October 5, 2022

Satellogic Signs 3 Year Deal with Albania to Access Dedicated Satellite Constellation (Source: Space Daily)
Satellogic has reached a three-year agreement with the Government of Albania to develop a Dedicated Satellite Constellation. This unique program derives from Satellogic's Constellation-as-a-Service model and will provide Albania with responsive satellite imagery capabilities across its sovereign territory. Satellogic's unique offering enables municipal, state, and national governments to manage a fleet of satellites over a specific area of interest and develop an EO imaging program at unmatched frequency, resolution, and cost. (10/5)

SpinLaunch Completes Flight Test 10 (Source: Space Daily)
SpinLaunch has announced the results of its tenth successful Flight Test of its Suborbital Accelerator from Spaceport America, New Mexico. The flight test, which occurred on Sep. 27, demonstrated that SpinLaunch partners' standard satellite components are inherently compatible with the company's launch environment, and provided critical flight data, as all payloads were flown and recovered successfully.

Flight Test 10, which had a similar flight trajectory as previous campaigns, was witnessed by more than 150 partners, government officials, and industry advocates. It was SpinLaunch's tenth flight test in just under eleven months since the Suborbital Mass Accelerator came online in late 2021. Four partner payloads, as well as two instrumentation payloads, were flown on the Suborbital Accelerator Flight Test Vehicle.

For partners, the flight test provided critical data on the launch environment and payload integration process. As part of the pre-flight qualification process, SpinLaunch accelerated payloads up to 10,000G in SpinLaunch's 12-meter Lab Accelerator at its Long Beach headquarters. Payloads were inspected post-spin and subsequently integrated into the Flight Test Vehicle in preparation for Flight Test 10. (10/5)

BeetleSat Announces Next Steps for World's first LEO Satellite Network with Expandable Antennas (Source: Space Daily)
BeetleSat, a global provider of telecommunications and satellite technology, unveiled the next phases of development for its much-anticipated LEO broadband satellite constellation. BeetleSat's patented Ka-band expandable antenna technology works by compacting the main reflector during launch, thus enabling the use of much smaller and lighter spacecraft to reach similar throughput as rigid antennas of the same size.

This will allow for more frequent and less expensive launches and ultimately lead to a new class of agile, responsive spacecraft that can create point-to-point, low-latency communication networks that are more secure, ubiquitous, and cost-effective than anything currently on the market. (10/4)

Ball Aerospace Wins SDA Contract for 10 Satellites (Source: Space News)
Ball Aerospace won an SDA contract to build, launch and operate 10 experimental satellites. The $176 million contract, announced Tuesday, is part of the agency's National Defense Space Architecture Experimental Testbed (NExT) program, designed to demonstrate low-latency data transport and beyond line-of-sight command and control. Ball will build the satellites, integrated SDA-provided payloads, obtain rideshare launch services for the spacecraft and operate them once launched. SDA has selected the payloads but did not disclose specifics on what missions they will perform. (10/5)

Sherpa Tug Still Being Prepped for Boeing Payload Raise After September Launch (Source: Space News)
A Sherpa tug launched a month ago carrying a Boeing payload has yet to start raising its orbit. The Sherpa-LTC2 tug from Spaceflight launched Sept. 4 as a rideshare payload on a Starlink launch into an initial orbit of 310 kilometers. The spacecraft has a propulsion system intended to boost its orbit to 1,000 kilometers, but tracking data shows that the spacecraft's orbit has instead gradually decayed from atmospheric drag to about 290 kilometers. Spaceflight says that it is still doing post-launch commissioning of the Sherpa and will start orbit raising when complete. The Sherpa is carrying a V-band communications demonstration payload for Boeing. (10/5)

Airbus Mars Rover Could Instead Go to Moon (Source: BBC)
A rover once planned for a Mars mission could instead go to the moon. Airbus has been designing a rover that would go to Mars as mart of the overall Mars Sample Return campaign to collect samples cached by the Perseverance rover for return to Earth. NASA and ESA, though, scrapped plans for that rover, instead relying on Perseverance as well as small helicopters to return the samples to a lander for launch back to Earth. Airbus, which is testing a prototype of the rover, is now looking for alternative missions for it, including the moon. (10/5)

