By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: a space weapons revelation, moves by HawkEye 360 and Iceye to address sovereign demand, allies chip in to launch a Space Force satellite, and more.
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And just announced: Join us Monday, Sept. 21 for a conversation with Space Systems Command Col. Scott Carstetter on the evolution of on-orbit servicing and enabling more resilient military operations. More speakers to be announced this week. Register now.
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Top Stories
Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink revealed Monday that the Space Force has deployed space-control weapons in orbit. He said in a speech at the Air Space & Cyber conference that the United States "now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action." He declined to give additional details, including whether they are kinetic or non-kinetic weapons. The statement was nonetheless unusually explicit for the Pentagon, which has increasingly discussed the need for weapons to defend U.S. satellites and counter adversary space capabilities but has disclosed few details about such systems. Meink also disclosed that the Space Force plans to begin launching satellites this month for its space-based Air Moving Target Indication, or AMTI, constellation, designed to help track aircraft and other moving targets from orbit. SpaceX has a $4.16 billion contract for that constellation. [SpaceNews]
HawkEye 360 announced several steps Tuesday for addressing growing demand for sovereign space capabilities in Europe. The company, which operates satellites for radio-frequency intelligence, said it is establishing a European subsidiary, working with Leonardo to provide radio-frequency sensing to European customers and collaborating with ERA, part of the Czech Republic's Omnipol Group. Company CEO John Serafini said international demand for its services is "off the charts," prompting the new European partnerships. [SpaceNews]
Iceye is also expanding its global footprint to meet sovereign demand. In recent weeks, the Finnish synthetic aperture radar satellite manufacturer and constellation operator established Iceye Germany, Iceye Portugal, Iceye India, an Iceye technology hub in the Netherlands, a strategic partnership with South Korean satellite operator KT Sat and local leadership for Iceye United Arab Emirates. The company's new global COO said Iceye is responding to sustained customer demand in these locations where there's been a clear case for countries developing their homegrown intelligence value chain. [SpaceNews]
SES revealed plans Tuesday to establish direct-to-device satellite production capabilities in Europe with Elveo Mobile. Elveo said the factory would be geared around the D2D satellite bus, payload and software, but did not reveal the location, timing or other details about the European factory. The operator, formed by the recent merger of Lynk Global and Omnispace, announced on Monday it is working with satellite manufacturer Apex to establish a dedicated satellite factory somewhere in the United States. [SpaceNews]
Ten U.S. allies have agreed to provide $302 million to launch the Space Force's next Wideband Global SATCOM satellite. Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland and the United Kingdom are providing the funding for the launch and on-orbit delivery of the WGS-12 satellite, scheduled for no earlier than 2028, as well as upgrades to ground systems and operations costs. The agreement resolves a funding issue that dates to Congress's decision in 2022 to add $442 million for another WGS satellite to the fiscal 2023 defense budget, even though the Space Force had not requested one. [SpaceNews]
Executives of the three European companies planning to merge their space businesses say the joint venture still makes sense despite a changing market. Airbus Defence and Space, Leonardo and Thales Alenia Space announced last fall their intent to merge their space businesses into a joint venture codenamed Project Bromo. The deal came as the companies were struggling, but they have since turned around their space businesses and are seeing growing demand, particularly from European governments. Despite the changing markets, executives said at World Space Business Week on Monday that the merger was still needed to provide sufficient scale for Europe in the global market. Bromo is going through regulatory reviews that could be aided by proposed changes to EU merger guidelines. [SpaceNews]
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Other News
A Vega C successfully launched two European Earth science satellites Monday night. The rocket lifted off from Kourou, French Guiana, at 9:21 p.m. Eastern, deploying the Sentinel-3C satellite an hour later and FLEX nearly an hour after that. Sentinel-3C is part of the Copernicus program by the European Commission and ESA for Earth science observations, while FLEX is an ESA Earth science mission. The launch was the second this year of the Vega C with another planned before the end of the year. At the International Space Summit last week, Avio CEO Giulio Ranzo said his company was planning to increase the vehicle's launch cadence to six per year in the near future, and could further increase it to nine per year. [SpaceNews]
Earth observation company Satellogic has an agreement to launch six satellites for the Office of Naval Research. The contract, through Innovative Defense Technologies, involves six of the company's Mark VI satellites to support the office's Slingshot III program. In 2025 and 2026, Satellogic conducted Slingshot III proof-of-concept demonstrations with Mark VI satellites, which gather imagery with native resolution of 70 centimeters per pixel and 50-centimeter super resolution in four spectral bands. With artificial-intelligence algorithms running onboard, the Mark VI satellites will share observations in real time through radio-frequency intersatellite links. Satellogic also announced it will launch three satellites, one Mark V and two Mark VI spacecraft, in October on a SpaceX rideshare mission. [SpaceNews]
Australian company HEO repurposed an Earth observation satellite to conduct close-range inspection of a Chinese Long March 2C rocket. HEO worked with Satellogic and the University of New South Wales Canberra Space to obtain images of the stage from various angles and imaging conditions using Continuum-1, the spacecraft HEO acquired in orbit from Satellogic earlier this year. HEO has performed non-Earth imaging through conventional flybys, where satellites gather imagery when they pass space objects during routine operations. In contrast, Continuum-1 moved to within 40 kilometers of the rocket body, obtaining images at a resolution of 7 centimeters per pixel. [SpaceNews]
British startup Shield Space has completed the critical design review for a cubesat designed for satellite inspection. Shield Space is providing autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) software for an 8U cubesat EnduroSat is building to chase a 3U target, also based on the Bulgarian firm's standardized bus. The Broadsword mission, planned for 2027, will test the ability of the chaser cubesat to approach within 100 meters of the other cubesat. Shield Space argues that, if this mission is successful, it will show that cubesats can perform inspection missions, opening up what it sees as "pretty significant" defense applications. [SpaceNews]
ColliMate Space has demonstrated its Nexus software for autonomously managing satellite downlinks on a spacecraft for the first time. Running on the European Space Agency's OPS-SAT PRETTY in-orbit software testbed, ColliMate said Nexus successfully combined simulated spacecraft sensor data with orbital, environmental and radio frequency information. ColliMate now aims to test multiple phenomenologies of real-time on-orbit sensors to further increase the system's flexibility, as well as move toward operational deployments on commercial and government spacecraft. ColliMate is part of a wider push to add more autonomy in orbit, leaning on increasingly capable and cheaper-to-deploy spacecraft. [SpaceNews]
An accurate launch will help extend the lifetime of NASA's newest space telescope. The agency said Tuesday that engineers have conserved fuel reserved for mid-course correction maneuvers after the launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in late August. One maneuver was more accurate than required, conserving fuel. That, along with additional fuel loaded on Roman before launch and an upcoming second maneuver that will be smaller than expected, will give Roman more than 20 years of fuel reserves once it arrives at the Earth-sun L-2 point. The mission was designed to have 10 years of fuel. [NASA]
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Mission Authorization Is So Hot Right Now
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"It's probably the nerdiest think I'll say, but I think it's the hottest thing in space regulations right now."
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– Taylor Jordan, director of the Office of Space Commerce, discussing his office's Space Commerce Certification system during a talk at the World Space Business Week conference on Monday.
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FROM SPACENEWS |
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What Comes Next for On-Orbit Servicing? Join us on Monday, Sept. 21 for conversations about the tech, policies and business models required to build a functioning in-orbit logistics ecosystem. Col. Scott Carstetter, director of servicing, mobility, and logistics at Space Systems Command, and other experts will explore what comes next for the technologies, policies and business models required to build a functioning in-orbit logistics ecosystem. Register now. |
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