June 20, 2024

Isar Aerospace Raises $70 Million to Scale Up Launcher Production (Source: Space News)
Isar Aerospace has raised more than 65 million euros ($70 million) from a mix of existing and new investors, the latter including the new NATO Innovation Fund. To date, Isar has raised more than 400 million euros. The company says the new funding will go toward efforts to scale up production of its Spectrum small launch vehicle. The rocket has yet to make its first flight and the company has not provided recent updates on when the vehicle will be ready to launch. (6/20)

Namibia Embarks on Spaceport Project (Source: ITWeb)
Eos Capital, the managers of the Namibia Infrastructure Development and Investment Fund (NIDIF), has been given permission to start the Namibia Space Port project. Q-KON Namibia will lead this project, which will be a significant step forward for the country in the field of satellite communications.

According to Namibia's minister of information and communications technology, Emma Theofelus: “The Namibia Space Port represents a monumental stride towards harnessing the vast potential of space technology for the growth of Namibia and Africa’s communication capabilities.” (6/19)

Spaceport America Needs Reliable Partners (Source: Las Cruces Bulletin)
Expectations were sky high in 2005 when British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson inked a 20-year lease on a new spaceport that had yet to be built in southern New Mexico. The lease called for Virgin Galactic to pay $1 million a year for the first five years, with payments after that dependent on the company’s success in developing an industry for space tourism.

Last November, Virgin Galactic fired all 73 of its employees in New Mexico. They ignored questions from Source New Mexico as to how those positions were selected and if there was any compensation package offered. CEO Michael Colglazier blamed the layoffs on “uncertainty in the capital markets” and “geopolitical unrest.” There was no mention of the fatal test flight in October 2014 that significantly delayed plans to begin commercial launches. The plan now is to shift operations to Arizona, where the next Delta Class spaceship is being designed.

I’m not suggesting that the state should give up on Branson, whose current lease runs through 2033. That’s not really an option at this point. For better or worse, we’re committed. But we need new partners. Shortly after the seventh flight by Virgin Galactic, brilliant college students from throughout the country will come to New Mexico for the annual Spaceport America Cup rocket engineering competition. Perhaps one of them will someday show the way forward. We have a unique asset in a growing industry. But we need more reliable partners. (6/19)

Blue Origin, General Atomics Selected for SSC Space Terminal Program (Source: Via Satellite)
Space Systems Command has awarded Blue Origin, CACI International, General Atomics and Viasat contracts for laser communication terminal prototypes as part of the $100 million Enterprise Space Terminal program. The EST initiative, facilitated by the Space Enterprise Consortium to reduce costs and enhance crosslink compatibility in space systems, aims to develop small, low-cost optical communications terminals. (6/18)

Space Force Takes Another Swing at Modernizing Satellite Ground Systems (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Space Force has embarked on yet another attempt to modernize ground systems used to command and control military satellites. The latest effort, called Rapid Resilient Command and Control (R2C2), will rely more on commercial providers and cloud computing for systems needed to modernize the military's satellite ground infrastructure.

The service believes that previous attempts to revamp ground systems got bogged down in part because they relied too heavily on traditional prime contractors unaccustomed to delivering the type of agile, software-driven capabilities required. R2C2 started a year and a half ago but only recently selected 20 companies for a contract vehicle that will allow them to bid on specific aspects of the system. (6/20)

ESA Steps Toward Modifying Member Contracting Policies (Source: Space News)
ESA has taken a first step towards modifying long-standing policies that guarantee member states contracts based on the size of their financial contributions. Agency officials said Wednesday that the ESA Council approved a resolution to test changes to "georeturn" policies that, for some pilot projects, will give ESA some flexibility in how it awards contracts.

Georeturn states that member states will get contracts for ESA projects based on the size of their contributions, an approach intended to encourage countries to fund those programs but which some companies argue results in inefficiencies. ESA did not disclose details about the specific proposed georeturn changes but called them a "first step" toward broader reforms. (6/20)

Pakistan Reaffirms Commitment to Peaceful Space Exploration (Source: APP)
The Chairman of the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO), Muhammad Yousuf Khan has termed the outer space as a common heritage of humanity and said Pakistan is strongly committed to peaceful use of outer space. The Chairman Suparco said this while addressing the inaugural session of the 67th session of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS). The session is held in Vienna and will continue till June 28. Highlighting outer space as a common heritage of humanity, he stressed its equitable and non-discriminatory accessibility. (6/20)

SpaceX Demand Propels Telecom Equipment Maker’s Profit Forecast (Source: Bloomberg)
Filtronic Plc, a manufacturer of products for the aerospace, defense and telecommunication industry, expects its full year profit to more than triple, boosted by sales to its lead customer, Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The British company supplies SpaceX with ground-based modules that amplify radio frequency signals for use within its Starlink constellation of satellites. It forecast adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization of at least £4.8 million ($6.1 million) in 2024, compared with £1.3 million a year earlier. (6/20)

Honeywell Strikes $2 Billion Deal for Defense Business (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Honeywell International has struck a roughly $2 billion deal to buy aerospace and defense technology company CAES Systems from private-equity firm Advent International. The all-cash deal for CAES, formerly known as Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions, "will enhance Honeywell's (HON) defense technology solutions across land, sea, air and space, including new electromagnetic defense solutions for end-to-end radio frequency (RF) signal management," the company said in a statement. (6/20)

ExoTerra Raises $8 Million for Microsatellite Propulsion (Source: Space News)
ExoTerra Resources announced it raised $8 million to expand production of microsatellite propulsion systems. The Lago Innovation Fund, part of Lago Asset Management, supplied the funding. The new capital will allow ExoTerra to expand production of its Halo Hall-effect electric thrusters for smallsats. Those thrusters were used in space for the first time last year on DARPA Blackjack Aces satellites manufactured by RTX subsidiary Blue Canyon Technologies. (6/20)

Nigeria Space Agency to Fly on New Shepard Suborbital Flight (Source: Business Day Nigeria)
Nigeria's space agency has reached a deal with an American organization to fly the first Nigerian to space on a Blue Origin New Shepard suborbital flight. The National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) announced Wednesday it signed an agreement with the Space Exploration and Research Agency (SERA), an American organization, who will provide NASRDA a seat on a New Shepard flight. A competition will select the Nigerian to fly on that mission. (6/20)

Massive Black Hole May be 'Waking Up' in a Nearby Galaxy (Source: Space.com)
In December of 2019, the sky-scanning Zwicky Transient Facility — a telescope perched on California's Palomar Mountain — alerted astronomers to a sudden flare coming from an otherwise unremarkable galaxy some 300 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The flare's intensity dipped and peaked dramatically over four years, but it continues to persist even today. That's unusually long for such a flare — so long, in fact, that it can't be explained by any typical cosmic phenomena. (6/19)

Surfing Saturn's Titan Methane Waves (Source: New Scientist)
Titan's methane seas may have waves like those on Earth. Analysis of images of the coastlines of lakes and seas on Saturn's largest moon show they are similar in form to coastlines seen on Earth where waves have eroded shorelines. Scientists had speculated that winds in Titan's dense atmosphere might create waves, but any waves had not been directly observed by spacecraft. (6/20)