SpaceX launches second pair of O3b mPower satellites

SpaceX launched a second pair of O3b mPower satellites April 28 for SES, which is now just one launch away from bringing its next-generation broadband constellation in medium Earth orbit (MEO) online. The satellites lifted off at 6:12 p.m. Eastern on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, after clearing threats of poor weather that delayed a SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch at the Cape yesterday. The Falcon 9’s first-stage booster, which had previously supported a crewed flight to the International Space Station, also successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean shortly following the launch for reuse. SES confirmed it successfully made contact with both satellites post-launch. It will now take several more months for the two satellites to independently reach their final positions in MEO by using their onboard all-electric propulsion. The first pair of O3b mPower satellites that SpaceX launched Dec. 16 have since reached their target positions, according to SES, although they still need to complete health checks before entering service. There are 11 Boeing-built satellites in the initial O3b mPower system, all with SpaceX launch contracts, but SES said it needs just six to start providing services that promise 10 times more throughput than its current MEO constellation. SpaceX is slated to launch another pair of satellites before the end of June, which would keep SES on track to begin commercial O3b mPower services in the third quarter of this year. Each O3b mPower satellite is designed to scale from tens of megabits per second of throughput to multiple gigabits per second, roughly 10 times more than its first generation of 20 O3b satellites in MEO.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 launched the third and fourth satellites for SES' O3b mPower broadband network April 28. Credit: SES / SpaceX

Customers that have signed up for O3b mPower so far include cloud provider Microsoft, cruise operator Princess Cruises, and telcos Claro Brasil, Vodafone Cook Islands, CNT Ecuador, and Orange of France.

The government of Luxembourg, where SES is based, announced plans in February to acquire capacity from O3b mPower in a 10-year deal valued at 195 million euros ($215 million), subject to parliamentary approval.

Weather forecasts had at one point projected just a 20% chance of good conditions for SpaceX’s April 28 O3b mPower launch.

SpaceX was due to make another attempt at launching ViaSat-3 with a Falcon Heavy from a nearby launchpad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 8:26 p.m. Eastern April 28, at the end of a 57-minute window, but aborted the launch at T-minus 59 seconds for reasons it did not disclose.

SpaceX said its next launch opportunity for this mission is April 29 at 8:26 p.m. Eastern. The mission also includes two rideshare payloads: a communications cubesat from Washington-based Gravity Space and the first broadband satellite built by Astranis of California.

First ispace lunar lander feared lost

Controllers lost contact with a lunar lander developed by a Japanese company moments before its scheduled touchdown, raising fears the spacecraft crashed during its final descent. The HAKUTO-R M1 lunar lander, developed by Tokyo-based ispace, was scheduled to land at 12:40 p.m. Eastern April 25 in the vicinity of Atlas Crater on the moon. The lander was in communications with controllers during its powered descent, based on telemetry displayed on the company’s webcast. However, that telemetry appeared to switch from live data to a simulation less than 30 seconds before landing, when the spacecraft was still about 80 meters above the surface, traveling at more than 30 kilometers per hour. There was no confirmation of the landing itself or any signals from the lander after touchdown. More than 25 minutes after the scheduled touchdown, the company appeared to acknowledge that the landing had failed. “At this moment, we have not been able to confirm a successful landing on the lunar surface,” said Takeshi Hakamada, founder and chief executive of ispace. He said controllers had been in contact with the spacecraft until the “very end” of the landing process. “However, now we’ve lost the communication,” he said. “So, we have to assume that we could not complete the landing on the lunar surface.” The lander was carrying a set of payloads for both companies and governments. Among them is Rashid, a small lunar rover developed by the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in the United Arab Emirates, and a “transformable lunar robot” the size of a baseball from Japan’s space agency JAXA. Other payloads include cameras and technology demonstrations.

Telemetry from the final phases of the HAKUTO-R M1 landing, just before contact was lost in the final seconds before touchdown. Credit: ispace webcast

The lander launched on a Falcon 9 Dec. 11, placing it on a low-energy ballistic trajectory that took it as far as 1.4 million kilometers from the Earth before returning to the vicinity of the moon, going into an elliptical orbit around the moon March 20.

After achieving its initial orbit of 100 by 6,000 kilometers, the spacecraft maneuvered to lower its orbit, reaching a circular orbit at an altitude of 100 kilometers by April 14. Around that time, ispace announced plans for the April 25 landing attempt.

The company reported only minor issues with the spacecraft during its transit to the moon. “We have been operating our lander as well as expected so far, without any critical issues,” Hakamada said during a Feb. 27 briefing. There had been anomalies with the lander’s thermal control system and computers, but the company said it was able to resolve those problems.

