By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: Space Command's top priorities, another big funding round for China's iSpace, Virgin Galactic delays commercial suborbital flights to 2027, and more.
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Top Stories
The head of U.S. Space Command says his highest priorities are offensive space capabilities and systems for countering proliferated low Earth orbit (pLEO) constellations. Gen. Stephen Whiting said that "integrated space fires" and "counter-pLEO" top the list of needs the command has identified for fiscal years 2029 through 2033, signaling where the combatant command sees some of the biggest gaps in preparing for a future conflict in space. The Integrated Priorities List is Space Command's assessment of capability gaps based on emerging threats, planned Pentagon investments and technologies under development. It serves as a signal for the military services, labs and industry. Other capabilities on his list include joint integrated space command and control, dedicated space domain awareness and sustained space maneuver. [SpaceNews]
Astranis, a manufacturer of small GEO communications satellites, unveiled a design for an inspector satellite. The company's Perceptor spacecraft, based on its microGEO bus, carries sensors to observe and inspect other satellites while using electric propulsion to reposition itself across the geostationary belt. The company said Perceptor will be able to conduct flybys of other satellites, and multiple satellites could operate together, allowing military operators to observe spacecraft from different locations and making it more difficult for a target to evade surveillance. Astranis is one of 14 companies selected by the Space Force in April to compete for task orders under its Andromeda contract vehicle supporting RG-XX, a planned next-generation constellation of surveillance satellites in geostationary orbit. [SpaceNews]
The Space Force is buying two more maneuverable spacecraft from Impulse Space. The service added $28 million to an existing contract for the additional spacecraft that will be used for tactically responsive missions. The contract modification will fund Victus Salo 2 and Victus Salo 3, which will use Impulse's Mira spacecraft to host government-provided payloads for missions in low Earth orbit, according to the Space Force. Victus Salo is part of the Space Force's broader Tactically Responsive Space, or TacRS, effort to shorten the time needed to deploy and operate spacecraft, with Victus Salo 1, also using the Mira spacecraft, slated to launch in 2027. [SpaceNews]
Chinese reusable launch vehicle iSpace has raised additional funding. The company said it completed an initial close of a Series E round, bringing in about $150 million. The new funding will go toward research and mass production of the Hyperbola-3 reusable launch vehicle, manufacturing of a methane/liquid oxygen engine and initial research on a future heavy-lift vehicle. The development follows iSpace securing a record $729 million in February this year, dedicated to reusable rocketry and expanding the company's industrial footprint. The company plans to attempt a first launch of Hyperbola-3, with a reusable first stage, by the end of the year. [SpaceNews]
Virgin Galactic has pushed the start of commercial flights of its new suborbital spaceplane into 2027. The company said in an earnings call Wednesday that the first commercial flights of its new vehicle, previously planned for the fourth quarter of this year, will instead begin in February 2027. Virgin said the slip was caused by "hundreds of relatively small but important installation tasks" that took longer than expected to complete. The company said that despite the delay, it expects that vehicle and a second spaceplane under construction to be flying at least 10 times a month by the end of the second quarter of next year. Virgin Galactic added it also sold out a tranche of tickets it offered at $750,000 each. It will sell another batch of tickets later this year at a higher price. [SpaceNews]
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Other News
A new digital portal is intended to make it easier for companies and others to get involved with the Golden Dome missile defense program. The "Golden Dome for America Ecosystem Hub," announced Tuesday at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium, is designed to provide companies with a channel to submit concepts and gain access to unclassified information about the program's technology needs, even as most of the architecture remains classified. The hub reflects a broader effort by the Pentagon to bring commercial technology and private capital into the program, an effort challenged by the high classification level of the system that makes it difficult for startups and newer entrants to understand where the government intends to invest. [SpaceNews]
The Pentagon's push to replenish missile inventories is creating an opening for a new class of manufacturers. Startups such as Machina, Hadrian and Freeform are applying software, robotics and highly automated production techniques to aerospace and defense manufacturing. They are challenging a model that has long relied on dedicated machinery, specialized tooling and skilled labor to make relatively small numbers of complex parts. At the Space and Missile Defense Symposium, Machina is displaying a fuselage for a hypersonic vehicle that it manufactured for Ursa Major using robotics systems and AI. [SpaceNews]
A subcontractor on NASA's lunar Gateway program is laying off employees after work on the program stopped. Paragon Space Development Corporation said this week it laid off 70 employees as part of a "companywide restructuring" after its contract to provide life support systems for the Gateway's HALO module was terminated by Northrop Grumman. HALO was to be part of the Gateway, but NASA announced in March it was effectively canceling the program to focus instead on a lunar base. Paragon said it retains the intellectual property for that life support system and is looking for ways to apply it to NASA's planned lunar base or other projects. [SpaceNews]
Veteran NASA astronaut Mike Fincke has left the agency. NASA announced Wednesday that Fincke has retired from the astronaut corps, 30 years after being selected. He flew on four missions to the International Space Station on Soyuz, the Space Shuttle and Crew Dragon, spending 549 days in space. His last flight was the Crew-11 mission that ended a month early in January after a medical issue that Fincke later said he experienced. [NASA]
A proposal by a local Virginia government seeks to rename at least part of NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. A resolution passed by the Accomack County Board of Supervisors last month asks NASA to rename the launch complex at Wallops the "A. Thomas Young Space Flight Facility" after Tom Young, a former NASA and industry official who is from the county. Some local residents, though, oppose the proposal, preferring to keep the Wallops name. They are asking the board to reconsider the resolution. County officials said the name change would not apply to the whole facility but only the launch site part of it. NASA, which would have to agree to any name change, said it is aware of the resolution but did not comment further on it. [WBOC-TV Salisbury, Md.]
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Important First
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"I'm the first woman to hold this position but, more importantly, I am going to go out on a limb here and say I am the first Maryland comptroller ever who attended Space Camp as a kid."
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– Brooke E. Lierman, Comptroller of Maryland, speaking Wednesday at an industry day for the Wallops Flight Facility.
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FROM SPACENEWS |
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Submit your nominations by this Friday, Aug. 14: Since 2017, the SpaceNews Icon Awards have celebrated the companies, teams and individuals driving breakthroughs across civil, commercial and military space. Nominate the innovators, collaborators, and change-makers whose work over the past year — or an entire career — has left a lasting mark on the industry. Submit your nomination today. |
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