 | Top Stories
CACI International won a $450 million contract from U.S. Space Command for a navigation warfare center. The professional services and information technology company said Wednesday it won the 10-year, $450 million contract to support the Joint Navigation Warfare Center (JNWC) for Space Command. The JNWC, a subordinate organization of U.S. Space Command's Combined Force Space Component Command, supports U.S. Space Command and plays a vital role in maintaining positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) superiority for the Defense Department and its partners. CACI will assist combatant commanders in enhancing their ability to operate in PNT-disrupted, denied and degraded areas. [SpaceNews]
Boeing has taken another loss on the CST-100 Starliner commercial crew program. The company said Wednesday it recorded a $125 million loss in the second quarter, citing delays in the ongoing Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission. Boeing has reported about $1.6 billion in losses on Starliner over the course of the program. The company separately said Wednesday that it is making preparations to conclude the CFT mission and bring astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams home. NASA and Boeing have yet to set a date for that return, though. [SpaceNews]
Boeing has hired a former Rockwell Collins executive as its next CEO. Boeing said Wednesday that Kelly Ortberg will start as CEO on Aug. 8, succeeding Dave Calhoun. He is the former CEO of aerospace electronics company Rockwell Collins who left the company after it was acquired by United Technologies, now RTX. Analysts largely praised the selection of Ortberg as someone who can help guide the company through various problems. [New York Times]
Vast is offering microgravity lab space on its Haven-1 commercial space station. The company said Thursday that Haven-1, a single-module station scheduled to launch next year, will have 10 middeck lockers for experiments. Vast is working with Redwire Space and Yuri, a European space biotech company, on the Haven-1 Lab, with those companies providing experiment facilities for it based on what has flown on the ISS. The lab will provide the ability to do research that can't be accommodated on the ISS or which would run into regulatory or other obstacles there, and will inform Vast's planning for a future larger station. [SpaceNews]
Dawn Aerospace has unveiled a docking and refueling port for its satellite propulsion systems. The Docking and Fluid Transfer port will help Dawn customers gain access to future in-space refueling services. The port replaces standard manual fill and drain valves used for propellant loading on the ground. The company acknowledged that when in-space satellite refueling services will become available is uncertain, but adding the port can help ensure there is a customer base for those services when they do emerge. [SpaceNews]
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| Other News
Chinese launch company Space Pioneer is moving towards a first flight of a new rocket despite an infamous static-fire test that wasn't static. In a June 30 test, the first stage of the company's Tianlong-3 rocket broke free and ascended, crashing back to Earth near inhabited areas. That incident drew widespread criticism, but the company appears to be moving ahead with work on the rocket, erecting a pathfinder version of the full rocket at an undisclosed location. The company may still face regulatory hurdles for a launch of the rocket, intended to be similar in performance to the Falcon 9. [SpaceNews]
Space organizations are continuing to identify promising AI applications despite challenges. At the AIAA ASCEND conference Tuesday, NASA discussed how it is using AI for analyzing large Earth science data sets, while Slingshot Aerospace is combining AI with physics-based models to simulate evasive maneuvers satellites could perform in response to a threat. They cautioned, though that AI models are only as good as the training data that feeds them, and information on various satellites and their capabilities is often proprietary or classified. [SpaceNews]
Space photographers are complaining about new restrictions ULA has enacted for its launches. The company recently informed photographers who wish to set up remote cameras near the launch pad that the images can only be used for media, and cannot be sold commercially. Photographers argue that the restrictions deprive them of funding needed to carry out their work. ULA has not explained why it enacted the new restrictions. [Ars Technica]
Some scientists think the moon would make a great place to store a "doomsday vault" of seeds and cells. In a paper published this week, researchers said that permanently shadowed craters at the lunar poles would be an ideal place for a biorepository that could preserve seeds and animal cells at cryogenic temperatures. That repository would be a backup for terrestrial ones in the event they are lost from localized catastrophes like hurricanes, rather than a "massive apocalypse" that would make it impossible to get to the moon. [Science]
| |  | Vibe Check
"The first thing we did was to take a prototype satellite, put it in the back of my car, pump up the tires until they were really hard, and then drive up and down the local high street, which was a cobbled high street, at about 60 miles an hour in the late evening before the police arrived to see if the satellite would survive the rigors of launch."
– Sir Martin Sweeting, describing a version of a vibration test for an early satellite developed by what would become Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. during a speech at the AIAA ASCEND conference Tuesday.
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