China launches first of a new series of Yaogan reconnaissance satellites

China launched its first Yaogan-42 satellite late Tuesday, adding to the country’s growing military satellite reconnaissance capabilities. A Long March 2D rocket lifted off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 6:56 p.m. Eastern (2256 UTC) April 2. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) announced launch success within the hour. CASC’s statement also revealed the previously unknown payload to be Yaogan-42 (01) (“remote sensing-42 (01)”). The satellite was later tracked by the U.S. Space Force’s 18th Space Defense Squadron (SDS) in a roughly 500-kilometer-altitude orbit inclined by 35 degrees. Both Yaogan-42 (02) and its Long March 2D launcher were developed and provided by CASC’s Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST). Neither CASC nor Chinese state media provided any details regarding the classified satellite. These statements omitted the usual general description of Yaogan satellites. Some Yaogan satellites are described as being for purposes including land survey, crop yield estimation, environmental management, meteorological warning and forecasting, and disaster prevention and reduction. Uses of others include “electromagnetic environment detection and related technical tests.”

A Long March 2D lifts off from Xichang spaceport on April 2 (UTC), 2024, carrying the Yaogan-42 (01) satellite. Credit: Ourspace

Outside observers assess Yaogan series satellites to be designated for military and civilian purposes.

The various series of Yaogan satellites are understood to include optical imaging, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and electronic intelligence (ELINT) satellites. This combination provides high-resolution imagery and all-weather and all-day and night imagery, along with the collection of electronic signals from radar, communication systems and other electronic devices, with coverage of both land and sea.

The vast majority of Yaogan satellites operate in a series of low Earth and sun-synchronous orbits. Some groups of Yaogan satellites, such as Yaogan-31, could be analogous to U.S. Department of Defense Naval Ocean Surveillance System (NOSS) satellite triplets. Other groups, in orbits with inclinations of 35 degrees, ang spaced 60 or 120 degrees apart, provide near constant surveillance over areas of security concern close to China.

Additionally China launched the Yaogan-41 satellite towards geosynchronous orbit in late 2023. That satellite launched on a Long March 5, China’s largest operational rocket. The mission A used a new, elongated 18.5-meter-long, 5.2-meter-diameter payload fairing.

Tuesday’s launch was China’s 15th orbital mission of 2024. The country is aiming to launch around 100 times across 2024. Around 70 will be conducted by CASC, with China’s commercial launch service providers planning around 30 launches.

Commercial activity will include the new Tianlong-3 from Space Pioneer. The 71-meter-long rocket will be capable of lifting 17 tons of payload to low Earth orbit, or 14 tons to 500-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit, according to the firm. The rocket would become China’s second most capable rocket, behind the Long March 5. It is intended to have a reusable first stage in the future.

SAST plans to launch its new, 3.8-meter-diameter Long March 12, previously referred to as the “XLV,” during 2024.

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.

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.”

Relativity launches first Terran 1

Relativity Space’s first Terran 1 rocket successfully got off the launch pad March 22 but failed to reach orbit because of an upper stage malfunction. The Terran 1 rocket lifted off at 11:25 p.m. Eastern from Launch Complex 16 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on a test flight dubbed “Good Luck, Have Fun” by the company. Liftoff was delayed by nearly 90 minutes because of upper-level winds as well as a boat that strayed into restricted waters. The rocket’s first stage, powered by nine Aeon 1 methane-fueled engines, appeared to operate as planned, passing through the region of maximum dynamic pressure known as “Max-Q” 80 seconds after liftoff. Getting through Max-Q was a major goal for this launch to demonstrate the integrity of the rocket’s 3D-printed structure. Stage separation took place 2 minutes and 45 seconds after liftoff, and the rocket’s single Aeon Vacuum upper stage engine ignited. However, footage from a camera on the stage showed the plume flickering seconds after ignition, and telemetry on the company’s webcast of the launch indicated the vehicle was slowing. Mission control declared an anomaly with the upper stage five minutes after liftoff, but didn’t immediately disclose additional details about the failure.

Relativity Space's Terran 1 rocket lifts off March 22 on its first mission, a test flight called "Good Luck, Have Fun" by the company. Credit: Relativity Space webcast

Despite failing to reach orbit, the company was pleased with the performance of the earlier phases of flight. Before the launch the company emphasized that simply getting through Max-Q would be a major milestone. “This will essentially prove the viability of using additive manufacturing tech to produce products that fly,” wrote Tim Ellis, chief executive and co-founder of Relativity, in a series of tweets before the first launch attempt. The rocket did not carry a satellite payload, only a small 3D-printed component from the company’s first printer.

