Plus: ESA establishes a space center in Poland
By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: SDA awards $1.75 billion in satellite contracts, ESA established a new space center in Poland, Chris Scolese retires as NRO director and more.
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FROM SPACENEWS |
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Top Stories
The Space Development Agency (SDA) awarded $1.75 billion in contracts to L3Harris and Sierra Space Monday to build the next group of missile warning and tracking satellites. L3Harris won a contract worth about $955 million to build 18 missile defense satellites equipped with sensors similar to the Missile Defense Agency's Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor, or HBTSS, across two orbital planes. Sierra Space received a contract valued at about $798 million to build 18 missile warning and missile tracking satellites across two orbital planes. The satellites are part of the Accelerated Missile Defense Tranche 3 program, an expansion of the Tracking Layer of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, and scheduled to be ready for launch by the end of 2028. [SpaceNews]
ESA will develop a new space center in Poland focused on civil security and resilience. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and ESA's director general Josef Aschbacher announced the new facility during a press conference Monday in Warsaw. The center will contribute to the implementation of ESA's growing activities in security and resilience. Poland has sharply increased its contributions to ESA and is boosting its expenditure on space-related programs while supporting a growing space industry in the country. [SpaceNews]
The British government is preparing to release a new space strategy that will provide a whole-of-government approach to space. At a conference last week, Rebecca Evernden, director of the U.K. Space Agency, said the strategy, set for release "in the coming weeks," would provide guidance for civil, commercial and national security space activities, grounding them on the goals of economic growth and national security. The strategy will have four key focus areas: satellite communications, launch, space domain awareness and space sustainability, and in-space servicing and manufacturing. A new defense investment plan released last month pledged more than £3 billion ($4 billion) in additional spending on satellite communications and space-based ISR through 2030. [SpaceNews]
Increased defense spending is helping Europe's space economy. A study released Monday by ESA found that European government space spending jumped 12% to 13.5 billion euros ($15.4 billion) in 2025 even as government spending worldwide slumped. The United States represented 58% of global government space budgets in 2025, with China ranked second at 15% followed by Europe at 11%. The report also noted that European space companies are at a disadvantage in capturing the increased defense spending, as many governments there do not give preferences to domestic industry even as the United States and China lock out foreign suppliers. [SpaceNews]
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Half a century ago, NASA's Viking 1 touched down on Mars, the first American spacecraft to successfully land and operate on another planet. On July 20th, join The Planetary Society, Johns Hopkins University, the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum, and SpaceNews on Capitol Hill to mark the milestone. Hear from veterans of Project Viking and today's leaders in Mars exploration, science, and industry. A reception with light refreshments and Mars exploration exhibits follows the program. Register at planetary.org/viking50 |
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Other News
SpaceX conducted a pair of Starlink launches overnight. One Falcon 9 lifted off at 9:28 p.m. Eastern Monday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, putting 27 Starlink satellites into orbit. A second Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 5:10 a.m. Eastern Tuesday, putting 29 Starlink satellites into orbit. The Florida launch was the 600th flight of a Falcon 9 to use a previously flown booster. [Spaceflight Now]
A NASA smallsat mission is shifting launch vehicles. NASA announced Monday that the SunRISE mission, previously set to launch as a rideshare payload on a U.S. Space Force flight of a Vulcan Centaur, will instead fly on a Falcon Heavy as a rideshare on another Space Force mission. NASA did not disclose a new launch date for the mission, which was previously planned to launch this summer. NASA did not give a reason for the shift, but the Vulcan has not flown since a February mission that encountered an anomaly with one of its solid rocket boosters. SunRISE, or Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment, features six smallsats flying just above geosynchronous orbit that will monitor radio bursts from the sun's corona. [NASA]
Chris Scolese has formally retired as NRO director. The agency said Monday that Scolese's last day as director was last Friday, concluding a nearly seven-year tenure as the NRO's first Senate-confirmed leader. The White House has nominated Roger Mason to be his successor, with a confirmation hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee scheduled for today. Principal Deputy Director Bill Adkins will serve as acting director until Mason is confirmed. [NRO]
Astronomers have discovered the galaxy has a sweet tooth. Observations of a cloud of gas and dust near the Milky Way's center turned up evidence of erythrulose, a sugar molecule found in raspberries. It's the first time a sugar molecule has been seen in interstellar space, and adds to evidence that sugar molecules were delivered to the early Earth from asteroid and comet impacts, providing key compounds for life to form. [New York Times]
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Ford Tough
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"Eighteen million pounds of thrust, what does that number mean? I think of 11 Ford F-150 trucks per second just zipping out of the bottom of the rocket. It's like, imagine if you had the world's biggest machine gun, except instead of shooting bullets it was shooting pickup trucks, and it was just firing 11 pickup trucks per second out of the bottom of the rocket. Do you think your stuff could survive that?"
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- Justin Styer, senior director of Starship launch at SpaceX, describing the challenges of building a launch pad that can withstand the thrust of the vehicle at liftoff.
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