January 24, 2025

Establishing a Permanent Lunar Presence will Depend on Ingenuity and the Moon's Own Resources (Source: Space Daily)
NASA's Artemis program goal of establishing a human presence on the Earth's moon is closer than ever to becoming a reality within the next few decades. But today's starry-eyed dreamers are reckoning with the gritty reality of building a permanent base on an airless, dusty, radiation-blasted rock thousands of miles from home. How hard can it be? Click here. (1/23)

Space Venture Firm Predicts Industry Shakeup (Source: Space News)
In a bold forecast about what lies ahead for the space industry, venture firm Space Capital predicts both Boeing and Airbus will divest their space divisions in 2025, marking a significant shift in the commercial space landscape. According to Space Capital’s latest investment trends report released Jan. 23, these aerospace giants are struggling to maintain pace with the rapidly evolving space sector.

“These divestitures by entrenched government contractors marks a pivotal moment in the space economy, as it changes the competitive landscape, establishes a new power broker system, and creates new opportunities and risks in the government’s extended capabilities in space,” the report states. The prediction comes amid broader trends in the space industry, with Space Capital projecting 2025 to be “one of the most transformative years on record for the space economy.” (1/23)

400 Rocket Landings! SpaceX Notches Reuse Milestone (Source: Space.com)
SpaceX made some history during Tuesday's (Jan. 21) Starlink satellite launch from California. On that mission, a Falcon 9 rocket sent 27 Starlink broadband craft to low Earth orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base. About eight minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9's first stage returned to Earth as planned, acing its landing on a drone ship at sea. (1/23)

Move Over Starlink: China’s Tiantong-1 Brings Direct Satellite-to-Cell Communication (Source: Samoa News Hub)
China has launched the Tiantong-1 03 satellite, expanding its satellite network to provide direct-to-cell connectivity. While not directly competing with SpaceX’s Starlink, which focuses on global high-speed internet, the Tiantong system offers an alternative approach by providing reliable mobile communication services, particularly in areas with limited terrestrial network coverage.

The Tiantong-1 03 satellite, launched aboard a Long March 3B rocket, operates in geostationary orbit. Its primary function is to support voice and data communication for maritime, aviation, and remote regions. This addition enhances China’s existing satellite communication infrastructure, enabling broader and more robust connectivity for users across various sectors. (1/19)

BlackSky Ships First Gen-3 Satellite for Expected Launch in February (Source: BlackSky)
BlackSky Technology has shipped its first Gen-3 satellite to launch provider Rocket Lab. The satellite is planned for launch in February from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand. The Gen-3 constellation will offer customers new mission critical insights with the addition of very high-resolution, rapid-revisit 35-centimeter imagery and AI-enabled analytics delivered at industry-leading speed and scale. (1/23)

SpaceX Addition Spurs Flood of New Cash Into Little-Known ETF (Source: Bloomberg)
An exchange-traded fund from a relatively unknown shop is catching the attention of online traders and gathering flows after investing in Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The ERShares Private-Public Crossover ETF (ticker XOVR) has raked in more than $120 million since buying shares of the private rocket and satellite company in December. That’s the best stretch of flows in its seven-year lifespan, and it’s helped the fund grow its assets to $250 million. (1/23)

AST SpaceMobile Raises $400 Million (Source: Space News)
AST SpaceMobile raised an additional $400 million to fund development of its direct-to-device constellation. The company raised the money through a convertible debt instrument where investors can convert the debt, priced Wednesday to pay interest at 4.25%, into AST SpaceMobile equity if shares rise above $45, or cash at the bond's maturity in 2032. The company now has more than $900 million of cash on its balance sheet to shift production of its Block 2 BlueBird satellites into a higher gear this year, after deploying five smaller Block 1 spacecraft to low Earth orbit in September. AST SpaceMobile has contracts to launch up to 45 BlueBird satellites in the next two years, and expects its next spacecraft to leave facilities in Texas as early as March for a launch from India. (1/24)

