China launches classified military satellite towards geostationary belt

China launched the TJS-11 classified satellite early Friday as the country continues to build its geostationary capabilities. A Long March 5 lifted off from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan island at 6:30 a.m. Eastern (1130 UTC), Feb. 23. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., (CASC), announced launch success just under an hour after launch. The announcement also provided the first official statement on the payload: TJS-11 (Tongxin Jishu Shiyan-11). The satellite is described as being mainly used to carry out multi-band, high-speed satellite communication technology verification. Neither CASC nor Chinese state media provided further details on the satellite which belongs to a series of classified geosynchronous satellites for the Chinese military. TJS satellites are thought by observers to serve a range of purposes including early warning, signals intelligence and more. Buildup to the mission was shrouded in secrecy, despite the open location of the coastal launch. There were no official reports of the rollout of the rocket, in contrast to previous missions. Notably it is the shortest time between launches of the Long March 5, at 70 days since the launch of Yaogan-41. Like the Yaogan-41 launch, the TJS-11 mission used an elongated 18.5-meter-long, 5.2-meter-diameter payload fairing. Standard fairings are 12.3 meters long. This is the first TJS satellite launched on a Long March 5, China’s most powerful launch vehicle. The Long March 5 can loft 14,000 kilograms into geosynchronous transfer orbit. The launcher is required to launch China’s largest satellite bus, the DFH-5.

The satellite series and its activities has caught the attention of observers in recent years. For instance, China’s TJS-3 (Tongxin Jishu Shiyan-3) satellite launched in 2018 and released a payload of unstated purposes.

Assessments of the pair’s maneuvers suggest the spacecraft moved in concert and carried out operations including spoofing. This involves coordinated maneuvers at certain times in an attempt to confuse rivals’ space tracking networks. Orbital data reveals that TJS-3 has been making close approaches to American satellites.

The U.S. Space Force recently stated its growing concern at China’s advancing capabilities in geostationary orbit (GEO). Assets of note include the Ludi Tance-4 (01) L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite and the Yaogan-41 optical satellite, with an estimated resolution of 2.5 meters. China launched the pair separately in the second half of 2023.

“Paired with data from other Chinese surveillance satellites, Yaogan-41 could provide China an unprecedented ability to identify and track car-sized objects throughout the entire Indo-Pacific region and put at risk numerous U.S. and allied naval and air assets operating in the region,” Clayton Swope, a former U.S. intelligence official and now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said Jan. 30.

Furthermore, a Long March 7A rocket launched the mystery TJS-10 satellite towards GEO in November last year.

The launch of TJS-11 was the seventh flight of the Long March 5. It was also China’s ninth orbital mission of 2024. CASC has yet to provide an outline for its overall launch activities for 2024, in contrast to previous years. China launched a national record 67 times last year with one failure.

Known major activities include Shenzhou missions to the Tiangong space station and the pioneering Chang’e-6 lunar far side sample return mission. The latter mission will fly on the next Long March 5. Launch is expected in May, following the launch of the requisite Queqiao-2 relay satellite on a Long March 8 next month.

Chinese commercial launch providers are expected to continue to build on a breakthrough 2023. The debut of new liquid-propellent launch vehicles including the Tianlong-3 (Space Pioneer), Nebula-1 (Deep Blue Aerospace) and Pallas-1 (Galactic Energy) expected in the second half of 2024.

Eutelsat scales back OneWeb Gen 2 upgrade plan

Eutelsat has decided to hold off deploying significantly upgraded OneWeb broadband satellites to instead focus on adding continuity of service capacity for customers with long-term contracts, the French fleet operator said Feb. 16. The shift to a progressive approach for improving low Earth orbit satellite capacity and performance shaves off nearly one third of the company’s previous $4 billion budget for a second-generation constellation, Eutelsat CEO Eva Berneke said during an earnings call. Berneke said the strategy still leaves Eutelsat open to potential public sector funding from programs such as IRIS², Europe’s sovereign broadband project, for financing the development of new technologies that could be added to the constellation. “But it’s also really to make sure that the timeline works,” she continued, “I mean, it’s very important to us that we keep the continuity of service with our customers in these multi-year contracts and set them up over time, and then bring the new functionality when it’s ready.” After testing a OneWeb Gen 2 technology demonstrator last year, Eutelsat has been speaking to manufacturers about a constellation of around 300 satellites that could begin deployments as soon as 2025. Most of the 633 satellites in OneWeb’s current generation were launched between 2020 and 2023, and the constellation has a design life extending to around 2027-2028. The satellites were built by a Florida-based joint venture with Airbus of France, which recently bought Eutelsat out of the group for an undisclosed sum.

