February 8, 2025

Trump Air Force Nominee Arranged Satellite Contract in Manner That Favored Musk's SpaceX, Sources Say (Source: Reuters)
President Donald Trump's nominee as Air Force Secretary, currently a top official at the national spy satellite agency, arranged a multibillion-dollar contract solicitation in a way that favored Elon Musk's SpaceX, according to seven people familiar with the contract. The claims come as Troy Meink, an engineer and former military officer who has served as principal deputy director of the NRO since 2020, awaits confirmation for his nomination to lead the Air Force. His nomination, two of the people told Reuters, followed a recommendation from Musk

Changes to the requirements for the classified contract led the inspector general of the agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, to investigate whether the official, Troy Meink, had improperly directed the transaction toward SpaceX, two of the people told Reuters. Musk's space venture ultimately won the contract in 2021. It isn't clear whether the inspector general concluded a report or if any investigation remains underway. Neither the allegations related to the contract, nor the inspector general's probe, have previously been reported. (2/7)

Space Coast-based ETA Space to Test Cryogenic Propellant with LoxSat (Source: Florida Today)
A Rockledge company has taken a big step forward in its ambitious plan to test the use of cryogenic propellant to power spacecrafts and, someday, help refuel spacecrafts in orbit. Cryogenic propellant is tricky to store but ETA Space believes they have a solution. Last week, the company gathered to watch the rollout of their payload, called LoxSat, at the start of its journey toward a 2026 launch from Rocket Lab's New Zealand launch pad.

ETA's LoxSat has undergone testing at Kennedy Space Center, and in the coming months will be handed off to Rocket Lab to be integrated into their Photon spacecraft. Launch is anticipated for January of 2026 from New Zealand. If successful, this has the potential to revolutionize the powering of spacecrafts and even lead to refueling in space. Back in 2020, ETA Space was awarded $27 million by NASA as part of their lunar contracts seeking emerging space technologies. (2/6)

Patrick SFB-Based DEOMI Still Training Military, 'In Line' with Trump DEI Order (Source: Florida Today)
After conducting internal reviews, the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute at Patrick Space Force Base is continuing its training programs in accordance with President Donald Trump's executive orders that canceled military education courses focused on diversity, equity and inclusion.

DEOMI was established in 1971 as the Defense Race Relations Institute in the wake of the civil rights movement. The institute serves as the Department of Defense's center for occupational training and research in Equal Employment Opportunity and Military Equal Opportunity laws, which deal with unlawful discrimination and harassment.

DEOMI has graduated tens of thousands of students from bases and units around the world, and they return to their units as advisers and trainers. In recent years, DEOMI expanded its reach to a wide array of issues "including disability, diversity, sexism, extremism, religious accommodations, and anti-Semitism," an agency press release said. (2/7)

As He Helps Fight DEI, Musk's SpaceX has a Huge Contract to Send 1st Woman, Person of Color to the Moon (Source: ABC)
As Elon Musk's new Department of Government Efficiency works to reduce government spending by eliminating waste and cutting diversity programs, his SpaceX corporation currently has a multibillion dollar contract to help NASA land the first woman and first person of color on the moon. In 2021, NASA announced that it had awarded a $2.9 billion contract to SpaceX to build a spacecraft for long-term human exploration of the moon under its Artemis program.

In 2023, NASA announced that the crew for the Artemis moon exploration mission would be Navy Capt. Victor Glover, a Black Engineer of the Year Award honoree, and North Carolina native Christina Koch, the record-holder for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, as well as former chief of the Astronaut Office Reid Wiseman and Canadian astronaut and fighter pilot Jeremy Hansen.

Musk has claimed to have cut a billion dollars' worth of federal DEI programs, and sources say DOGE has directed agencies to remove anything DEI-related from bulletin boards, including posters and signs, and has checked bathroom signs to ensure they comply with Trump's executive orders to eliminate DEI initiatives from the federal government. (2/7)

The Real Point of Space Exploration (Source: Slate)
Employees at NASA recently received a directive from their headquarters to remove specific words from their websites, including “inclusion,” “diversity,” and “anything specifically targeting women (women in leadership, etc.),” among many others. Donald Trump’s sweeping attack on DEI is upsetting on a number of levels. When it comes to NASA specifically, I can say that inclusion is part of the entire point of the work that they do.

