Plus: The next Starship launch is delayed again
By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: satellite operators gauge the impact of the SpaceX IPO, ESA is upbeat about support for European human spaceflight, SpaceX delays its next Starship launch again and more.
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Top Stories
Satellite operators are evaluating the impacts to their businesses from the SpaceX IPO three months ago. Executives with several major operators said at a World Satellite Business Week panel that the attention the industry has received from the IPO has largely been positive. They added that the disclosures that SpaceX has made as part of going public, such as that around one fifth of SpaceX revenue comes from a single unnamed customer, widely understood to be the U.S. government, has been beneficial to them. However, a flood of public investors that SpaceX has helped carry into the space industry also brings its own problems as those investors grapple with the capital intensive and extremely volatile nature of satellite communications. [SpaceNews]
The head of ESA is upbeat about winning support for a European human spaceflight program. Josef Aschbacher proposed to ministers from ESA's member states last week an initiative to develop a human spaceflight program, costing about 1 billion euros ($1.15 billion) annually over a decade. Aschbacher said on the Space Minds podcast this week that the reaction from those ministers was "very, very positive," allowing ESA to proceed with finalizing the proposal to be considered at an intermediate ministerial meeting in December. ESA is also exploring additional ways to collaborate on Artemis, including seeking ideas from within the agency. [SpaceNews]
The general leading U.S. Space Command says the military needs better abilities to track space objects in an emerging era of orbital combat. Gen. Stephen Whiting said at the AMOS Conference this week that space domain awareness capabilities are sufficient for military operations today, but the United States needs more precise tracking and faster integration of data to support demanding missions such as targeting adversary spacecraft. Space Command wants information precise and timely enough to help commanders defend U.S. satellites and, if ordered, disrupt or disable an adversary's spacecraft. The shift has taken on greater significance as the Pentagon becomes more open about its ability to conduct combat operations in space. [SpaceNews]
South Korean company Satrec Initiative is working with parent company Hanwha Systems to provide 10-centimeter satellite imagery. Satrec currently acquires 25-centimeter optical imagery with SpaceEye-T, launched in 2025. To complement Hanwha's planned 64-satellite radar constellation, designed to provide 30-minute revisit by 2031, Satrec plans to manufacture and launch four satellites to gather 10-centimeter-class optical imagery. The combination of high-resolution optical and radar imagery will open up new opportunities for defense and intelligence customers. In addition, customers will have access to artificial intelligence-based satellite imagery analysis from Satrec Initiative subsidiary SI Analytics. [SpaceNews]
Space robotics startup Icarus Robotics went to Canada to perform parabolic flight tests ahead of a mission to the International Space Station. A lack of U.S. facilities for parabolic aircraft flights, which provide brief periods of microgravity, led the company to fly on a Canadian aircraft to test its Joy robotics system. The testing demonstrated the performance of Joy's flight controller, sensor suite and manipulation capabilities. [SpaceNews]
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Other News
Astra is targeting early next year for the first flight of its Rocket 4.0 vehicle. Astra CEO Chris Kemp said at World Space Business Week that the launch is planned for January or February from Wallops Island, Virginia. It will be the first launch for Astra since a failed flight of the smaller Rocket 3.3 in mid-2022. Rocket 4.0 is designed to place up to one ton into low Earth orbit for $5 million, and Astra plans quarterly launches of the vehicle next year and then increasing cadence thereafter. Astra sees opportunities for the vehicle in a market where demand for satellite launch is outstripping capacity, a problem exacerbated by the expected end of SpaceX rideshare missions in a couple years. [SpaceNews]
NASA will use a SpaceX rideshare mission to launch an astronomy smallsat. NASA announced Thursday it selected SpaceX to launch the StarBurst spacecraft, flying it on a Bandwagon mid-inclination mission in 2028. StarBurst, part of the Astrophysics Pioneers line of smallsat and balloon missions, will investigate neutron star mergers and the origins of short gamma-ray bursts. NASA used its Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare contract to acquire the launch and did not disclose the value of the deal. [NASA]
SpaceX has further delayed the next Starship launch. The company said Thursday the flight 14 launch, which had been scheduled for Sept. 22, had been pushed back to Sept. 28. The company did not give a reason for the delay. Flight 14 is slated to be the first orbital flight of the vehicle, placing a set of Starlink satellites into orbit. [Space.com]
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says the military needs to be prepared not just for conflict in orbit but also at the moon. Speaking at the Air, Space & Cyber Conference this week, Gen. Dan Caine said the military needs to be prepared to fight "from the seabed to cislunar space." He did elaborate on what fighting might take in cislunar space. A Space Force general said at the conference that the 18th and 19th Space Defense Squadrons are sharing responsibility for monitoring activity in cislunar space and that the Outer Space Treaty did not limit military activities there. [Defense One]
Texas A&M University will bid to take over management of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The university's board of regents formally agreed earlier this month to submit a bid to NASA to manage JPL. The lab has been run by Caltech since before NASA was established in 1958, but the agency said earlier this year it would compete bids for the next contract to manage JPL when the current contract expires in 2028. Texas A&M is currently building the Texas Space Institute, a facility adjacent to the Johnson Space Center funded by the Texas Space Commission. Several universities and organizations are likely to bid on the JPL contract. [Texas A&M Battalion]
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Very Rapidly
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"If the ship were to break up over land and rain debris on people, our popularity would diminish very rapidly."
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– SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, discussing at the All-In Summit this week preparations to return the company's Starship upper stage back at the launch site, which requires reentering and flying over land.
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FROM SPACENEWS |
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What Comes Next for On-Orbit Servicing? Join us on Wednesday, Sept. 23 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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