April 8, 2025

Petro: NASA Restructuring Plans Await Isaacman for Implementation (Source: Space News)
NASA's acting administrator says the agency is continuing work on restructuring plans, but their implementation will be left to NASA's next leader. In an interview Monday, NASA Acting Administrator Janet Petro said the agency is developing several options to carry out a reorganization of the agency to allow it "operate a little bit more efficiently and effectively." She did not go into details about those options, but said it will be left to Jared Isaacman, the White House's nominee for NASA administrator, to implement them, adding that he has not been involved in the plan's development.

She acknowledged that it is an "unsettling" time for the federal workforce given large layoffs at other agencies. The deferred resignation program, under which about 5% of NASA's workforce left earlier this year, created "holes" in several programs NASA is working to fill, but Petro defended the decision to close three offices and lay off their employees since those offices likely did not have a "long-term, enduring position" in the new administration. (4/8)

Space Policy: The Moon and Mars Simultaneously (Source: Space Review)
Should the United States continue with the Artemis campaign of missions to return humans to the Moon, or should it shift course to instead send humans to Mars? Doug Plata makes the argument that both are possible at the same time. Click here. (4/7)
 
Anything But Expendable: A History of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA) (Source: Space Review)
A payload adapter called ESPA has become a widely used standard for accommodating secondary payloads on launch vehicles. In the first of a three-part series, Darren Raspa examines the historical and other forces that set the stage for the the development of ESPA. Click here. (4/7)
 
The Best Space Telescope You Never Heard of Just Shut Down (Source: Space Review)
Last month, ESA formally shut down the Gaia space telescope out at the Earth-Sun L2 point. Laura Nicole Driessen explains the value of this underappreciated observatory and why its science is not yet done. Click here. (4/7)

Budget Buster: Amid Cuts to Other Government Programs Trump Plans Record $1 Trillion Pentagon Budget (Source: Politico)
President Donald Trump has announced a $1 trillion budget for the Pentagon, marking a record high for US military spending. The move comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had previously directed budget cuts and personnel reductions, including plans to cut 8% of the defense budget over the next five years. "We have to be strong because you've got a lot of bad forces out there now," Trump said. (4/7)

Space Force, NRO Near Deal on Commercial Imagery (Source: Breaking Defense)
The US Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office are close to finalizing an agreement to share acquisition authority and access to commercial satellite imagery, leveraging a Treasury Department form to facilitate financial transactions, rather than a formal memorandum. This agreement, involving a Treasury Department form, allows financial transactions between the two agencies to facilitate the purchase of each other's imagery and analytical products, bypassing the need for a formal memorandum. (4/7)

Millennium / L3Harris Foo Fighter Satellites Clear Design Review (Source: Space News)
Eight satellites designed by Millennium Space Systems with sensor payloads from L3Harris Technologies have cleared a key design review. The companies said Monday that the "Foo Fighter," or Fire-control On Orbit-support to the Warfighter, satellites will now move into production after clearing the review. Millennium Space is building the satellites under a $414 million contract awarded last year by the Space Development Agency. The Foo Fighter satellites are engineered to detect and precisely track sophisticated missile threats, including hypersonic weapons, and have specialized equipment capable of providing the precise targeting data needed to intercept advanced missiles. (4/8)

Space Force Expands Plans for Training and Testing Tech with Big Budget Surge (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Space Force is expanding its search for training and testing technologies. The service is soliciting a wide range of technologies from private contractors, from physical testing ranges to synthetic battle environments, as part of its Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (OTTI) program. Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations, said guardians need to be adequately equipped to counter emerging threats. He noted that the OTTI program budget surged over the past several years from $40 million to approximately $600 million. (4/8)

DOGE Axes Five Contracts at Northwest Florida's HX5 (Source: SPACErePORT)
Headquartered in Fort Walton Beach, HX5 is a Service-Disabled Veteran. Woman-Owned Small Business focused on R&D, engineering, IT, and mission support for DoD and NASA projects. Unfortunately, as of 5 April, five of the company's NASA contracts have been canceled by DOGE. Valued together at over $6.5 million, these contracts involve R&D on superconducting motors, turbofan designs, and prototype manufacturing. (4/8)