Eutelsat says integrating its geostationary broadband network with OneWeb’s low Earth orbit satellites is the best way to meet future global connectivity needs. Credit: OneWeb

Eutelsat did not detail how many satellites are under its revised strategy.

The operator has previously said a Gen 2 constellation could be smaller than Gen 1 partly because newer satellites would leverage Eutelsat’s geostationary satellites over high-demand areas.

During the Feb. 16 earnings call, Eutelsat chief financial officer Christophe Caudrelier said the company is talking to government-backed export credit agencies (ECAs) in India, the United Kingdom, and France to support the majority of Gen 2 costs.

The planned ramp-up of OneWeb’s commercial services worldwide would also support the investment.

Although all the satellites OneWeb needs for worldwide coverage are in position, ground segment delays are currently holding back global services.

Previously slated to begin global low Earth orbit services in early 2024, Eutelsat recently said it expects to have completed only 90% of OneWeb’s ground network by the end of June following a mix of installation and licensing setbacks.

Key enterprise and government customer markets for OneWeb that are waiting for services to come online include India and Saudi Arabia.

Eutelsat reported around 700 million euros ($754 million) in OneWeb customer backlog as of the end of December, up 23% from three months earlier and continuing to grow.

Customers in areas where OneWeb services are available, such as Alaska, are experiencing up to 195 megabits per second download and 32 Mbps upload speeds, according to Eutelsat, with a latency of 70 milliseconds.

GEO wins the day

Services from recently launched geostationary satellites Konnect VHTS and Eutelsat 10B helped put the operator on track for a return to growth following years of annual revenue declines thanks to its waning legacy video business.

Eutelsat recorded 572.6 million euros in revenue for the six months to Dec. 31, up 1% compared with the same period in 2022 when adjusted for currency changes on a like-for-like basis.

Video was the only Eutelsat business unit that did not post revenue growth, falling 8% year-on-year to 331.1 million euros — but still representing the bulk of the company’s total sales. Non-renewed and scaled-down broadcast contracts dragged the division down, along with sanctions against Russian and Iranian channels.

Government services, mobile connectivity, and fixed connectivity were up 10.5%, 35.6%, and 9.2%, respectively.

These three verticals included some contribution from OneWeb, Caudrelier said, underlining Eutelsat’s rationale for acquiring the company last year to boost its pivot to connectivity services.

Adjusted EBITDA, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, stood at 365.6 million euros Dec. 31, down 12.7% compared with 419 million euros a year earlier.

Varda gets reentry license for space manufacturing capsule

After months of effort and one rejected application, Varda Space Industries said Feb. 14 it has received a license from the Federal Aviation Administration to return a capsule from its first mission. The FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation issued a reentry license for Varda’s W-Series 1 spacecraft. The license will allow the company to land a capsule from that spacecraft at the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR) and neighboring Dugway Proving Ground west of Salt Lake City. Varda said that reentry is scheduled for Feb. 21. “We’ve been working closely with our government partners and our satellite partner, Rocket Lab, to ensure a safe and compliant return from space,” Varda said in a statement. “Today we’re excited to announce the FAA has approved a re-entry attempt for Feb 21st.” Varda launched W-Series 1, its first spacecraft, in June on the SpaceX Transporter-8 rideshare mission. The company performed experiments to test the production of crystals in microgravity, which would be returned to Earth in a capsule developed by Varda attached to the Rocket Lab-produced spacecraft. The company had hoped to return the capsule as early as mid-July, but said then was still working with the FAA to obtain a reentry license, required for any commercial spacecraft returning to Earth. One issue the company said it was facing was that it was the first company seeking a reentry license under new regulations called Part 450 intended to streamline the licensing process, but which some companies reported difficulties adjusting to.

Varda Space Industries' W-Series 1 spacecraft includes a capsule designed to return pharmaceutical experiments. Credit: Varda Space Industries

In October, the company said it had come close in early September to getting an FAA reentry license as well as securing approval from the U.S. Air Force, which operates UTTR. “It was ultimately a coordination problem amongst three different groups that had not worked through this operation before,” Delian Asparouhov, co-founder of Varda, said in an interview at the time.

“This is the first time in our nation’s history that the FAA has granted a Part 450 reentry license, and licensed a commercial entity to land a spacecraft on U.S. soil,” Varda said in its statement about the license. “We are incredibly proud to have this opportunity with our government partners, and appreciate their dedication to safe innovation in the United States.”