The company is working on a second lander, M2, similar in design to M1 that is scheduled for launch in late 2024. It will carry a set of customer payloads as well as a “micro rover” that ispace developed. That rover will collect a regolith sample that will be transferred to NASA under a 2020 contract awarded to ispace’s European subsidiary.

Company officials said in February that they did not anticipate making significant changes in the design of M2, having already incorporated lessons learned from the development of the M1 lander into M2. The company’s U.S. subsidiary is working on a larger lander, Series 2, for a NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services mission led by Draper scheduled for 2025.

Hakamada, in the post-landing comments, said the data collected during the M1 landing attempt would be helpful for those two future missions. “That’s why we built a sustainable business model to continue our effort for the future missions.”

Since the launch of M1, shares in ispace started trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth Market, an exchanged reserved for smaller, higher-risk companies. The shares started trading April 13 at 254 yen ($1.90) and soared in subsequent days. Shares closed April 25, before the landing, at 1,990 yen.

Leidos working with NASCAR on Artemis lunar rover

Leidos is working with the racing company NASCAR to develop a lunar rover they will offer for an upcoming NASA competition. Leidos unveiled its design April 18 for a Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) that can accommodate two astronauts for excursions on the lunar surface starting with the Artemis 5 mission in the late 2020s. The rover could be used autonomously as well when not needed by astronauts. “We’re about to enter a new moon race, except we’re going to enter a moon race with a partner that is really good at going fast, NASCAR,” said Steve Cook, president of Leidos Dynetics Group, during an event at the Leidos exhibit at 38th Space Symposium where the company revealed a full-scale prototype of the rover. Leidos executives said they chose to partner with NASCAR on the LTV design for technical and business reasons. “Their deep experience and capability in developing high performance vehicles in harsh environments is something that obviously can help us a great deal as we engineer this vehicle,” said Jonathan Pettus, senior vice president for aerospace, defense and civil operations at Dynetics. He cited as one example NASCAR’s work on a new race car design with design principles, like fast and agile maintenance, that is also useful for a lunar rover. Another reason for the partnership is commercialization. Industry expects NASA to follow a services model for the LTV project, procuring the rover as a service rather than a more conventional contract to acquire a rover. That could allow the company to offer the rover to other users or even seek sponsorships.

Leidos unveiled a prototype of the lunar rover it is developing in partnership with NASCAR during the 38th Space Symposium April 18. Credit: SpaceNews/Jeff Foust

“NASCAR is very good at connecting sponsors, and we are excited about what that may mean in terms of our commercial plans for the future and how we can leverage their expertise,” Pettus said. “We think there’s a lot of opportunity there.”

“The last couple of months we’ve getting to know the Leidos Dynetics team really well,” said Pete Jung, NASCAR senior vice president and chief marketing officer, saying it helped the organization look ahead as it celebrates its 75th anniversary. “Another thing that gets us excited is how our organizations are aligned in terms of philosophies and commitments to sustainability and equality.”

The team working on the LTV design includes companies with both automotive and aerospace experience. They include Roush Industries, Collins Aerospace, Motiv Space Systems and Moog, among others.

Pettus said they are designing the rover to accommodate a wide range of payloads, providing them with power, communications and thermal control. “We’ve gotten feedback from a variety of potential commercial and academic partners around payload needs, so we’ve tried to address that as we’ve designed the vehicle.”

Leidos is one of several companies that have announced plans to propose LTV designs to NASA. Lockheed Martin announced plans in 2021 to work with General Motors on a rover, while Northrop Grumman is working with companies such as Intuitive Machines and Michelin to create a rover. Startup Astrolab plans to offer its Flexible Logistics and Exploration (FLEX) rover it is developing for robotic and human missions.

NASA, in procurement filings, says it expects to issue a final request for proposal for LTV no later than May 26, with a contract award anticipated in late November.

Orbit Fab raises $28.5 million

Orbit Fab, a startup developing in-space satellite refueling services, has raised $28.5 million to accelerate work on its first missions. The Colorado-based company announced the Series A funding round April 17 led by 8090 Industries. Others participating in the round include Stride Capital, Industrious Ventures, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Tribe Capital, Good Growth Capital and Massive Capital Partners. Orbit Fab will use the funding to accelerate work on its first missions to provide satellite refueling services. It will also ramp up production of its RAFTI port for spacecraft, which is designed to enable on-orbit refueling. “This is going to let us accelerate the deployment of refueling systems,” Daniel Faber, chief executive of Orbit Fab, said in an interview. “This is what the Series A is about. We’ve seen demand. We have four launches booked, and we need to keep up with that.” Orbit Fab announced in October that 8090 Industries had invested, but the company declined at the time to specify the size of the investment. Faber said that investment was part of this Series A round. 8090 Industries invests in “category-leading industrial giants of tomorrow” and is affiliated with the Ozmen family that founded Sierra Nevada Corporation and its space spinoff, Sierra Space. “We’re excited about the experience they have with industrial companies, and that’s where we see Orbit Fab,” he said. “Their experience of building a company of the scale that we want to build here is super important to us.”

