Plus: The Space Force triples a launch contract ceiling
By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: India's Skyroot Aerospace reaches orbit on its first launch, the Space Force triples the value of a launch contract, NASA cancels a lunar lander mission and more.
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FROM SPACENEWS |
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Top Stories
Skyroot Aerospace became the first Indian launch company to reach orbit Saturday on the first flight of its small launch vehicle. The Vikram-1 rocket lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center at 2:35 a.m. Eastern after a brief delay because of a technical issue. The rocket's three solid-fuel stages and liquid-propellant kick stage largely worked as planned, reaching a 450-kilometer low Earth orbit 15 minutes after liftoff. The rocket carried two cubesats and several hosted payloads. Vikram-1 is the first privately developed rocket in India to reach orbit, the biggest milestone yet in efforts by the Indian government to build up a commercial space industry. The company said it plans additional test flights before beginning commercial service with the rocket, which can carry up to 350 kilograms to low Earth orbit. [SpaceNews]
The U.S. Space Force has more than tripled the ceiling of a major national security launch contract to $17 billion to support sharply increased launch demand. The Space Force raised the maximum value of the National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1 contract vehicle from $5.6 billion to $17 billion, according to a notice on Friday. The seven companies in the Lane 1 vendor pool are SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Stoke Space, Impulse Space and Relativity Space. Those firms can compete for missions that don't require the full certification and mission-assurance procedures reserved for the military's most complex and sensitive satellites. The increase substantially expands the amount the service can spend on launch task orders competed among seven companies through fiscal 2029. [SpaceNews]
A six-month-old Chinese startup aiming to use artificial intelligence to compress rocket engine development cycles has raised $29.5 million. LegendSpace announced last week it raised 200 million yuan in angel funding from several investors. The funding will be used by the company to put multiple liquid rocket engines with various levels of thrust through testing, upgrade its research platform for AI simulation and metal additive manufacturing capabilities, and make plans for large-scale production. The round comes amid a surge of momentum in China's commercial space industry, with new reusable rockets reaching the pad, a wave of launch and satellite firms pressing towards IPOs and clear support in the country's 15th Five Year Plan, approved in March. [SpaceNews]
NASA and Draper have ended plans for a lunar lander mission. NASA confirmed on Friday that it and Draper mutually agreed to terminate a Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) task order awarded in 2022 for a lunar lander mission carrying three payloads to the far side of the moon. NASA said it decided to end the task order because of delays in development of the lander, which is being provided by ispace-U.S., the American subsidiary of Japanese company ispace. The mission was originally scheduled to launch in 2025 but multiple changes to the lander and its main engine had pushed the launch back to 2030. NASA said it will work to find new rides for the payloads "at the earliest opportunity" on future CLPS missions. [SpaceNews]
A company has won a Pentagon contract to increase production of cover glass used on solar panels for satellites. The Pentagon awarded $7.1 million on Friday to Martin Materials Solutions under the Defense Production Act. The funding will help establish and scale production at the company's facility in Ohio to make the glass, which shields solar cells cells from radiation and micrometeorites, filters damaging wavelengths of light and helps preserve their structural integrity during years of operation in orbit. The award appears intended to add capacity and reduce reliance on a limited group of domestic and foreign sources for space-qualified material. [SpaceNews]
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Other News
The Artemis Accords reached 70 countries on Friday with the island nation of Mauritius. An official with the country's Ministry of Tertiary Education, Science and Research signed the Accords in an event there attended by State Department officials. Mauritius is the 11th country so far this year to sign the Accords, which outline best practices in space exploration. NASA also plans to use the Artemis Accords to coordinate international collaboration on its lunar base and related efforts. [SpaceNews]
As an Indian company reaches space, India's space agency is still up to two months away from returning to flight. At a press conference after the Vikram-1 launch Saturday, ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan said his agency had seven launches planned this financial year, which runs through next March. The first of those will be within the next two months, he said. ISRO has not conducted a launch since the failed flight of a PSLV rocket in January, the second consecutive failure of that vehicle. [PTI]
The next Ariane 6 launch will be its first mission to geostationary orbit. Arianespace said Monday it is targeting Aug. 27 for an Ariane 62 launch carrying the MTG-I2 weather satellite for Eumetsat. This will be the ninth launch of the Ariane 6 overall but the first to send a payload to GEO after previous launches carried satellites to low and medium Earth orbits. This will also be the fourth Ariane 6 launch of the year, with Arianespace previously projecting seven to eight launches of the vehicle this year. [Arianespace]
SpaceX is in talks with the Pentagon to provide the military access to terrestrial data centers. The discussions would cover Defense Department use of SpaceX computing capacity in its existing data centers and would be worth up to several billion dollars. There was no indication the talks involved access to SpaceX's future orbital data centers. [Wall Street Journal]
New Mexico's Spaceport America is considering hosting a data center. The spaceport, best known as the home base for Virgin Galactic, has been in talks with data center developer Green Data for several years about a data center on spaceport property. Green Data would lease land at the spaceport for the data center, which would use solar panels and batteries for a "substantial" portion of its power requirements. Green Data had been working on a proposed data center elsewhere in the state but paused that project earlier in the summer just before county commissioners enacted a one-year moratorium on data centers there. Residents in the county where Spaceport America is located are seeking a similar moratorium. [Albuquerque (N.M.) Journal]
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The Week Ahead
Monday:
Monday-Friday:
Tuesday:
Tuesday-Thursday:
Wednesday:
Wednesday-Thursday:
Thursday:
Xichang, China: Projected launch of a Long March 3B with an undisclosed payload at 8 a.m. Eastern. Online: Lockheed Martin releases its second quarter financial results and holds an earnings call at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. Starbase, Texas: Rescheduled launch of SpaceX's Starship on its 13th suborbital test flight at 6:45 p.m. Eastern. Jiuquan, China: Projected launch of a Kinetica-1 rocket with an unidentified payload at 7:30 p.m. Eastern. Online: The National Space Society hosts "Artemis II and Our Path Forward" with Lockheed Martin's Kirk Shireman at 8 p.m. Eastern.
Friday:
Wenchang, China: Anticipated launch of a Long March 8A carrying a set of broadband constellation satellites at 7 a.m. Eastern. Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 10 a.m. Eastern. Sunday:
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