch pad operations as it works to return to flight by the end of the year. The company said Tuesday that, rather than replace the transporter-erector unit destroyed in the pad explosion in late May, it will instead roll the rocket, without the payload attached, to the pad horizontally. A crane will then lift the rocket to the vertical position and install it on the pad. The same crane would later install the payload on top of the rocket. Blue Origin said that approach is one factor in its belief it can resume launches from Launch Complex 36 by the end of the year, even as the investigation into the explosion continues. NASA leadership shared Blue Origin's confidence in those plans, but added it could wait until the middle of 2027 before it would need to revise its Artemis plans, which involve using New Glenn to launch Blue Moon landers. [SpaceNews]
The U.S. Space Force has placed into operational service a new mobile satellite-jamming system. The electronic warfare system, known as Meadowlands and built by L3Harris Technologies, uses radio-frequency signals to interfere with an adversary satellite's ability to transmit information. The milestone caps several years of development for Meadowlands and reflects a broader shift in how the military discusses space warfare. The Pentagon now describes systems like Meadowlands as standard elements of military operations as it prepares for potential conflicts in which space systems would be contested. [SpaceNews]
Geospatial intelligence company Vantor will provide customers with updated and high-definition imagery through a new product. The WorldView 3D line announced Wednesday includes two products. WorldView 3D Rapid allows customers to task satellites and receive updated 3D maps with a resolution of 50 centimeters within 24 hours. For 3D maps at 15-centimeter resolution produced from satellite imagery, customers can opt for WorldView 3D High Definition (HD). Vantor's focus on 3D dates back to 2020, when the company took ownership of Vricon, a specialist in 3D geospatial products and analytics formed by Vantor predecessor DigitalGlobe and Swedish defense company Saab. [SpaceNews]
French startup Latitude intends to conduct its first launch in Oman. The company announced Wednesday it signed a letter of intent to use Oman's Etlaq Spaceport for the first "experimental" flight of its small launch vehicle in late 2027. Latitude said that Etlaq would complement existing plans to launch from French Guiana. Latitude is the third European launch startup, after PLD Space and HyImpulse, to announce their interest in launching from spaceport, which to date has hosted only suborbital launches. [SpaceNews]
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Other News
Rocket Lab scrubbed the launch of a Japanese satellite after a last-second abort. The Electron rocket was scheduled to lift off from New Zealand at 9 p.m. Eastern Tuesday night, but the company aborted the launch because of an unspecified anomaly detected during engine ignition. Rocket Lab did not announce a new launch date for the mission, carrying a radar-imaging satellite for Japanese company iQPS. Separately, NASA announced early Wednesday it had once again postponed a Pegasus XL launch from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific because of weather. The launch, carrying a spacecraft designed to raise the orbit of the Swift gamma-ray observatory, has been rescheduled for Thursday. [Space.com | NASA]
Two NASA astronauts completed repairs to a robotic arm outside the International Space Station Tuesday. Jessica Meir and Chris Williams spent 7 hours and 20 minutes outside the station, successfully replacing a faulty wrist joint in the Canadarm2 robotic arm. That joint started drawing more electrical current than normal in May while also not moving properly, prompting the repair. [CBS]
Thales Alenia Space won a contract to build a geostationary communications satellite for a Qatari operator. Thales Alenia said Tuesday it signed a contract with Es'hailSat to build Eshail-3/Türksat-Biruni. The satellite, based on Thales Alenia's Space INSPIRE (INstant SPace In-orbit REconfiguration) bus with a software-defined payload, will provide communications services from Europe through Central Asia, with Es'hailSat sharing the satellite with Turkish operator Turksat. The companies did not disclose a planned launch date for the spacecraft. [Thales Alenia Space]
SpaceX stock is off-limits to FAA employees. The agency told employees on an intranet site that it received "a high volume of questions" about whether FAA employees could buy stock in SpaceX, which went public last month. "The bottom line: No, you cannot since SpaceX is considered a prohibited investment," the FAA stated, since the FAA regulates SpaceX launches. The same prohibition applies to shares in Rocket Lab and Virgin Galactic, as well as Blue Origin, which is privately held. [Politico]
The Vera Rubin Observatory has kicked off a decade-long survey of the night sky. The observatory announced Tuesday it officially started the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, which will spend the next 10 years performing the most detailed survey to date of the universe using the observatory's eight-meter telescope in Chile. The telescope will be able to observe the entire southern sky every few nights, helping astronomers monitor changes ranging from supernova explosions to near Earth asteroids. Testing of the observatory over the last year has already led to the discovery of 11,000 asteroids. [New Scientist]
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Another Near-Impossible Task
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"Speaking of payload capacity, what do you think the chances are here, if America wins it all, that we can find some volume here on one of these landers to put one of the soccer balls in?"
"If the United States wins the World Cup, we will absolutely find space. Of course, they will have to beat Spain in the quarterfinals."
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- NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and Carlos García-Galán, NASA program executive for Moon Base and a native of Spain, during a presentation Tuesday about new lunar lander awards.
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