Orbit Fab will use the Series A funding to accelerate work on technologies to enable in-space refueling of satellites. Credit: Orbit Fab

That view is shared by Orbit Fab’s investors. “The emerging space economy cannot grow without adequate refueling infrastructure. Orbit Fab is now executing on a compelling business model to provide mission critical refueling gasses in space,” said Steve Angel, chairman of industrial gas company Linde plc and an advisor at Industrious Ventures, in a statement.

Faber described the Series A as an “up round,” or one that increased the overall valuation of the company, which is now at just over $100 million.

In addition to the Series A funding, Orbit Fab has secured contracts with military organizations including the Defense Innovation Unit and SpaceWERX, the innovation arm of the Space Force, worth $21 million for three missions to demonstrate proximity operations and to refuel spacecraft. The first of those missions scheduled to launch in early 2024. Orbit Fab also has a contract with Astroscale to refuel its Life Extension In-Orbit (LEXI) servicing spacecraft in geostationary orbit.

Demand for refueling is primarily for hydrazine and xenon, the most common fuels for chemical and electric propulsion systems, respectively, Faber said. There is also some interest in non-toxic “green” propellants, particularly in Europe where hydrazine is being phased out.

To mee the growing demand, Orbit Fab has doubled its workforce to 60 employees in the last year, and plans to hire 25 more with the new funding. Most of those employees are in its Colorado headquarters, with a small office in the United Kingdom.

There is a growing interest in satellite refueling, which Faber likened to reusable launch. “If you’ve got a rocket company and your rockets aren’t reusable, you’re not in the game,” he said. “The same is going to become true for satellites. If you have a satellite and you can’t extend its mission or move in a dynamic way in orbit, you’re as good as gone.”

“Fundamentally, our business isn’t too complicated: we build fuel, we launch fuel, we sell fuel,” he said. “We want to become the industrial gas supplier in orbit. Orbit Fab is effectively the Linde of space.”

Ariane 5 launches ESA’s JUICE mission to Jupiter

An Ariane 5 successfully launched a European spacecraft on an eight-year journey to Jupiter April 14 on the penultimate flight of the venerable rocket. The Ariane 5 lifted off from the European spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana, at 8:14 a.m. Eastern after weather scrubbed a launch attempt the previous day. The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or JUICE, spacecraft separated from the Ariane upper stage 26 minutes after liftoff. Controllers made contract with JUICE about 40 minutes after liftoff and, a half-hour later, deployed its two large solar arrays with a total area of 85 square meters that will generate power for the six-ton spacecraft. The acquisition of signals from JUICE took place a little later than expected, although still within the nominal window for doing so. Solar array deployment took place a little earlier than expected. Jean-Marc Nasr, head of space systems at Airbus Defence and Space, explained at a post-launch briefing that the array deployment took place earlier because the sun acquisition by spacecraft systems was precise. “It is a sign of a perfect mission,” he said. The launch starts an eight-year journey for JUICE to reach Jupiter and three of its largest moons. The Airbus-built spacecraft will perform several gravity-assist flybys to reach Jupiter, starting with a joint flyby of the Earth and the moon in August 2024. Additional Earth flybys are scheduled for September 2026 and January 2029, along with a Venus flyby in August 2025. JUICE will enter orbit around Jupiter in July 2031, performing 35 flybys of Europa, Ganymede and Callisto to characterize their surfaces and subterranean oceans, including determining if they are habitable. JUICE will go into orbit around Ganymede in December 2034 through the end of its mission, currently planned for September 2035.

An Ariane 5 lifts off April 14 carrying ESA's JUICE mission to Jupiter. 

Credit: ESA/M. Pédoussaut

“I think this is something that Europe can be extremely proud of,” Josef Aschbacher, director general of ESA, said at the post-launch briefing. “This is a mission that is answering questions of science that are burning to all of us.”

JUICE, with an estimated total cost of 1.5 billion euros ($1.65 billion), will attempt to answer those questions with a suite of 10 instruments, one of which was contributed by NASA. The Japanese space agency JAXA and Israel Space Agency are also partners on the mission, contributing parts of other instruments.

The launch was the sixth Ariane 5 flight to carry ESA missions, a total that includes the December 2021 launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope that features significant ESA contributions. It was the 116th Ariane 5 launch overall, dating back to 1996.

Only one more Ariane 5 flight remains, a launch tentatively scheduled in late June of two European government communications satellites, France’s Syracuse 4B and Germany’s Heinrich Hertz.