The conical capsule, about 90 centimeters across and 74 centimeters high, weighs less than 90 kilograms, as described in a section of an environmental assessment about the reentry. The capsule landing area is an ellipse 45 by 35 kilometers covering parts of UTTR and the neighboring Dugway Proving Ground. The main spacecraft would also reenter and burn up, with only small pieces surviving reentry.

According to the environmental assessment, several ranges run by the Department of Defense in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Utah were considered as potential landing sites for the capsule, as they offered controlled access not available elsewhere, such as public lands maintained by the Bureau of Land Management. Only the UTTR/Dugway met all the requirements to safely return the capsule.

The assessment noted that non-U.S. locations were ruled out from consideration for this mission because of the “time, uncertainty, and complexity associated with obtaining the necessary agreements” between the U.S. and the foreign government for the landing, as well as challenging shipping the capsule back to the United States.

However, Varda announced in October an agreement with Southern Launch, a spaceport operator based in Adelaide, Australia, to host capsule returns at the Koonibba Test Range northwest of Adelaide. That range could be used for Varda’s second mission, scheduled for as soon as mid-2024.

Satellite operators join forces to chase direct-to-smartphone opportunity

A group of satellite operators have joined forces to push the fledgling direct-to-smartphone market to adopt services using their radiowaves, rather than spectrum derived from terrestrial mobile network operators. Viasat, Terrestar Solutions, Ligado Networks, Omnispace, and Yahsat announced the creation of the Mobile Satellite Services Association (MSSA) Feb. 9, a non-profit aiming to harmonize Mobile Satellite Services for integrating with standardized devices. Together, they hold more than 100 megahertz of L- and S-band spectrum that they say could help extend terrestrial cellular networks worldwide. San Francisco-based Skylo says it has developed ground infrastructure technology that would enable satellite-based messaging from smartphones slated to roll out by the end of the year, using geostationary satellites operated by Viasat, Ligado, and Terrestar. “We have multiple partners including carriers and [original equipment manufacturers] conducting trials of SMS this quarter,” Skylo cofounder Tarun Gupta told SpaceNews via email. “We anticipate that carriers will integrate and roll out the service to users by the end of this year on new devices coming out.” MSSA wll advocate for policies, laws and regulations that would encourage widespread adoption of the service in alignment with standards widely used by the cellular industry, potentially enabling direct-to-smartphone users to roam across their networks.

An Airbus illustration of an I-6 F1 satellite launched in late 2021 to replenish Inmarsat L-band services now controlled by Viasat. Credit: Airbus

Iridium Communications, a global operator of Mobile Satellite Services that recently decided to move away from proprietary direct-to-direct network for an open network approach, is notably absent from the MSSA partnership.

MSSA is led by Viasat chair and CEO Mark Dankberg.

“Integrating satellite connectivity into consumer mobile devices is a transformative opportunity for the satellite industry,” Dankberg said in a news release.

“As a coalition of leaders with a unified voice, MSSA will be a driving force in making this new marketplace a reality, while respecting the rights of nations to meaningfully engage and retain sovereignty in a rapidly growing space economy.”

On the other side of the direct-to-smartphone market, players such as SpaceX, Lynk Global, and AST SpaceMobile see using cellular spectrum from mobile network operator partnerships as key to building a critical mass of subscribers.

Their services would also reach unmodified smartphones already in consumer pockets.

Lynk Global, which launched commercial services last year, says it is currently serving more than seven countries, including parts of Palau, the Cook Islands, and Solomon Islands.

However, while Mobile Satellite Service operators already have widespread permission to beam their radio frequencies from space to devices, direct-to-smartphone players seeking to use cellular spectrum more broadly must overcome many interference concerns and regulatory hurdles.

First Intuitive Machines lunar lander mission set for Feb. 14 launch

Intuitive Machines and SpaceX have confirmed plans to launch the IM-1 lunar lander mission as soon as Feb. 14, pending a fueling test on the pad later this week. In a Feb. 5 statement, Intuitive Machines announced it was targeting a launch of its lander in a “multi-day window” that opens Feb. 14. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A is scheduled for 12:57 a.m. Eastern that day. The announcement came hours after a SpaceX official, speaking at a briefing about the upcoming launch of NASA’s PACE Earth science mission on another Falcon 9, confirmed that Feb. 14 date, which had been widely known in the industry but which neither NASA nor Intuitive Machines would disclose at a Jan. 31 briefing about the agency’s payloads on the lander. “Our Intuitive Machines launch is targeting Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day,” said Julianna Scheiman, director of civil satellite missions at SpaceX, at the Feb. 5 briefing. “We’re tracking well to a Feb. 14 launch.” One final milestone before that launch is a fueling test, or wet dress rehearsal, scheduled for Feb. 7. That is important for IM-1 since the lander needs to be loaded with liquid oxygen and methane propellants while on the launch pad shortly before launch, a procedure that required modifications to the infrastructure at LC-39A. “We’ll be performing essentially a tanking test, or wet dress rehearsal, for that spacecraft on Feb. 7,” she said, to confirm that the spacecraft can be fueled on the pad.