AST SpaceMobile Gets Clearance to Test Cellular Satellites With AT&T (Source: PC Mag)
AST SpaceMobile can finally start testing its BlueBird satellites with AT&T phones in the US. The FCC today issued a special temporary authority to AST SpaceMobile, giving the company until May 30 to test the BlueBird satellites using AT&T’s network spectrum. (1/23)

Changes Anticipated as Starliner Forces More Losses at Boeing (Source: Space News)
Boeing expects to take more changes on its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew program. The company stated Thursday it would take $1.7 billion in charges against earnings for five programs in its Defense, Space and Security business unit when it reports its fourth quarter financial results next week. Most of the charges will go toward two military aircraft programs, but Starliner could see up to $400 million in charges. Boeing took $250 million in charges on Starliner in the third quarter. Neither NASA nor Boeing have provided recent updates on the status of Starliner since its uncrewed return to Earth in September on the Crew Flight Test mission. (1/24)

Kayhan Files Bid Protest for TraCSS Contract (Source: Space News)
A bid protest should not keep the Office of Space Commerce from completing a new space traffic coordination system this year. Kayhan Space filed a protest in December contesting a contract the office awarded to Slingshot Aerospace to develop the user interface for the Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS). The protest triggered a 100-day work stoppage on the contract. The office's acting director said this week that, despite the delay, the office still hopes to complete work on the first phase of TraCSS later this year. (1/24)

Artemis Study Contracts Proceed Despite Trump Uncertainty (Source: Space News)
NASA awarded studies for later phases of the Artemis lunar exploration campaign despite uncertainty about the future of Artemis. NASA has selected nine companies for studies worth a combined $24 million to study issues related to logistics and surface mobility for future lunar bases, the agency announced Thursday. The studies are meant to address gaps in the Moon to Mars Architecture NASA developed to guide Artemis and planning for later missions to Mars. The studies come amid speculation that NASA may revamp or even cancel Artemis to focus more on human missions to Mars. SpaceX's Elon Musk, an avid supporter of human Mars missions, said last month that Artemis "is extremely inefficient" and that an "entirely new" alternative is needed. (1/24)

China Launches Secret Satellite (Source: Space News)
China launched a classified geostationary satellite Thursday. A Long March 3B rocket lifted off at 10:32 a.m. Eastern from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, placing into geostationary transfer orbit the TJS-14 satellite. Chinese officials described TJS-14 as a spacecraft to provide communications and test technologies. TJS satellites are believed by outside observers to fulfill a range of functions, perform technology tests and test out new tactics, techniques and procedures. (1/24)

Trump Tariffs Could Impact Space Industry (Source: Space News)
The space industry is bracing for potential tariffs by the Trump administration. Before his inauguration, Trump said he would levy tariffs against China as well as Canada, Mexico and other nations. Experts anticipate tariffs will generally lead to higher costs for critical materials across the industry, in addition to potential supply chain disruptions and increased pressure on manufacturers to localize production. That could result in higher costs for U.S. space projects and services, or lower profit margins if companies decide to absorbs the costs of the tariff. In the longer term, though, it could drive companies to increase domestic sourcing. (1/24)

Spain's Indra Nearing Acquisition of Hispasat (Source: Reuters)
Spanish defense company Indra is finalizing a deal to acquire satellite operator Hispasat. According to the Spanish newspaper El Pais, India and Redeia are set to approve a deal where Indra would buy Hispasat for 650 million euros ($679 million). Indra had expressed an interest in buying some or all of Hispsat for more than a year. (1/24)

Viasat Bid Protest Could Be Linked to SDA Chief's Administrative Leave (Source: Breaking Defense)
A Viasat bid protest could be linked to the Air Force's decision to place the head of the Space Development Agency (SDA) on leave. The Department of the Air Force announced last week it placed Derek Tournear on administrative leave but did not disclose the reason for doing so. That move is reportedly linked to a bid protest filed by Viasat over awards of Tranche 2 Transport Layer contracts to Terran Orbital and York Space Systems. Viasat alleges that the winning companies were improperly given help in the bidding process, but the complaint Viasat filed in the Court of Federal Claims does not specify what, if anything, Tournear did wrong. (1/24)