As of March 2024, 279 people from 22 different countries have lived and worked together on the ISS. Astronauts also carry this symbol for children; they are living messages that anything they dream is possible. The heart of why children fall so in love with astronauts is because they do amazing things and they do it while saying, “You can do this too, whoever you are, wherever you’re from, whatever you look like, whoever you love, whatever you believe—you can do this too.” Even as adults, we are free to imagine ourselves in these jobs. (2/7)

Future of NASA’s Mega Moon Rocket Appears in Doubt With Boeing SLS Workforce Cuts (Source: Fox Weather)
NASA’s mega moon rocket appears to be at crossroads following a major announcement by Boeing that it plans to significantly decrease the number of employees working on the project. In an unexpected announcement made on Friday, the aviation giant said it was modifying the workforce of hundreds of employees devoted to the Space Launch System rocket.

"To align with revisions to the Artemis program and cost expectations, today we informed our Space Launch Systems team of the potential for approximately 400 fewer positions by April 2025," a spokesperson said. "This will require 60-day notices of involuntary layoff be issued to impacted employees in coming weeks, in accordance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. We are working with our customer and seeking opportunities to redeploy employees across our company to minimize job losses and retain our talented teammates." (2/8)

Vendors Hone In On Designs For MUOS Extension Satellites (Source: Aviation Week)
The two satellite prototypes for a U.S. Space Force program meant to extend the life of a military narrowband satcom constellation have passed early design reviews. As the service mulls what will come after the current Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) constellation. Among them, Lockheed Martin recently completed an early design review for its prototype spacecraft. (2/7)

The Case for More Money for Space (Source: Air & Space Forces)
The Space Force’s fiscal 2025 budget will be less than its fiscal 2024 plan, a retrenchment caused by the squeeze on overall Department of the Air Force spending. Former Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall suggested the National Defense Strategy requirements for the Space Force budget require unprecedented increases in spending: “The USSF budget is going to need to double or triple over time to be able to fund the things we’re actually going to need to have,” he said this fall. (2/7)

Peterson Unveils Remodeled Hangar for New Space Force Purposes (Source: The Gazette)
A 1930s-era hangar on Peterson Space Force Base will now provide a modest façade for advanced intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in the Space Force. The Broadmoor Hangar started life serving private planes flying guests to the Colorado Springs-based Broadmoor hotel and has since served many military purposes over the decades, including as classroom space for photo interpretation and film development, said Gail Whalen, director of the Peterson Air and Space Museum. (2/7)

Did Trump Quietly Kill a Sensitive Pentagon Probe into Elon Musk? (Source: The New Republic)
In December, more than a month before Donald Trump took the presidential oath of office, The New York Times reported a blockbuster scoop: Elon Musk and his SpaceX company had repeatedly failed to meet federal reporting requirements designed to safeguard national security despite being deeply entangled with the military and intelligence bureaucracy. These included a failure to provide details to the government of Musk’s meetings with foreign leaders.

Those lapses had triggered a number of internal federal reviews, according to the Times. Perhaps most interestingly, the Defense Department’s inspector general had opened a probe of the matter sometime during 2024. The Air Force and the Pentagon Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security also launched reviews in November.

Now that Trump is president and controls the executive branch—including the Defense Department—it’s time to raise what appears to be a forgotten question: What exactly is going on with these government reviews into Musk? Have they continued? Or are they effectively dead? When Trump fired over a dozen independent inspectors general last month, one of them was the Defense Department IG, Robert Storch. (2/8)

Vast Delays Private Space Station Launch, Ditches Stainless Steel (Source: Aviation Week)
Vast has delayed the launch of its private space station almost a year after manufacturing problems and snags with stainless steel caused it to rethink its material choice for its primary structure. The company instead pivoted to use aluminum for its Haven-1 commercial space station. (2/7)

Meet Pandora, NASA’s New Mission To Find Distant Alien Water Worlds (Source: Forbes)
The James Webb Space Telescope is a marvel of modern engineering. This tennis court-sized beast is the only space telescope that can see the universe in infrared light, allowing it to see through cosmic dust and reveal what's inside the atmospheres of distant exoplanets. But there's one thing JWST lacks—time. During the last call for proposals, the science community requested 78,000 hours across 2,377 unique proposals. That's a nine-to-one oversubscription rate.

JWST needs help—and that's where NASA's newest mission, Pandora, comes in. If you want to find clouds, haze and water—signs of potential habitability—in a planet's atmosphere orbiting a distant star, you'd better be prepared to look carefully and repeatedly. Cue Pandora. Pandora, whose spacecraft bus was completed by engineers this week and stands ready for launch in fall 2025, aims to conduct in-depth studies of at least 20 exoplanets. Its job will be to analyze their atmospheric compositions, focusing on detecting hazes, clouds and water. (2/7)

NASA Acting Head Asks Staff to Take ‘Inspiration’ From DOGE Efforts as Lawmakers Cite Musk’s Conflict of Interest (Source: CNN)
In a Friday afternoon email to NASA staff, the agency’s acting chief asked employees to embrace the philosophy of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, as workers express concern over recent directives and anti-diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) communications.