Intuitive Machines says its IM-1 lunar lander mission is scheduled for launch as soon as Feb. 14, with a tanking test scheduled for Feb. 7. Credit: SpaceX

While Intuitive Machines said in its statement that it had a multi-day window, Scheiman said the mission had a three-day window, with launch opportunities Feb. 14 through 16. Intuitive Machines previously stated that a launch any day in that window would set up a landing attempt on Feb. 22.

The 675-kilogram lander, called Odysseus by the company, is carrying six payloads for NASA through a Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) award valued at $118 million. It is also carrying six commercial payloads, ranging from sportswear company Columbia to artist Jeff Koons. The commercial payloads also include Eaglecam, a camera developed by students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University that will eject from the lander during its final descent to the surface to attempt to photograph the landing.

If IM-1 is successful, it will be the first private mission to land softly on the moon after three previous failed attempts. The Beresheet lander by Israel’s SpaceIL crashed during its descent to the lunar surface in 2019, and the HAKUTO-R M1 lander from Japanese company ispace crashed attempting a landing in April 2023. Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander suffered a propellant leak hours after its Jan. 8 launch that prevented the spacecraft from attempting a lunar landing.

NASA Earth science mission once slated for cancellation ready for launch

A nearly billion-dollar mission to study the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere is ready to launch after surviving several cancellation attempts earlier in its development. A Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 Feb. 6 at 1:33 a.m. Eastern. The vehicle will place into sun-synchronous orbit NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem, or PACE, spacecraft. PACE carries three instruments designed to study the ocean as well as clouds and aerosols in the atmosphere. Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), the primary instrument, will provide information on ocean color from ultraviolet to infrared wavelengths. It is accompanied by the Hyper Angular Research Polarimeter (HARP2) and Spectro-polarimeter for Planetary Exploration (SPEXone), which will provide data on atmospheric clouds and aerosols as well as support atmospheric correction of OCI data. “PACE is going to so profoundly advance our understanding about how our oceans work and how they are related to the broader Earth system and the changing climate,” said Karen St. Germain, director of NASA’s Earth science division, at a Feb. 4 briefing about the mission. A key focus of PACE will be studying phytoplankton on the ocean surface. That includes being able to differentiate among phytoplankton species, said Jeremy Werdell, PACE project scientist. “Now we’ll know where the harmful ones are, where the beneficial ones are, where the beneficial ones are moving to.”

NASA’s PACE spacecraft being encapsulated in the payload fairing of its Falcon 9 rocket ahead of a launch scheduled for as soon as Feb. 6. Credit: NASA GSFC/Denny Henry

Scientists will complement PACE data with that from other Earth science missions, such as the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) spacecraft. “SWOT tells us more about how the ocean moves, including the height of the sea. PACE is going to give us information on what’s living in those surface oceans,” said Kate Calvin, NASA’s chief scientist and senior climate adviser.

Data from PACE will also help track different kinds of aerosols in the atmosphere, such as sea spray, smoke and desert dust. That is useful for monitoring air quality and its impacts on human health, interactions between the atmosphere and the ecosystem, and cloud formation. “It’s so dynamic, space is the only way you can possibly do this,” said Andy Sayer, PACE atmospheric scientist.

PACE has a design life of three years, but St. Germain said NASA expects the mission to last longer, with enough consumables such as propellant on the 1,700-kilogram spacecraft to operate for at least a decade. “We’re hoping for a nice long life for PACE.”

Once launched, PACE will go through a commissioning period expected to last 60 days, Werdell said at an earlier briefing Jan. 17, with “first light” data released after about 40 to 50 days. All the data from PACE will be publicly available with no exclusivity period for the mission’s science team.

PACE, with a total cost including reserves of $964 million, became a target for budget cuts earlier in its development by the Trump administration. All four of its NASA budget proposals, for fiscal years 2018 through 2021, sought to cancel PACE. All four times Congress rejected the cut and restored funding to the mission.

“It has been a long, strange trip,” Werdell said at the Feb. 4 briefing when asked about those proposed cancellations. “We were as confident as one could be that we would find ways to persevere. The community wanted all of this.”

