Plus: China delays moon mission
Welcome to our roundup of top SpaceNews stories, delivered every Friday! This week, SpaceX announced "Starbase Louisiana," a massive planned launch facility for Starship, China delayed its Chang'e-7 moon mission, Katalyst Space is continuing rendezvous tests and more.
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OUR TOP STORY
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By Jeff Foust SpaceX announced plans Aug. 25 to build a massive new spaceport for its Starship launch vehicle in Louisiana as the company starts to wind down Falcon 9 launches.
SpaceX and the Louisiana state government unveiled plans for “Starbase Louisiana,” a launch site the company will build in Vermilion Parish, located on the Gulf Coast south of Lafayette. The facility will be built on about 125,000 acres (50,600 hectares) of land in an area called Pecan Island.
State officials said SpaceX would spend $100 billion to develop Starbase Louisiana, which will ultimately include 10 Starship launch pads and related infrastructure. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2027, with first launches there no earlier than 2029.
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LAUNCH
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China has postponed its Chang’e-7 robotic lunar south polar landing mission just hours ahead of a scheduled launch, potentially delaying the mission into 2027.
Despite abandoning plans to reboost NASA's Swift observatory, Katalyst Space will continue to operate its spacecraft to gain experience for future satellite servicing missions.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from the Kennedy Space Center at 7:26 a.m. Eastern on Aug. 30. The rocket will send Roman on a trajectory toward the Earth-sun L-2 Lagrange point, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
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MILITARY
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The Pentagon is expanding its use of SpaceX’s Starshield satellite network aboard military aircraft, awarding the company a new fleet-level service contract that sheds light on how the system is being integrated across U.S. aviation fleets.
The U.S. Space Force spent nearly $124 million through its commercial data marketplace over less than three years, according to a new government audit of the military’s growing use of privately collected space data and analytics.
The Pentagon is testing technologies outside established military programs in Golden Dome live-fire exercises, evaluating new software and sensor-to-shooter connections for the planned U.S. missile-defense shield. |
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COMMERCIAL
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Singapore-based Astrum Space announced plans Aug. 27 to merge with a publicly listed blank-check company in a deal valuing the satellite direct-to-device venture at about $1 billion. The transaction would combine Astrum with Black Spade Acquisition III Co (BIII), a special purpose acquisition company sponsored by Black Spade Capital, the private investment arm of casino magnate Lawrence Ho.
Ursa Major, a Colorado-based defense technology company that has expanded from building rocket engines into hypersonic missiles and solid rocket motors, plans to go public through a merger with a blank-check company in a deal valuing the combined business at about $2.3 billion.
SpaceX is encouraging satellite operators to use a new space safety platform the company has developed to reduce the risk of collisions in congested low Earth orbits. The system leverages Stargaze, a space situational awareness system the company announced in January. |
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SPONSORED CONTENT
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By BAE Systems After NASA astronauts landed on the moon in 1969, their achievement bore decades’ worth of fruit, including scientific discoveries and a strategic national security advantage.
Now — with plans to revisit the moon and eventually Mars — the United States is counting on a return. |
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Latest Press Releases
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