In her email, NASA Acting Administrator Janet Petro said she acknowledges recent executive orders and directives — which include sweeping changes to federal hiring practices and guidance to abandon projects that promote diversity — are “weighing on many of you” and encourages workers to seek support. One source told CNN that scrubbing DEIA references — in internal and external communications — is a massive undertaking. They said the use of language about diversity was widespread “given that inclusion was made a core value at NASA under … the previous Trump administration.  (2/8)

DoD Seeks Review of Space Development Agency’s Independent Status (Source: Breaking Defense)
The Defense Department’s acquisition office is calling for a review of whether the Space Development Agency’s (SDA) “organizational performance and acquisition approach” is meeting the needs of warfighters — and whether the agency should keep its independent status within the Space Force, Breaking Defense has learned.

In a memo signed Jan. 31 and obtained by Breaking Defense, Steven Morani, who is performing the duties of the DoD undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, requests the Department of the Air Force to set up an “independent review team [IRT]” to assess “the current state of health” of all programs comprising SDA’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA). (2/7)

Are Musk's DOGE Network Incursions Secure? (Source: SPACErePORT)
Reports of DOGE gaining administrator access to secured government networks -- despite being officially limited to 'read-only' access -- beg questions about whether any guardrails are in place to safeguard government information and protect system integrity. With no visible oversight (Republicans in Congress have blocked Democratic moves to subpoena Musk on this), what exactly is DOGE doing on these networks? Is Musk uploading his proprietary AI software to 'improve' them (and collect our data)? Could any Chinese or Russian spyware/malware be in the mix? Who is in charge of ensuring the security of DOGE network incursions? (2/8)

New Fast Radio Burst Detector Could Sift Through 'a Whole Beach of Sand' to Solve Big Cosmic Mystery (Source: Space.com)
Researchers have successfully tested a new technology that detects fast radio bursts in the night sky faster than ever before, uncovering a treasure trove of data to help astronomers investigate the source of these mysterious space phenomena.

Developed by astronomers and engineers at Australia's national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), the new system — known as the Commensal Realtime ASKAP Fast Transient Coherent, or CRACO — was designed to rapidly detect fast radio bursts (FRBs) and other transient phenomena using CSIRO's ASKAP radio telescope in Western Australia. (2/7)

Canada Open to Joining US "Iron Dome" Initiative (Source: Defense Post)
Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair has expressed Canada's willingness to join the Trump administration's proposed "Iron Dome" missile defense shield, emphasizing the importance of integrated North American defense. Trump recently issued an executive order to plan the system, similar to Israel's, to guard against various missile threats, though the proposal has faced criticism for its expected cost and limitations against intercontinental missiles. (2/7)

US-Japan Alliance Bolstered by Joint Satellite Launch (Source: Air & Space Forces)
The recent launch of a Japanese navigation satellite carrying a US Space Force payload marks a milestone in US-Japan space collaboration. The payload will monitor space activity over the Indo-Pacific, feeding data into the Space Surveillance Network. This is only the third Space Force payload hosted on a foreign satellite. (2/6)

Haridopolos: NASA Should Relocate From DC (Source: Payload)
Add Rep. Mike Haridopolos (R-FL) -- chair of the House space subcommittee -- to the growing list of elected officials urging NASA to trade the swamp for sunnier skies. With a number of space companies already based around the nation’s busiest launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida would be an obvious contender for NASA’s new headquarters. But Haridopolos, a freshman who represents the Space Coast, told Payload there’s one thing everyone should agree on: getting NASA headquarters out of Washington. (1/31)

NASA CubeSat Finds New Radiation Belts After May 2024 Solar Storm (Source: NASA)
The largest solar storm in two decades hit Earth in May 2024. For several days, wave after wave of high-energy charged particles from the Sun rocked the planet. Brilliant auroras engulfed the skies, and some GPS communications were temporarily disrupted. With the help of a serendipitously resurrected small NASA satellite, scientists have discovered that this storm also created two new temporary belts of energetic particles encircling Earth. The findings are important to understanding how future solar storms could impact our technology. (2/6)

Hubble Telescope Spots Record-Shattering 9-Ring Galaxy (Source: Live Science)
Astronomers have spotted a "bull's-eye" galaxy with a whopping nine rings, smashing the previous record by six rings. The discovery of the galaxy, known as LEDA 1313424, is helping researchers understand what happens when galaxies collide. Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope spotted LEDA 1313424 "serendipitously" while reviewing a sky survey completed in 2019. The researchers initially counted eight visible rings and later confirmed a faint ninth ring using data from the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. (2/6)