“I think it’s a wonderful symbol to have made this one with ESA and the very last for Germany and France,” Stéphane Israël, chief executive of Arianespace, said at the post-launch briefing.

The Ariane 5 is being replaced by the Ariane 6, whose first flight has been delayed by several years. The most recent date announced by ESA for the inaugural Ariane 6 flight is late 2023, amid speculation it could slip again into 2024.

Aschbacher did not give a new estimate for the debut of the Ariane 6. “We are working very hard and doing everything to get it on the launch pad as quick as we can,” he said. “We have to go through some decisive milestones in the next couple of weeks, but certainly we are on a good track.”

“I feel a bit sad that this wonderful rocket is going out of service,” he said of the Ariane 5, but added that Ariane 6 “will be an equally good launcher.”

Ariane 5 ready to launch ESA’s JUICE mission to Jupiter

Europe’s first mission to Jupiter is ready to launch on the next to last flight of the Ariane 5 on April 13. The Ariane 5 rocket, carrying the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or JUICE, spacecraft rolled out to the pad at Kourou, French Guiana, on April 11. Liftoff is scheduled for 8:15 a.m. Eastern April 13 in an instantaneous launch window. The launch will start a long journey for the six-ton spacecraft. It will perform several gravity-assist flybys of the Earth and Venus between August 2024 and January 2029 before arriving at Jupiter in mid-2031. Once at Jupiter, it will conduct 35 flybys of the large moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto before going into orbit around Ganymede, the solar system’s largest moon. “The main goal is to understand whether there are habitable environments among those icy moons,” said Olivier Witasse, JUICE project scientist at ESA, in an April 6 briefing. “We will characterize in particular the liquid water oceans which are inside the icy moons.” JUICE will carry out those observations with a suite of 10 science instruments of which one, an ultraviolet imaging spectrograph, is provided by NASA. Several other instruments include contributions from NASA, the Japanese space agency JAXA and the Israel Space Agency. JUICE will be joined by NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, scheduled to launch in October 2024 and arrive at Jupiter in 2030. That spacecraft will conduct dozens of flybys of Europa to study the potential for life on that icy moon.

The Ariane 5 launching ESA's JUICE mission rolled out to the launch pad April 11. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique vidéo du CSG/P.Baudon

It will be “very fantastic” to have both Europa Clipper and JUICE operating at the same time in the Jovian system, Witasse said. “The two missions are very complementary,” with the potential of joint observations. One example is planned flybys of Europa by the two spacecraft just four hours apart.

JUICE will focus more on Ganymede, entering orbit around the moon in late 2034 and remaining there through the end of the mission, currently planned for September 2035. That orbit will be at an altitude of 500 kilometers, but if there is sufficient fuel left on the spacecraft, he said the spacecraft could lower its orbit to 200 kilometers.

JUICE ultimately will crash onto the surface of Ganymede. “With the current knowledge of Ganymede, we can crash on the surface” without violating planetary protection guidelines to prevent harmful contamination. “We have shown that we cannot contaminate any subsurface ocean even if we crash on the surface.”

The launch is the sixth flight of the Ariane 5 to carry ESA science missions. The rocket has previously launched the XMM-Newton X-ray observatory, Rosetta comet mission, Herschel and Planck observatories, the BepiColombo mission to Mercury and, most recently, the James Webb Space Telescope, a NASA-led mission with European contributions.

Preparations for the JUICE launch have been similar to Ariane 5 missions with the exception of enhanced cleanliness requirements, according to Veronique Loisel, JUICE project director at Arianespace. That is similar to launches of imaging satellites, she said, but with additional contamination monitoring also used for the launch of JWST.

The launch is also the penultimate flight for the Ariane 5. The vehicle is scheduled to make its final launch in late June, carrying the Syracuse 4B military communications satellite for France and the Heinrich Hertz communications satellite for the German government.

“Is it routine? Never. Is it of special significance? Yes,” said Ruedeger Albat, head of the Ariane 5 program at ESA, of the final launches of the rocket. For those final launches there is a reinforced qualification monitoring and verification program, he said, but otherwise operations are kept as close to normal as possible.

He compared those final launches to an airline pilot’s final flight before retirement. “He will fly with much attention but stick as much as possible to nominal operations.”

