Plus: NewOrbit finds a ride for its first VLEO satellite
By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: news from the International Space Summit, a changing of the guard for military space leaders, NewOrbit finds a ride for its first VLEO satellite and more.
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Top Stories
Arianespace has signed contracts for 10 more Ariane 6 launches, including six for Amazon Leo. Arianespace announced Wednesday it won a contract from Amazon for six launches between 2029 and 2031, adding to its original 18-launch contract. Other contracts include two launches of OneWeb replacement satellites for Eutelsat, a launch of a GEO communications satellite for KT SAT, and one for an undisclosed customer. Arianespace said the Amazon Leo contract will help the company plan for future demand for the rocket as the company, along with ESA, study a potential increase in the rocket's current maximum launch cadence of 10 per year. ESA said in June it was looking at scenarios of up to 20 Ariane 6 launches a year to determine what infrastructure and launch site upgrades are needed. An ESA official said earlier this week that the Kourou launch site can support up to 15 Ariane 6 launches a year with its current facilities. [SpaceNews]
A group of companies announced plans Wednesday for an AI-enabled satellite imaging constellation that may cost $1 billion. Loft Orbital and Marlan Space will lead the effort that proposes to place 50 satellites into orbit with optical, radar and other payloads. The satellites will have AI systems to enable onboard processing of images. Other companies participating in the system include French AI developer Mistral and American Earth observation company BlackSky. The satellites will be built by Orbitworks in the UAE. The companies did not disclose how the system will be financed or a schedule for deploying the constellation beyond stating the first 10 satellites are under construction for launches beginning as soon as October. [SpaceNews]
The first Greek astronaut will go to the International Space Station on a private astronaut mission in 2027. Adrianos Golemis, an ESA flight surgeon undergoing astronaut training, will fly on a Vast private mission in mid-2027, the French and Greek governments announced Wednesday at the International Space Summit. That mission will be commanded by French astronaut Thomas Pesquet with Czech astronaut Aleš Svoboda as pilot. The fourth member of the crew will be announced in the coming weeks. ESA has flown several astronauts on private missions led by American companies, but the agency is pushing its member states to support an independent human spaceflight program. ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher asked ministers from member states in a speech Wednesday to back proposals for human spaceflight and other exploration capabilities, estimating it would cost Europe 1 billion euros a year over a decade to develop. [SpaceNews]
The U.S. Space Force has selected Texas as the site for a third deep-space radar. The Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability, or DARC, is designed to provide continuous tracking of objects, particularly in geostationary orbit. The radar planned for Lake Kickapoo, Texas, would join radars already operational in Australia and under development in Wales. The three-site network would provide continuous monitoring of the entire GEO belt. The Texas DARC radar is slated to enter service in 2029. [SpaceNews]
A British startup plans to launch its first very low Earth orbit (VLEO) satellite in 2028. NewOrbit announced Thursday it will launch NEO-1 on a rideshare mission arranged by French company RIDE! Space in the third quarter of 2028. NewOrbit aims to be the first European commercial firm to operate VLEO satellites and the first anywhere to offer payload developers a way to reach VLEO without designing and building their own spacecraft. The company has brought on as advisers several engineers who worked on ESA's GOCE Earth science mission that operated in VLEO. [SpaceNews]
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Other News
A changing of the guard across the U.S. national security space enterprise has put new leaders in place. Gen. Douglas Schiess took over as the Space Force's top general last week, while Erich Hernandez-Baquero has taken over as the Air Force's top civilian official for space acquisition and Roger Mason as director of the NRO. All three are facing new challenges externally from China and internally from efforts to overhaul procurement of space systems and greater use of commercial capabilities. Experts say the test will be whether they can turn a surge in funding into military and intelligence capabilities that lead to success. [SpaceNews]
The EU has convicted a company and its leaders for fraudulently obtaining European Union funding to develop high-precision satellite navigation receivers. EU officials said a Lithuania-based company received EU funding to develop professional satellite navigation receivers for agricultural applications, but that company had links to defense industries in Russia and Belarus in violation of declarations required by the grant. The announcement did not disclose the name of the company, but the descriptions matches an award to NTLab valued at nearly 750,000 euros. That company was run by two Belarusian nationals. [SpaceNews]
A startup with plans to produce semiconductors in space has completed its first flight. Besxar said Wednesday it flew two canisters as external payloads on a Falcon 9 booster during a July launch. The canisters remained attached to the booster during the suborbital flight, testing how semiconductor wafers could be protected from the forces of launch and reentry as well as from contamination. The company said those tests went well and it will fly a second pair of payloads on another Falcon 9 later this year. Besxar said last year it planned to fly payloads on a dozen Falcon 9 launches to perfect the technology for producing semiconductor materials in space before starting orbital missions. [SpaceNews]
NASA has added Relativity Space's Terran R rocket to a major contract ahead of the rocket's first flight. The agency said Wednesday that Terran R is now part of NASA Launch Services 2, an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract that makes it eligible to compete for specific missions. Terran R is a medium-class rocket with a reusable first stage that Relativity has been developing for several years. While the company says it is making progress on flight hardware, it has not announced a date for the vehicle's first flight. [NASA]
Two members of the Artemis 2 mission are stepping down from active duty. NASA announced Wednesday that Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover, the commander and pilot, respectively, of Artemis 2, would become "emeritus astronauts," a new designation. As emeritus astronauts, they will continue to help train the agency workforce for future missions, including Artemis 3 and 4. The new designation will allow them to take on jobs elsewhere, with Glover joining Cal Poly, his alma mater, as a senior adviser to the university's president. Wiseman has not disclosed his post-NASA plans. [AP]
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Bad Sax
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"I think those two things contradict themselves, because me playing the saxophone was probably difficult for my crewmates psychologically because I'm a terrible player."
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– French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, when asked by a reporter during a briefing at the International Space Summit on Wednesday about both how to maintain the mental health of astronauts on the space station as well as Pesquet's playing the saxophone in space.
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