“One of the reasons we’re sitting here today is because there were many in our stakeholder community who understood the potential impact of PACE and supported us moving forward,” said St. Germain.

NASA workshop to examine options for Apophis asteroid mission

NASA is hosting a workshop later this month to learn about options for low-cost missions to an asteroid that will make a close approach to the Earth in 2029, a move that has confused some scientists who believe a shelved smallsat mission can meet NASA’s needs. The Apophis 2029 Innovation Listening Workshop, to be held Feb. 7 at NASA Headquarters, will study what the agency calls “innovative approaches for a low-cost mission” to Apophis, a near Earth asteroid. Apophis will make a close flyby of the Earth in April 2029, passing closer to the Earth than the geostationary belt but posing no impact risk. The workshop will feature a public briefing followed by one-on-one discussions with interested organizations. NASA added that there are no solicitations or even a formal request for information associated with the workshop. The workshop is not being led by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, which hosts its planetary science activities as well as the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, but instead by NASA’s chief technologist within the Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy. Lindley Johnson, NASA’s planetary defense officer, said at a Jan. 30 meeting of the Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG) that his office was supporting the workshop. “Their objective is to engage the public and private sectors in innovative, low-cost missions during the Earth flyby of Apophis,” he said. The focus of the workshop will be the one-on-one meetings, he said, for “small companies, nontraditional partners with NASA to present their ideas about how this could be done in a low-cost approach.”

NASA will put the completed Janus spacecraft into long-term storage with the hopes of potentially flying them on a future mission. Credit: Lockheed Martin

NASA already has one mission to study Apophis. After the OSIRIS-REx mission delivered asteroid samples to Earth in September, the main spacecraft flew by Earth on an extended mission rechristened OSIRIS-APEX. It will rendezvous with Apophis immediately after the April 2029 flyby, studying it for the next 18 months. However, there is interest in sending a mission to Apophis before the Earth flyby to better understand what changes the gravitational forces of the flyby made to the asteroid.

One proposal is to repurpose the two smallsats built for Janus, a NASA mission that would have sent the spacecraft on flybys of binary asteroids. Janus, part of the agency’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) program, was to launch as a secondary payload on the Psyche asteroid mission in 2022.

However, when problems with Psyche delayed its launch by more than a year, Janus could no longer carry out its original mission. With no viable alternative missions possible launching with Psyche, NASA removed Janus from that launch and formally canceled the mission in July.

The two spacecraft, already assembled and going through final testing when Psyche was delayed, are being prepared to go into long-term storage at NASA’s Langley Research Center, said Dan Scheeres, principal investigator for Janus at the University of Colorado, in an SBAG presentation Jan. 31. That involves partially disassembling the spacecraft to store batteries, solar panels, propulsion system and instruments separately: “You just can’t put it into a box and ship it.”

The Janus team has looked at alternative missions for the spacecraft that include going to Apophis. Several options are available, he said, with trajectories that take the spacecraft out to the Earth-sun L-2 Lagrange point followed by a lunar flyby to set up an Apophis flyby “well in advance” of the asteroid’s close approach to the Earth. “It’s still in our wheelhouse,” he said.

The Janus spacecraft carry optical and infrared instruments designed for “fast flyby science” that would include Apophis, he said, comparing it to the flyby of a small main belt asteroid, Dinkinesh, by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft in November. Once in storage, the spacecraft could be reassembled, tested and launched in about 18 months.

The challenge, he and other said at the SBAG meeting, was funding. NASA’s planetary programs are in what Scheeres called a “no new start” situation where the agency is not starting any new missions, including one that would use the repurposed Janus spacecraft.

“We recognize that the 2029 close approach of Apophis really presents a unique opportunity,” said Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s planetary science division, at the SBAG meeting Jan. 30. “Our budget situation is really, really challenging, and that is a reality that we have to live within.”

She said that the Janus team had briefed her on using the spacecraft for an Apophis flyby. “That is one of the many ideas that have come to us,” she said, but returned to the budget issues. “You can have the will, but without the funding it makes it really challenging.”

Some scientists at the SBAG meeting wondered why, given the Janus option but also the budget constraints, why NASA was holding the workshop at all, rather than find a way to repurpose Janus for an Apophis flyby.

Thomas Statler, a program scientist in the planetary science division, said at SBAG Jan. 31 that the agency knows there are multiple ideas for an Apophis flyby mission. “The agency doesn’t want to take a stance where it appears unreceptive to a good idea,” he said. “That is the motivation for the listening workshop.”

Scheeres said he planned to attend the Apophis workshop and meet with agency officials to “make sure they are fully aware of what they will be sitting on.”