Ball taps Loft and Microsoft for SDA NExT program

Ball Aerospace announced plans April 11 to work with Loft Federal and Microsoft’s Azure Orbital on the Space Development Agency’s National Defense Space Architecture Experimental Testbed program, known as NExT. After announcing the $176 million contract in October to rapidly supply, operate and secure launch services for SDA’s NExT program, Ball Aerospace began identifying partners. Loft Federal will supply the Longbow satellite bus based on the design of the OneWeb satellite. Loft Federal also will provide satellite operations software, perform spacecraft integration and testing, procure commercial launch services, oversee the launch campaign and operate the satellites in orbit. “The Loft strategy and inventory allow us to meet a rapid timeline,” said John Eterno, Loft Federal general manager. Once the satellites launch, Microsoft will supply the Azure Government cloud and ground station infrastructure. “We’ll be bringing the ground station together with our government clouds to provide secure capabilities,” said Stephen Kitay, Azure Space senior director. Ball Aerospace will integrate NExT satellites with government-provided payloads in its secure facilities in Broomfield, Colorado. “We have classified facilities,” said Mike Gazarik, Ball Aerospace vice president of engineering. “We can do integration and test at our facility.” The first NExT launch is scheduled for 2024. If all goes as planned, additional launches will be completed by the middle of 2025. The overarching challenge is “getting all of these pieces merged quickly and efficiently on the schedule that SDA is pushing,” Eterno said. “Loft is bringing products that work. Microsoft has Azure Orbital. We’re combining it all together with Ball’s support.”

Loft Orbital recently ordered 15 additional satellite buses from Airbus OneWeb Satellites based on the bus developed for the OneWeb constellation. Loft calls its modified version of the satellite Longbow. Credit: Airbus

Ball Aerospace, Loft and Microsoft demonstrated their ability to work together through an edge-processing payload launched in January on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare flight.

The Ball payload included a prototype version of Azure Orbital Space SDK platform, an application toolkit designed to make it easy for people to create and deploy applications on-orbit. The payload was integrated onto Loft’s modular payload interface and launched aboard Loft’s YAM-5 mission. Loft operates the payload through Cockpit, the company’s satellite operations platform.

“We’ve worked with both Loft and Microsoft to demonstrate on-orbit data processing, and to rapidly infuse technology and demonstrate it on orbit,” Gazarik said. “Those are good partners for us. We continue that journey with them on SDA NExT.”

For Loft Federal, which was formed earlier this year to focus on the U.S. national security market, the SDA NExT contract is “immensely important,” Eterno said. “Our focus right now is executing on NExT, establishing ourselves in the government space and continuing to build the team out in Colorado.”

NASA sets up Moon to Mars office

As preparations for the Artemis 2 mission ramp up, NASA has established a congressionally mandated office to oversee planning for that and future missions to the moon. NASA announced March 30 it had created the Moon to Mars Program Office within the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. The office will focus on integrating the various programs underway as part of the Artemis lunar exploration campaign, from Orion and the Space Launch System to the Gateway, lunar landers and spacesuits. Congress directed NASA to establish the office in a NASA authorization enacted last year as part of the CHIPS and Science Act. It stemmed from concerns within Congress and among NASA advisers that there was no single person overseeing all the programs that made up Artemis. The office is led by Amit Kshatriya, previously acting deputy associate administrator for common exploration systems development. “It’s important to know what it is and it’s important to know what it isn’t,” he said of the new position in an interview at the Johnson Space Center after the Artemis 2 crew announcement April 3. The managers of the various programs, he explained, are still doing the same jobs. “This is primarily a realignment of the roles and responsibilities at headquarters,” he said. That work was already underway before the passage of the authorization act to ensure “consistent integration” among the programs. “What we’re hoping to achieve is accelerate a little bit that headquarters reorganization and eliminate some duplication of effort in certain areas.”

The core stage of the Space Launch System rocket that will launch the Artemis 2 mission. Credit: NASA/Michael DeMocker

“I think what it really allows us to do is have that single focal point that’s worried about our near-term missions,” Jim Free, NASA associate administrator for exploration systems development, said of the office in an interview. “I’ve really tried to focus that office to say that your job is to work on [Artemis] 2 through 5.”

That role, he noted, had been his responsibility before creating the office. “I think it gives us that single point that everybody can go to,” he said. “He can track and worry about those missions every day.”

Kshatriya said his focus “first and foremost” is on Artemis 2. “There are lessons learned from Artemis 1 we have to make sure we incorporate,” he said, as well as completion of the SLS and Orion vehicles and work on ground systems needed for the mission. “The next mission up is 100% my priority, to make sure that none of this realignment that we’re doing impacts that.”

Part of the office’s work, though, it to look ahead. “One of the things we were charged with in the Moon to Mars office was to make sure that the tech developments and the mission modes we’re picking were commensurate with potential future Mars-grade activities,” he said. That ranges from testing closed-loop life support systems to development of the Gateway.

“We’ve been doing that in every investment we’ve been making,” he said, “but tying it together and bringing that to the front of the exploration program in terms of the messaging and the kind of philosophy I think is in front of us still.”

“The way we’ve implemented what Congress had asked us to do I think will turn out to be very good,” Free said.