Russia Delivers New Crew to ISS (Source: NASA)
A Soyuz spacecraft delivered a new crew to the ISS early Tuesday. A Soyuz-2.1a rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and placed the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft into orbit. That spacecraft docked with the station's Prichal module a little more than three hours later. Soyuz MS-27 brought to the station NASA astronaut Jonny Kim and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky. They will remain on the ISS for eight months, replacing Roscosmos' Ivan Vagner and Alexey Ovchinin and NASA's Don Pettit, who will return to Earth April 19. (4/8)

SpaceX Launches Starlink Satellites From California (Source: Space.com)
A new Falcon 9 launched a set of Starlink satellites Monday. The rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 7:06 p.m. Eastern, placing 27 Starlink satellites into orbit. The launch featured a rare flight of a new Falcon 9 booster, with most launches using boosters that have been reused multiple times. (4/8)

Chinese Megaconstellation Launches Litter Space with Rocket Stages (Source: Space News)
China's deployment of satellite megaconstellations is raising new space sustainability concerns. Launches of satellites for the Guowang and Qianfan constellations are leaving the rockets' upper stages in high orbits, with expected lifetimes of more than 100 years. This violates guidelines for orbital debris mitigation that call on upper stages to be deorbited as soon as possible and no more than 25 years after launch. With both constellations requiring hundreds of launches, one space debris expert warned that the mass of orbital debris in low Earth orbit will be dominated by those stages "in short order" unless China changes its practices. (4/8)

Aitech Plans AI-Empowered Smallsat (Source: Space News)
Aitech Systems, a California company known for military and aerospace electronics, revealed plans for a smallsat with AI capabilities. The IQSat 3U cubesat is designed to perform "pattern-of-life recognition" that enables applications like detection of space debris, observations of terrestrial activity or monitoring of electronic signals. Aitech says it is working with an unnamed customer on a constellation of hundreds of IQsats. (4/8)

Axiom Space to Launch Orbital Data Centers on Kepler Satellites (Source: Space News)
Axiom Space will fly two data centers on Kepler Communications satellites as the next step of its efforts to develop space-based cloud computing services that will leverage its work on commercial space stations.

Axiom announced April 7 it will fly two of its Orbital Data Center (ODC) nodes on satellites that are part of a network of optical data relay satellites being developed by Kepler for launch to low Earth orbit before the end of the year. The nodes will be able to communicate with other satellites in the Kepler network as well as any other spacecraft that use optical terminals compliant with standards developed by the Space Development Agency. (4/7)

Space Force Missile-Tracking “Foo Fighter” Satellites Clear Design Milestone (Source: Space News)
Eight satellites designed by Millennium Space Systems with sensor payloads from L3Harris Technologies have cleared a key design review, paving the way for production and a planned late 2027 launch, the companies announced April 7. Millennium Space, based in El Segundo, California, is building the satellites under a $414 million contract awarded last year by the Space Development Agency for a constellation known as “Foo Fighter” — short for Fire-control On Orbit-support to the Warfighter. (4/7)

African Space Network Established (Source: Stellar Space Marketing)
Space Network, one of the world’s fastest growing networks for space companies and professionals, has announced the launch of Space Network | Africa, coinciding with Space Symposium at Colorado Springs, 7-10 April. This initiative is set to drive space-based economic growth, innovation, and education across the African continent, positioning Africa as a significant player in the global space sector.

With Africa’s rapidly growing, tech-savvy population, over 60% under the age of 25, the establishment of Space Network | Africa’s is timely. The initiative aims to support Africa's untapped talent, resources, and innovation potential to drive economic growth, technological advancement, global competitiveness and ultimately benefit the population. (4/7)

Space Leaders Emphasize Competing with Russia, China, Replacing International Space Station (Source: The Gazette)
The leader of NASA, lawmakers and other thought-leaders in space gathered Sunday afternoon ahead of the 40th Space Symposium and emphasized the importance of moving quickly in space to defeat Russia and China, replacing the International Space Station and modernizing missile defenses.