China Recruiting New Astronauts (Source: Space.com)
China is starting to recruit a new astronaut class. The China Manned Space Agency announced Sunday it is planning to select 12 to 14 new astronauts for the new class, which will be China's fourth. The class will include seven to eight pilots from the People's Liberation Army and up to six spaceflight engineers that could come from civilian organizations. (10/5)

Cygnus to Honor Sally Ride (Source: Northrop Grumman)
The next Cygnus cargo spacecraft will be named after Sally Ride. Northrop Grumman announced this week that the Cygnus cargo spacecraft launching next month on the NG-18 mission to the International Space Station will be named the "S.S. Sally Ride" after the late astronaut, the first American woman in space. The naming continues a company tradition of naming its cargo spacecraft after former astronauts and others in spaceflight. (10/5)

UK and South Korea Join Ban on ASAT Testing (Source: Space News)
The United Kingdom and South Korea are the latest nations to join a moratorium on antisatellite (ASAT) testing. The U.K. government announced Monday it would join a U.S.-led initiative and pledge not to conduct destructive direct-ascent ASAT tests, with the South Korean government making a similar pledge Tuesday. Canada, Germany, Japan and New Zealand previously announced their intent to refrain from such tests, although none of the countries were actively developing ASATs. The U.S. plans to introduce a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly this fall on the issue as a means to encourage more countries to join. (10/5)

Who is Ready for a Fleet of Cubesats Flying Over Cities, Displaying Ads? (Source: Ars Technica)
On Wednesday the public relations department of the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow issued a news release with a provocative title: "Ad-block this: Space advertisers ready to display commercials in the sky." How about no.

The basis for the news release is a study in the journal Aerospace. Its authors assess the technical feasibility of flying satellites in formation, in space, to reflect sunlight and display commercials in the sky above cities. The authors wondered whether satellites could fly long enough, and in enough different formations over various cities, to make money back from advertising to cover their development and launch costs.

Their findings are positive, the researchers report, writing in their paper, "An unrealistic idea as it may first seem, space advertising turns out to have a potential for commercial viability." The optimum size of such a formation is about 50 cubesats, of the 12U variety that individually measure about 34cm×20cm, with an operating lifetime of about three months. To optimize the economics of the satellite formation, the team chose to fly an orbit over large and densely populated cities, displaying an ad for one minute before moving to the next city. (10/5)

Russia Again Considering ISS Involvement Beyond 2024 (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
The Biden administration announced earlier this year it supports extending NASA’s participation in the ISS through 2030. Partners on the ISS — Canada, Japan, and the European Space Agency — are expected to follow the U.S. lead, though they are still going through a formal extension process. The new head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, said in July that Russia would withdraw from the program after 2024.

But Russian officials quickly clarified the statement, saying Roscosmos would only leave the ISS after it builds an independent complex in low Earth orbit, something not expected before 2028, in a best case scenario for Russia’s space program. “So up to now, we keep flying together. We are going to fly until 2024," Sergei Krikalev said.

"I know that NASA already made the decision (to extend until 2030) and other international partners are discussing and ready to make this decision,” Krikalev said. “And we (will) start to discuss extending our participation in the ISS program with our government, and hope to have permission to continue next year,” he said. (10/4)

Mars Needs Women (and Men, in Equal Measure) (Sources: CNN, SPACErePORT)
It's a cautionary tale for what could happen at a future Mars settlement. Australian women working on research bases in Antarctica have been plagued by a widespread culture of sexual harassment, a recently released report found. “Given the underrepresentation of women in the AAP (Australian Antarctica Program) (especially during winter) some women also described the culture as ‘predatory’ and objectifying,” the report said, while other participants described a homophobic culture on stations.