SpaceX launches Intelsat’s IS-40e high throughput satellite

SpaceX successfully launched Intelsat’s IS-40e communications satellite April 7, which will help the operator meet growing demand for connectivity on planes while also carrying its first hosted payload for NASA. The satellite deployed solar arrays and is receiving and sending signals in geosynchronous transfer orbit following its 12:30 a.m. Eastern launch, its manufacturer Maxar Technologies confirmed. The first stage booster of the Falcon 9 rocket that lifted IS-40e off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, also successfully landed on a drone ship for later reuse. It will take three weeks for the satellite to use onboard chemical propulsion to reach its final orbital slot at 91 degrees West over North America, Jean-Luc Froeliger, Intelsat’s senior vice president of space systems, told SpaceNews in an interview. “This is a big satellite with a lot of connectivity,” Froeliger said, and it will likely take another three weeks to check out all its systems to begin operations by the end of May. Equipped with Ku- and Ka-band capacity, the satellite weighed around six metric tons at launch and is designed to have roughly eight kilowatts of power. IS-40e also carries NASA’s Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) hosted payload, touted to be the first instrument to monitor air pollution across North America from geostationary orbit. While Intelsat’s satellites have carried hosted payloads for other government agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration, Froeliger said this is the first time it has secured such a deal with NASA.

SpaceX launched Intelsat’s IS-40e high throughput satellite with a Falcon 9 April 7 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. Credit: SpaceX

Hosting payloads on commercial satellites enables government agencies to avoid the cost of building dedicated spacecraft, while also helping the operator fund its expenses.

However, these arrangements are often fraught with logistical and other challenges.

IS-40e’s primarily mission is to provide connectivity for planes, boats, and land vehicles on the move over North America, with a particular focus on serving the commercial aviation market.

Other applications include cellular backhaul and rapid response connectivity missions for natural disasters.

“This is our first real high throughput satellite over North America,” Froeliger said.

IS-40e’s ultimate location along the equator would make Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the closest city in the United States to the satellite.

IS-40e satellite will operate from a geostationary orbit 91° West above the equator, making it Intelsat’s “first real high throughput satellite over North America.” Intelsat previously had the IS-29e satellite at 50° West but that satellite was declared a total loss in 2019 after suffering a fuel leak. Credit: SpaceNews graphic

Intelsat previously covered a narrower swath of the United States with the Boeing-built IS-29e at 50 degrees West, but that satellite was declared a total loss in 2019 after suffering a fuel leak.

Intelsat has been busy securing deals with other satellite operators in the region in its search for more capacity to serve the mobility market, including Spain-based Hispasat and Eutelsat of France.“Third-party satellites are nice when you don’t have your own solution, or if your own solution is late,” Froeliger said, “but having your own solution is the way to go.”

Intelsat has one last satellite to launch this year: Galaxy 37, the final spacecraft in the operator’s strategy to be eligible for nearly $5 billion in C-band spectrum clearing proceeds.

SpaceX is slated to launch Galaxy 37 this summer. In addition to C-band, the satellite has a Ku-band payload for meeting high-speed broadband needs over North America.

Apex to launch first satellite in 2024

Small satellite manufacturer Apex will launch its first satellite next year as a demonstration of its capabilities as it prepares for large-scale production. Apex announced April 4 that its first Aries satellite will fly on SpaceX’s Transporter-10 rideshare mission, scheduled for launch no earlier than January 2024. The satellite mission, dubbed “Call to Adventure” by the company, will carry multiple payloads for a set of undisclosed customers. The mission is principally a technology demonstration for Apex, testing the performance of the 200-kilogram Aries satellite. “We want to be able to test out certain maneuvers and do some higher risk operations once we’re in space,” said Ian Cinnamon, chief executive of the company, in an interview. The customers, he said, are those interested in buying full spacecraft from Apex and have signed what he called “multimillion-dollar contracts” for the mission. “After our paying customers are done utilizing the spacecraft for their needs, we are able to use the spacecraft as an in-space testbed” and gain flight heritage on key subsystems before going into full-scale production. Apex announced in October its plans for mass manufacturing of small satellites, raising a $7.5 million seed round. The company added funding after that announcement, Cinnamon said, increasing it to $10 million. The company currently projects producing five Aries spacecraft in 2024, increasing to 20 in 2025 and 100 in 2026. The company’s goal is to produce a standardized bus that can be built in volume and support different customers without costly customization. “The whole mentality of our company is shifting to this productized approach where we’re not doing custom NRE [non-recurring engineering] for each end customer,” he said. “We’ve designed it such that we don’t have to change anything on the spacecraft if a different customer wants a different configuration package.”

Apex is developing the Aries satellite, weighing 200 kilograms including payload and fuel, that is designed to be mass-produced for a range of customers. Credit: Apex

Apex has not disclosed customers for the Aries satellite, but Cinnamon said the company has had talks with both government and commercial customers. Commercial interest, he said, includes using those satellites for imaging and communications as well as applications related to orbital transfer vehicles. Government customers, notably in national security, are interested in satellites that can be built rapidly.