Interlune Seeks to Leverage Quantum Computing as it Pursues Helium-3 Lunar Mining (Source: Space News)
A startup planning to mine helium-3 on the moon thinks that quantum computing will be a sufficient initial market. Interlune has outlined plans to develop technologies that will allow it to harvest helium-3 from lunar regolith. The isotope, which costs $20 million per kilogram on Earth today, has long been associated with nuclear fusion. However, Interlune sees quantum computing, which uses helium-3 to cool their systems to near absolute zero, as a sufficient initial market.  Many observers remain skeptical that helium-3 can be extracted from the moon profitably. (1/24)

Trump Poised to Relocate Space Command to Alabama (Source: Courthouse News)
Congressional representatives in Alabama, where more than 64% of voters supported President Donald Trump in 2024, are increasingly confident Trump will reward their loyalty by prioritizing an administrative plan to move the headquarters of the U.S. Space Command from Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado to Redstone Arsenal in the city of Huntsville. (1/22)

NASA Holds Annual Day of Remembrance for Fallen Astronauts (Source: Florida Today)
NASA held its annual somber memorial to remember fallen astronauts. It's one of those odd twists of fate that the dates of NASA's greatest tragedies all occurred within days of each other, albeit decades apart. The Apollo 1 crew was lost in a launchpad fire on Jan. 27, 1967. Space Shuttle Challenger exploded after launch on Jan. 28, 1986, killing all seven crew members, and Columbia broke apart during re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003, also killing all seven crew. (1/23)

$1.5M Grant Will Support 3D Reconstruction, Space Debris Research (Source: FIT)
Florida Tech’s Madhur Tiwari and his students are working to build software architectures that will create 3D models from 2D images of unknown space objects. With a new $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Space Force and Air Force Research Lab, the assistant professor of aerospace engineering and director of the Autonomy Lab is ready to move this research into its second phase.

His lab is working in partnership with Creare, a New Hampshire-based innovator in the design and development of cryogenic components and systems, to design an algorithm that can produce 3D models of unknown objects using deep learning architectures. His algorithms will use machine learning to estimate 3D models of unknown objects – such as a spacecraft or debris – only using a few photos. (1/23)

Spacecraft for Research: Florida Space Institute CubeSat Program (Source: UCF)
UCF is propelling students toward dynamic careers in the space industry with hands-on programs and sought-after internship opportunities. The  Florida Space Institute CubeSat program further immerses students in satellite design and operation, offering direct involvement in active space missions. Click here. (1/19)

Sustaining Record-Breaking Launches from the Eastern Range (Source: Astralytical)
The 45th Space Launch Delta has been busy breaking launch records year after year. How do they plan to sustain such a high and ever-increasing launch cadence from the multi-user spaceport, especially when SpaceX shows no sign of stopping and newer vehicles are becoming operational? Colonial Meredith Beg, Vice Commander of Space Operations, discussed how to manage processes and people at the National Space Club Florida Committee luncheon. Click here. (1/14)

Three Rockets Will Ignite Poker Flat’s 2025 Launch Season (Source: UAF)
Three NASA sounding rockets are set to launch from Poker Flat Research Range as early as Tuesday to learn more about three types of aurora — black, flickering and fast-pulsating. The launch window is Jan. 21 through Feb. 5. The University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute owns Poker Flat and operates it under a contract with NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, part of the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The launches will be the first of the season. As of April 2024, Poker Flat had launched 350 major sounding rockets and about 1,800 meteorological rockets in its 55-year history. (1/16)

NASA Advances Mars Travel with MARVL Nuclear Propulsion (Source; NewsLinker)
NASA is taking steps to reduce the travel time to Mars through the development of the Modular Assembled Radiators for Nuclear Electric Propulsion Vehicles (MARVL). This initiative aims to make crewed missions more feasible by significantly shortening the round-trip duration. The project leverages advancements in nuclear electric propulsion technology and space robotics. The MARVL system utilizes a nuclear reactor to produce electricity, which then ionizes gaseous propellants to generate thrust. This method allows for more efficient fuel usage compared to traditional chemical propulsion. (1/23)

Demystifying Jared Isaacman, Trump’s NASA Nominee (Source: Space News)
Isaacman has said little about why he sought to lead the agency or what he would do if confirmed by the Senate. “Having been fortunate to see our amazing planet from space, I am passionate about America leading the most incredible adventure in human history,” he said in a social media post the day of Trump’s announcement.