Australia is not alone in combating these issues. The report on the Australian research bases in Antarctica comes a month after the US National Science Foundation (NSF) released an assessment of the US Antarctic Program which found that “sexual harassment, stalking, and sexual assault are ongoing, continuing problems in the USAP community.” (10/1)

Spacecraft Builder York Sells Stake to Private Equity Firm AEI at Over $1 Billion Valuation (Sources: CNBC, Space News)
Spacecraft manufacturer York Space Systems is selling a majority stake in the company to private equity firm AE Industrial Partners at an enterprise valuation of $1.125 billion, CNBC has learned. The deal, announced on Tuesday, makes York the latest space unicorn. York manufactures what is known in the industry as a spacecraft “bus,” the main structure and body of a satellite.

Based in Denver and founded in 2012, York has steadily expanded its product line of spacecraft. York manufactures what is known in the industry as a spacecraft “bus,” the main structure and body of a satellite, and focuses on low-cost products that range in size from a household oven to a refrigerator. York has more than $1 billion backlog of contracts to date – most notably an award to build spacecraft for the Pentagon’s in-development satellite internet system.

AEI previously established Redwire Space by combining several space companies and, earlier this year, bought a majority stake in Firefly Aerospace. Terms of the transaction, which is expected to close by the end of the year, were not disclosed. (10/4)

Less Than SPACtacular Results for Many Space Investors (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Three years ago, Silicon Valley billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya and Virgin Chairman Richard Branson kicked off a new era in financing space companies when they took Virgin Galactic public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) called Social Capital Hedosophia (SCH).

A SPAC is a blank-check company that is already traded on a stock exchange. It produces nothing. It’s is an investment vehicle whose sole purpose is to find a company with which to merge, and to take that company public under its own name. A SPAC is typically given two years to accomplish the task, or it must return money to the investors. A dozen space companies went public on NYSE or Nasdaq via SPACs after Virgin Galactic started trading in 2019.

Critics have called them a “joke” on average retail investors, who are left with losses when share prices of unprofitable companies inevitably decline. Palihapitiya turned his $100 million investment in Virgin Galactic into a $213 million profit. The experience for many retail investors has been less than SPACtacular. Every one of the space companies that went public by merging with a blank check company is currently trading lower than what it was at its debut. In most cases, significantly lower. Click here. (10/3)

Astroscale and NorthStar Partner to Develop In-Space Technology to Support Space Sustainability (Source: Parabolic Arc)
NorthStar Earth & Space (NorthStar) and Astroscale are forming a strategic partnership to further support space sustainability by combining NorthStar’s precise space-based resident space object tracking with Astroscale’s enhanced spacecraft navigation and capture capability for on-orbit servicing. (10/3)

Thales Alenia Demonstrates Speedy Laser Comm Link (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Thales Alenia Space and its partners are pleased to announce the success of the field trial in Switzerland implementing a ground-ground very high speed laser communication link through the atmosphere. This is a major step towards next generation of Geostationary communications satellites using optical feeder links to double the current available feeder links capacity. (10/3)

World Conducted 126 Orbital Launches During First 9 Months (+ 1 Day) of 2022 (Source: Parabolic Arc)
The world has conducted 126 launches through Oct. 1, with 122 successes and four failures, in what is shaping up to be a record year for orbital flights. U.S. companies led by SpaceX have accounted for 63 launches, or 50 percent of the global total. China is in second place with 42 launches. The United States and China account for 105 launches, or 83.33 percent of all orbital attempts in 2022. (10/3)

Swedish Space Corp. Signs 10-year Partnership Agreement with CNES (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Swedish Space Corp. (SSC) has signed a contract with French government space agency Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) for an extension of partnership regarding ground station coverage for polar missions. For 10 years, SSC has been a prime partner for CNES’ polar orbiting satellites through the combined use of two jointly developed ground stations in Sweden and Canada. The renewed contract will span over 10 more years beginning from December 2022. (10/3)

Atlas 5 Deploys Two SES Comsats From Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket launched Tuesday at Cape Canaveral on a dual spacecraft delivery mission for the commercial telecom satellite operator SES. The SES 20 and 21 satellites were stacked one on top of the other inside the Atlas 5’s payload shroud, to begin 15-year missions beaming C-band television and radio programming across the US. The mission required three burns of the rocket’s Centaur upper stage before deploying the SES 20 and 21 satellites more than six hours after liftoff. (10/4)