The company has plans for two larger satellites: Nova, weighing 500 kilograms, and Comet, weighing 1,000 kilograms. Half the mass of those spacecraft, as well as the smaller Aries, is devoted to payload and fuel, with the other half the bus itself.

“Almost all of the interest in the market today is for that 200-kilogram vehicle,” he said, with some interest in the larger Nova bus. “The market is just not there right now for the vehicles larger than that, but over time I do believe it’ll start to get a little bit bigger.”

The biggest challenge for Apex’s plans, he said, is industry-wide supply chain problems. “There’s massive supply chain issues, and one of the things that is very important to us is understanding how we mitigate those supply chain issues very early on.”

To address those issues, the company has ordered components not just for the first Aries satellite but the next several it plans to construct. “Our whole mentality is to move faster,” he said. “Even ahead of securing the next several years of customers, we’re already purchasing those components and beginning production.”

NASA's Webb Measures the Temperature of a Rocky Exoplanet

 The amount of infrared light coming from TRAPPIST-1 b suggests that the planet is devoid of any significant atmosphere. Acting as a giant touch-free thermometer, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has successfully measured heat radiating from the innermost of the seven rocky planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1, a cool red dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth. With a dayside temperature of 450 degrees Fahrenheit, the planet is just about perfect for baking pizza. But with no atmosphere to speak of, it may not be the best spot to dine out. The result is the first from a comprehensive set of Webb studies of the TRAPPIST-1 system, and marks an important step in determining whether planets orbiting tiny but violent red dwarfs, the most common type of star in the Galaxy, can sustain atmospheres needed to support life.  An international team of researchers has used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to measure the temperature of the rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 b. The measurement is based on the planet’s thermal emission: heat energy given off in the form of infrared light detected by Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). The result indicates that the planet’s dayside has a temperature of about 500 kelvins (roughly 450 degrees Fahrenheit) and suggests that it has no significant atmosphere. This is the first detection of any form of light emitted by an exoplanet as small and as cool as the rocky planets in our own solar system. The result marks an important step in determining whether planets orbiting small active stars like TRAPPIST-1 can sustain atmospheres needed to support life. It also bodes well for Webb’s ability to characterize temperate, Earth-sized exoplanets using MIRI.

“These observations really take advantage of Webb’s mid-infrared capability,” said Thomas Greene, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Ames Research Center and lead author on the study published today in the journal Nature. “No previous telescopes have had the sensitivity to measure such dim mid-infrared light.”

Rocky Planets Orbiting Ultracool Red Dwarfs

In early 2017, astronomers reported the discovery of seven rocky planets orbiting an ultracool red dwarf star (or M dwarf) 40 light-years from Earth. What is remarkable about the planets is their similarity in size and mass to the inner, rocky planets of our own solar system. Although they all orbit much closer to their star than any of our planets orbit the Sun — all could fit comfortably within the orbit of Mercury — they receive comparable amounts of energy from their tiny star.

TRAPPIST-1 b, the innermost planet, has an orbital distance about one hundredth that of Earth’s and receives about four times the amount of energy that Earth gets from the Sun. Although it is not within the system’s habitable zone, observations of the planet can provide important information about its sibling planets, as well as those of other M-dwarf systems.

“There are ten times as many of these stars in the Milky Way as there are stars like the Sun, and they are twice as likely to have rocky planets as stars like the Sun,” explained Greene. “But they are also very active — they are very bright when they’re young, and they give off flares and X-rays that can wipe out an atmosphere.”

Co-author Elsa Ducrot from the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in France, who was on the team that conducted earlier studies of the TRAPPIST-1 system, added, “It's easier to characterize terrestrial planets around smaller, cooler stars. If we want to understand habitability around M stars, the TRAPPIST-1 system is a great laboratory. These are the best targets we have for looking at the atmospheres of rocky planets.”

Detecting an Atmosphere (or Not)

Previous observations of TRAPPIST-1 b with the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes found no evidence for a puffy atmosphere, but were not able to rule out a dense one.

One way to reduce the uncertainty is to measure the planet’s temperature. “This planet is tidally locked, with one side facing the star at all times and the other in permanent darkness,” said Pierre-Olivier Lagage from CEA, a co-author on the paper. “If it has an atmosphere to circulate and redistribute the heat, the dayside will be cooler than if there is no atmosphere.”

The team used a technique called secondary eclipse photometry, in which MIRI measured the change in brightness from the system as the planet moved behind the star. Although TRAPPIST-1 b is not hot enough to give off its own visible light, it does have an infrared glow. By subtracting the brightness of the star on its own (during the secondary eclipse) from the brightness of the star and planet combined, they were able to successfully calculate how much infrared light is being given off by the planet.