In his limited post-nomination comments, he has emphasized the importance of U.S. leadership in space exploration. “I was born after the Moon landings; my children were born after the final space shuttle launch,” the 41-year-old said in his post. “With the support of President Trump, I can promise you this: We will never again lose our ability to journey to the stars and never settle for second place.”

While neither Isaacman nor the incoming Trump administration have discussed their plans for NASA, Isaacman has offered hints in the form of a paper trail of social media posts in the months before Trump’s announcement. One theme is dissatisfaction with the performance of many aerospace and defense prime contractors. In October, he appeared to endorse a commentary by Michael Bloomberg that was sharply critical of NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration campaign. (1/22)

Lonestar's Moonshot: Firm Aims to Place Data Center on Lunar Surface (Source: Economic Times)
Tampa-based Lonestar Data Holdings is reaching for the moon in its quest to place the first physical data center on the lunar landscape. The space startup will use SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket to launch a fully assembled data center late next month by integrating it with Intuitive Machines' moon lander, Athena. Cheaper rocket launches, abundant solar energy and cost-effective cooling systems have fueled a race among startups to transform space into a massive data hub, capable of meeting the growing computational needs of technologies including AI.

Lonestar's focus is on disaster recovery and storage and not on latency-dependent activities. Lonestar has signed up the State of Florida, Isle of Man government, AI firm Valkyrie and pop rock band Imagine Dragons as customers for the data center, called Freedom, which will be powered by solar energy and use naturally cooled solid-state drives. (1/22)

Bezos' Blue Origin Hit With Sexism Suit From Former Welder (Source: Bloomberg)
A former welder at Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company Blue Origin Florida LLC says her supervisors forced her to sew buttons on their shirts and would tell her she was “a welder in a man’s world,” according to a Wednesday lawsuit. Rebecca Carver welded rocket fuel systems at Blue Origin but was fired after her supervisors, while engaging in a pattern of sexism and retaliation, refused to accommodate injuries she sustained on the job, her complaint filed in the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida said. (1/22)

Taiwan-Made Deep Space Probe Begins Returning Data (Source: Taipei Times)
The first batch of data from a Taiwan-made radiation detector has arrived after the craft was launched into space last week, National Central University (NCU) said yesterday. NCU’s Deep Space Radiation Probe (DSRP) was aboard the HAKUTO-R Mission 2 lunar lander developed by Japanese space exploration company ispace and launched from Florida at 1:11am on Wednesday last week via the US space technology company SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. (1/23)

Trump Administration Gets Ugly on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (Sources: Ars Technica, SPACErePORT)
Agency heads, including at NASA, were required to send a terse statement (with no changes) on DEI policy to federal employees: "We are taking steps to close all agency DEIA offices and end all DEIA-related contracts in accordance with President Trump’s executive orders titled Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing and Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions... These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination."

The statement is notable for its suggestion that some civil servants may have sought to shroud DEI programs from the Trump administration since the presidential election. "We are aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language. If you are aware of a change in any contract description or personnel position description since November 5, 2024 to obscure the connection between the contract and DEIA or similar ideologies, please report all facts and circumstances... There will be no adverse consequences for timely reporting this information. However, failure to report this information within 10 days may result in adverse consequences."

Meanwhile at DHHS: As of Tuesday, all external communication from agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the NIH, Centers for Disease Control, and the Food and Drug Administration, were put on hold. This will include things like alerts regarding the spread of emerging diseases, such as the H5N1 bird flu that’s currently widespread in agricultural animals. It became clear that this policy extended well beyond external communications. One researcher said that an NIH workshop was canceled mid-presentation. (1/23)

The Moon or Mars? It Must Be Both! (Source: National Review)
“The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons,” Donald Trump declared near the close of his second inaugural address. “And we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.”

