By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: HawkEye 360 expands its RF intelligence services to space, NASA quickens the pace on Artemis 3, Space Command foes become friends and more.
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Top Stories
HawkEye 360 says it has shown its satellites, designed to detect radio-frequency sources on Earth, can also be used to detect transmissions from other satellites. The results, released after an 18-month project funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory, revealed that HawkEye 360's satellites could collect RF emissions from spacecraft in low, medium and geosynchronous Earth orbit and associate those signals with individual satellites. RF sensing can add another layer of information for space domain awareness efforts by showing whether a spacecraft is transmitting, how it communicates and whether its activity changes over time. RF monitoring could also help satellite operators troubleshoot spacecraft that stop responding or behave unexpectedly. [SpaceNews]
NASA says the experience from the first two Artemis missions is helping work on Artemis 3 go faster. In a talk at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) this week, NASA's Artemis program manager, Jeremy Parsons, said SLS and Orion work was going much faster for Artemis 3 than for the previous two missions. Part of that is based on experience, he said, but the organization is also making greater use of in-house expertise versus contractors for that work. He cited a case where an internal NASA team was able to redesign a hydrogen fitting that leaked during tests ahead of Artemis 2 in a fraction of the time and cost that a vendor quoted. NASA is targeting a mid-2027 launch for Artemis 3 although agency leadership has acknowledged they are behind schedule. An ESA presentation at the conference listed a late 2027 launch date for the mission. [SpaceNews]
Axiom Space is moving ahead with work on a simplified version of its spacesuit for the first Artemis landings. The company said last month that NASA has asked Axiom to study a "Sortie" version of the suit for the first landings in a bid to ensure suit development does not delay those missions. The company said at a briefing during IAC this week that it is working with NASA on revised requirements for the Sortie suit, which will primarily involve reducing the number of some components. Axiom is working on its full-fledged AxEMU suit in parallel to the Sortie design, with plans to deliver a qualification suit to NASA before the end of the year and testing that suit on an International Space Station spacewalk next year. [SpaceNews]
After a bruising fight about who will host the headquarters of U.S. Space Command, Colorado Springs and Huntsville are making up. More than 90 business executives, elected officials and civic leaders from Colorado Springs traveled to Huntsville this week for meetings with local officials and defense companies, working to build partnerships between the cities and their space companies. It comes after a back-and-forth fight between the cities to host the command, eventually won by Huntsville. Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of Space Command, said the nation's needs in military space are "too big for one single city's resources alone." [SpaceNews]
NorthStar Earth and Space says development of a space domain awareness network remains on track despite a disappointing SPAC deal. The company closed a SPAC merger last week, turning the company into a publicly traded firm. However, shareholders in the SPAC redeemed 96% of $230 million it held. NorthStar was able to raise $30 million in a separate transaction, known as a PIPE, which provides the company with funding needed for its sensors that will fly as hosted payloads on Kepler Communications satellites in 2028. [SpaceNews]
The Pentagon is working with satellite antenna manufacturer Kymeta to add new capabilities for a communications terminal. Kymeta said Tuesday that it received a Department of Defense contract to develop an enhanced cartridge for its Osprey u8 terminal that integrates computing, software-defined radio and networking capabilities. The value of the contract was not disclosed. The effort is intended to turn the Osprey from a communications terminal into a multi-mission platform capable of processing and analyzing RF data where military forces are operating. One of the applications Kymeta is targeting is RF space domain awareness. [SpaceNews]
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Other News
Crew-12 is on its way home from the International Space Station. The Crew Dragon spacecraft undocked from the station at 8:05 a.m. Eastern, setting up for a splashdown off the California coast Thursday at 11:34 a.m. Eastern. Crew-12 is returning after nearly eight months on the ISS with astronauts from NASA, ESA and Roscosmos. Their replacements arrived on the ISS last week on Crew-13. [NASA]
South Korea launched a group of smallsats overnight. The KSLV-2, or Nuri, rocket lifted off from the Naro Space Center in Goheung, 400 kilometers south of Seoul, at 11:25 p.m. Eastern. The rocket, making its fifth flight, deployed five New-space Earth Observation Satellite Constellation for National Safety (NEONSAT) microsatellites into low Earth orbit along with nine cubesats, although a tenth cubesat failed to deploy. The NEONSAT spacecraft are part of a 10-satellite constellation that will provide frequent imagery of the Korean peninsula. [Yonhap]
The Space Development Agency is putting money behind a field of companies developing vehicles to remove satellites from orbit at the end of their missions. Deorbit-as-a-Service, a program jointly funded by SDA and the Defense Innovation Unit, is funding Firefly Aerospace, D-Orbit Space and Katalyst Space in an initial phase worth a combined $8.4 million to develop mission designs. Preliminary design reviews are expected by the end of the year. The broader goal is to put a prototype by one of the three companies in orbit by mid-2028. Separately from the partnership with DIU, SDA awarded Starfish Space a contract with a potential value of $52.5 million to deorbit as many as seven spacecraft. [SpaceNews]
Linse Capital is exploring another early-stage fund to place more bets on space and other deep tech startups. The VC firm said this week it had backed 14 startups through Ignition I, comprising a $75 million core fund and $75 million in co-investment vehicles to double down on some of those businesses. The investments in that fund included Varda Space Industries. A second fund would allow the company to invest in additional early-stage companies as competition for space deals heats up. [SpaceNews]
California will use Iceye data to support disaster response efforts. California's Office of Emergency Services began working with Iceye synthetic aperture radar data earlier this year, and is now using it for near-real-time flood and wildfire monitoring. The data is useful, state officials said, as they prepare for a strong El Niño climate event this winter that could bring heavy rains and winds to the state. [SpaceNews]
A startup with plans to help connect space industry suppliers with space projects around the world has signed an agreement with the U.N.'s space office. Nebex signed a letter of intent with the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs to see how the company can help U.N. efforts to support emerging space programs. Nebex is a fintech startup that serves as an exchange linking government space projects around the world with suppliers. The company, which raised $30 million in a seed round this summer, says it can help suppliers, many of which are in the U.S., win business in other countries. [SpaceNews]
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Spacewalking the Runway
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"That's super exciting for everybody at Axiom Space and Johnson Space Center to see this next-generation spacesuit perform in space. I can't wait to watch Prada walk around outside."
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– Jonathan Cirtain, CEO of Axiom Space, discussing plans at a briefing Tuesday to test the company's spacesuit on an ISS spacewalk next year. Axiom is developing the spacesuit in partnership with luxury goods company Prada.
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