Retired Gen. John Hyten, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, noted that while the commercial sector has put up thousands and thousands of new satellites in the last 10 years, the U.S. military’s presence in space is largely the same. “That is not moving fast, that’s not even moving,” Hyten said, saying it must change.

The urgency to replace the International Space Station when it is taken down from orbit in 2030 is also a priority, several speakers said. China launched its own space station in 2021, and the U.S. is planning to rely on commercial space stations to maintain its presence in orbit. (4/7)

House Democrats Probe Elon Musk's Conflicts of Interest with NASA (Source: Axios)
House Democrats Monday launched an investigation into potential conflicts of interest between NASA and Elon Musk, who has inserted himself into the federal government under President Trump. The billionaire's SpaceX is one of the agency's largest private sector contractors, and Musk has been overhauling federal spending at the helm of DOGE. Rep Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-FL) and Rep. Gery Connolly (D-VA) sent a letter to Iris Lan, NASA's chief legal officer, requesting information and documents by April 21.

They asked how NASA is ensuring that Musk isn't exploiting the agency to enrich himself and his companies, which they said would violate ethics rules for his position as a special government employee. What they're saying: "At NASA, where Mr. Musk has both benefited from significant contracts and has the potential to receive vast amounts of new business, his defiance of recusal laws and control of operations directly benefit his businesses," the letter said. They requested a list of actions NASA is taking to ensure Musk isn't permitted access to information that would give his businesses an advantage over competitors. (4/7)

New Design Means SpaceX Can Launch More Starlink Satellites at a Time (Source: PC Magazine)
A design change will allow SpaceX to send up more Starlink satellites per launch as the company races to add more network capacity. In 2024, SpaceX typically launched 20 to 23 Starlink satellites per launch. But last month, it increased the number to 27 and 28 per flight while using the same Falcon 9 vehicles. This comes after it made a design change to the V2 Mini Starlink satellite, which can deliver 96Gbps of network bandwidth each. (4/7)

Space Force Reassigns GPS Satellite Launch From ULA to SpaceX (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Space Force is transferring the launch of a GPS satellite from United Launch Alliance (ULA) to SpaceX in an effort to reduce a backlog of satellites waiting in storage. The GPS III SV-08 satellite, the eighth in the GPS III constellation, is now scheduled to launch no earlier than late May aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, the Space Systems Command announced April 7. This marks the second time in recent months that the Space Force has reassigned a GPS launch from ULA to SpaceX. (4/7)

Olsen Targets US Space Boom with New Florida Office (Source: Space News)
British component maker Olsen Actuators and Drives announced plans April 7 to open an office at Cape Canaveral to chase growing demand in the U.S. space industry. The company, which has been ramping up its presence in the space sector over the past few years, specializes in electromechanical actuators that convert energy into motion and can be used for applications such as satellite deployment and thrust control.

Founder Piers Olsen said the branch would initially serve as a sales office once opened next year, but could expand to include prototype assembly and eventually manufacturing. Olsen said the decision to expand to the United States follows a British government space trade mission to Florida in February, during which company executives met with industry leaders and assessed local opportunities.

British in-space servicing, assembly and manufacturing startup Space Forge also recently opened an office on Florida’s Space Coast, near the Kennedy Space Center, to leverage the region’s infrastructure and skilled workforce. (4/7)

FCC Moves to Update Satellite Power Limits Amid Push for Adaptive Regulations (Source: Space News)
The Federal Communications Commission is preparing to update decades-old satellite power limits amid broader efforts to modernize and streamline regulations, the new head of the U.S. agency’s space division said April 7. FCC Space Bureau chief Jay Schwarz pointed to a recently issued public notice to review changing rules for Ka and Ku band satellite frequencies. (4/7)

Viasat Adds Telesat Lightspeed LEO Connectivity to Multi-Orbit Mix (Source: Space News)
Geostationary operator Viasat has signed a contract to use the low Earth orbit constellation Telesat plans to start deploying next year to help counter competition from SpaceX’s satellites in LEO. Canada-based Telesat described the multi-year contract as substantial in an April 7 news release, but the companies declined to provide financial details. The operator has so far disclosed a revenue backlog of 600 million Canadian dollars ($419 million) for Lightspeed, mostly from a commitment from Canada’s federal government. (4/7)