Measuring Minuscule Changes in Brightness

Webb’s detection of a secondary eclipse is itself a major milestone. With the star more than 1,000 times brighter than the planet, the change in brightness is less than 0.1%.

“There was also some fear that we’d miss the eclipse. The planets all tug on each other, so the orbits are not perfect,” said Taylor Bell, the post-doctoral researcher at the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute who analyzed the data. “But it was just amazing: The time of the eclipse that we saw in the data matched the predicted time within a couple of minutes.”

The team analyzed data from five separate secondary eclipse observations. “We compared the results to computer models showing what the temperature should be in different scenarios,” explained Ducrot. “The results are almost perfectly consistent with a blackbody made of bare rock and no atmosphere to circulate the heat. We also didn’t see any signs of light being absorbed by carbon dioxide, which would be apparent in these measurements.”

This research was conducted as part of Webb Guaranteed Time Observation (GTO) program 1177, which is one of eight programs from Webb’s first year of science designed to help fully characterize the TRAPPIST-1 system. Additional secondary eclipse observations of TRAPPIST-1 b are currently in progress, and now that they know how good the data can be, the team hopes to eventually capture a full phase curve showing the change in brightness over the entire orbit. This will allow them to see how the temperature changes from the day to the nightside and confirm if the planet has an atmosphere or not.

“There was one target that I dreamed of having,” said Lagage, who worked on the development of the MIRI instrument for more than two decades. “And it was this one. This is the first time we can detect the emission from a rocky, temperate planet. It’s a really important step in the story of discovering exoplanets.”

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world's premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency), and CSA (Canadian Space Agency). MIRI was contributed by NASA and ESA, with the instrument designed and built by a consortium of nationally funded European Institutes (the MIRI European Consortium) and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in partnership with the University of Arizona.

AST SpaceMobile discloses further satellite delays and cost increases

The launch of the first commercial satellites in AST SpaceMobile’s cellphone-compatible broadband constellation has slipped into 2024, the company said March 31 as it disclosed rising costs for developing the network. AST SpaceMobile had planned to launch the first five BlueBird satellites it is building in-house on a SpaceX Falcon 9 before the end of this year, already about six months behind schedule because of supply chain issues. These satellites, known as Block 1, are now slated to launch in the first quarter of 2024 to low Earth orbit, where they would provide connectivity for smartphones outside cellular coverage in partnership with mobile network operators (MNOs). The Block 1 satellites are 50% smaller than originally planned to speed up development, about the same size and weight as the company’s 1,500-kilogram BlueWalker-3 prototype satellite that launched in November. The Texas-based company said it is actively talking with several launch providers to begin deploying 20 full-sized BlueBird satellites in Block 2 later in 2024. Although AST SpaceMobile expects to start generating revenues after deploying Block 1, it said in a regulatory filing that Block 2 will also be needed to “provide coverage to the most commercially attractive MNO markets.” The company has previously said it needs 110 BlueBirds in LEO to reach substantial global mobile coverage. AST SpaceMobile raised around $417 million for its plans in April 2021 when it became a public company by merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). However, the company said in the regulatory filing it needs to raise between $550 million and $650 million to develop, build, and launch all 20 of its Block 2 satellites.

AST SpaceMobile said Nov. 14 it had successfully unfolded BlueWalker-3's 64-square-meter antenna — the largest deployed commercially in low Earth orbit. Credit: AST SpaceMobile

Rising costs

AST SpaceMobile said in August that the cost for each Block 2 satellite had increased by about 14% to $16 million as inflation and rising supply chain prices weighed on the company.

In the March 31 regulatory filing, it said costs had risen to between $16 million and $18 million per Block 2 satellite.

“The cost of the satellite configuration has increased due to the impacts of inflation, supply chain disruptions, design changes, and increase in the cost of electronic components, launch costs and other aspects of our design and assembly activities,” AST SpaceMobile stated.

The company said it has enough cash to fund the Block 1 satellites, estimated to cost between $100 million and $110 million in total, and for its operations over the next 12 months.

However, it is exploring multiple routes to raise additional capital, including taking on debt, issuing equity, and securing funds from export credit agencies.

While AST SpaceMobile CEO Abel Avellan said BlueWalker 3 has validated the company’s network architecture, and proven its ability to deliver 4G and 5G speeds, he said tests are not yet complete.

The company plans to announce the results of these tests at a future date in conjunction with MNO partners, Avellan added.

AST SpaceMobile recorded $239.3 million in cash reserves at the end of 2022.

Total operating expenses increased by $61.3 million to $152.9 million for 2022, compared with $91.6 million for 2021.