Good! That is an objective worthy of a nation of strivers in command of the world’s strongest economy — interrelated phenomena that explains Europe’s stagnation and China’s economic sluggishness amid Xi Jinping’s efforts to re-Sovietize its social compact. We should work towards a future in which the first boots to trod Martian soil are American boots. Space exploration is a human endeavor, and U.S cooperation with its partners abroad is vital. But a manned mission to Mars must be an unambiguously American accomplishment — not one attributable to a nebulous international consortium.

Which reminds me . . . whatever happened to the moon? Our nearest celestial neighbor got short shrift in Trump’s inaugural remarks, but NASA hasn’t given up on its effort to return astronauts to its surface. Currently, the plan is to send a crewed mission into lunar orbit in April 2026. In September 2027, the third Artemis mission will land astronauts on its surface for the first time since 1972. The moon has become active geography of late, which makes its omission from Trump’s speech conspicuous. What gives? Well, a Politico dispatch earlier this month indicates that a turf war is brewing among Republicans in the House, Senate, and White House, with SpaceX proprietor Elon Musk pushing heavily on the scales. (1/22)

Spacetech Startup GalaxEye Deploys GLX-SQ Payload with ISRO (Source: YourStory)
Spacetech startup GalaxEye Spacehas announced the deployment of its GLX-SQ payload, combining Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and optical imagery technologies. The GLX-SQ payload aims to generate, capture, and process SAR images in space, completing image processing and compression within 10 minutes, reducing 400 MB of raw data to under 1.5 MB. (1/23)

Towards Low-Cost Missions to Mars (Source: ESA)
Two decades after Mars Express, ESA is returning to small-scale missions aimed at exploring the Red Planet. With a completely different landscape of technologies available this time around, new opportunities for interplanetary missions open up. As part of ESA's LightShip initiative, four consortia will conduct independent parallel studies to define what a small low cost Mars satellite-platform could look like as a LightShip passenger.

Currently in the feasibility and definition stage, ESA's LightShip propulsive tug, or interplanetary transfer service, takes away two of the constraints that would make low-cost missions to Mars extremely difficult – it provides the propulsion needed for its passenger spacecraft to transfer to Mars and enter Mars' orbit, and hosts the Mars Communication and Navigation Infrastructure (MARCONI) offering a dedicated data relay service. (1/21)

GOP Rep. Luna Calls for Trump to Move NASA’s Headquarters to Florida’s Space Coast (Source: Breitbart)
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) called for President Donald Trump to move NASA’s headquarters from Washington, DC, to Florida, highlighting that Florida’s Space Coast is “home to key facilities like the Kennedy Space Center.” In a letter addressed to Trump, Luna noted that Florida’s Space Coast is “uniquely positioned to support this transformation and strengthen America’s leadership in space exploration.” (1/22)

What Trump’s Pledge to Plant the U.S. Flag on Mars Really Means (Source: New York Times)
Crucial parts of the current Artemis program include the Space Launch System, a powerful but expensive NASA rocket, and the Orion capsule where the astronauts would travel between the Earth and the moon. Many in the space industry expect the incoming Trump administration to cancel S.L.S., and possibly Orion as well. On Christmas, Mr. Musk wrote on X, “The Artemis architecture is extremely inefficient, as it is a jobs-maximizing program, not a results-maximizing program. Something entirely new is needed.”

The next day, Mr. Musk, who has met repeatedly with Mr. Trump, appeared to call for skipping the moon altogether: “No, we’re going straight to Mars. The Moon is a distraction.” Mr. Musk downplayed the moon, even though SpaceX holds a $4 billion contract to build a version of Starship to take astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the moon. A cancellation of Artemis would also cancel SpaceX’s contract. “We will see whether or not there is no money for the moon at all in the budget when it comes out,” said Jim Muncy. (1/21)

Unlocking the Heart’s Potential Through Space-Based Research (Source: CASIS)
Researchers from Emory University have taken their cardiac research to extraordinary heights. The team recently published findings from a study leveraging the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory in the high-impact journal Biomaterials. The investigation, which launched to the ISS on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission, examined the effects of microgravity on three-dimensional clusters of heart muscle cells. (1/23)