“Although we didn’t reach orbit, we significantly exceeded our key objectives for this first launch, and that objective was to gather data at Max-Q, one of the most demanding phases of flight, and achieve stage separation,” said Arwa Tizani Kelly, technical program manager for test and launch at Relativity, during the webcast. “Today’s flight data will be invaluable to our team as we look to further improve our rockets, including Terran R.”

Terran R is a much larger, fully reusable launch vehicle that Relativity is developing for a first launch as soon as 2024. Terran 1, which can place up to 1,250 kilograms into orbit, is a technology pathfinder for Terran R, with a payload capacity of about 20,000 kilograms.

Relativity scrubbed its first Terran 1 launch attempt March 8 because of a problem with ground systems that were unable to get liquid oxygen propellant in the rocket’s upper stage to the right temperature. The company tried again three days later only to abort two countdowns during a three-hour window, one because of a sensor reading just 0.5 seconds before liftoff and the other because of a drop in fuel pressure in the upper stage at T-45 seconds.

The company was able to correct both problems but had to work around airspace limitations on the Eastern Range during the busy spring break travel season. Moving from an afternoon launch window, used for the first two launch attempts, to one at night reduced airspace conflicts.

Relativity did not announce plans before the launch when, or even if, they would perform another Terran 1 launch. Before the first launch attempt, Ellis suggested the company might skip ahead to Terran R even if the launch failed, depending on the feedback the company got from its customers. “Do they want us to continue down the path of producing more Terran 1’s to solve for those issues on this vehicle? Or, would like us to solve the remaining rocket science problems on the vehicle they are actually most interested in, Terran R?”

SES closer to $4 billion payout after ULA launch to near-geostationary orbit

United Launch Alliance launched a pair of satellites for SES Oct. 4 that are vital to the operator’s bid to claim nearly $4 billion in C-band clearing proceeds. SES-20 and SES-21 lifted off 5:36 p.m. Eastern from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, and separated from their Atlas 5 rocket around six hours later. The lengthy mission dropped the Boeing-built satellites off at 35,888 kilometers above the equator at 1.9 degrees of inclination, much closer than a typical launch of spacecraft to geostationary transfer orbit. The companies said this will cut several months off the time it will take these satellites to reach their final orbit destinations using onboard electric propulsion. “We didn’t want to wait longer than we absolutely had to to get our hands on the satellites,” SES CEO Steve Collar said in a call with journalists, and SES-20 and SES-21 will “be operational in November, which given that we’re sitting here in October is pretty impressive.” Having already launched SES-22 in June as part of its shift out of C-band, the Oct. 4 mission leaves SES with just two more satellites it plans to deploy by early next year to stay on pace to claim the maximum payout from the Federal Communications Commission. SES is paying for these satellites with proceeds from the FCC’s C-band auction last year, which fetched more than $80 billion from Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and other U.S. wireless carriers who need more spectrum for 5G. In addition to covering costs to vacate C-band for terrestrial 5G, the FCC is offering satellite operators nearly $10 billion in total incentive payments if they can meet the regulator’s spectrum-clearing deadlines.

   

An Atlas 5 launches the SES-20 and SES-21 C-band replacement satellites to orbit Oct. 4. Credit: ULA

SES and Intelsat hold the majority of C-band in the United States and are in line for a maximum of $3.97 billion and $4.9 billion, respectively, if they can fully vacate the lower 300 MHz slice of C-band by Dec. 5, 2023, by moving broadcast customers to the upper 200 MHz of the band.

They unlocked more than $2 billion in combined proceeds from the FCC last year after meeting the regulator’s first major C-band clearing deadline, however, hitting the regulator’s final deadline will require new satellites in orbit.

SES loses C-band battle against Intelsat

SES lost its bid Sept. 30 to convince a court overseeing Intelsat’s recent bankruptcy that it was owed $1.8 billion over a broken agreement to equally share C-band clearing proceeds.

SES brought the claim to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia two months after Intelsat filed for Chapter 11 in May 2020, and was one of its largest creditors.

The operator made the claim to cover damages resulting from Intelsat’s departure from a pact to equally share the compensation they would get from the FCC.

Intelsat argued the agreement was nullified once the FCC decided to reallocate satellite C-band spectrum to 5G cellular network carriers via a public auction, rather than a private process run by the satellite operators.

After more than two years of legal action, the court decided Oct. 30 to sustain Intelsat’s objection and disallow the claims from SES.

In a Memorandum Opinion, Judge Keith Phillips wrote that SES could have objected to the FCC’s draft order if it thought its split was unfair.

The satellite operator could have also “refused to participate in the accelerated clearing; it did neither,” he added.

“In short, the Court does not see anything ‘unjust’ about allowing the split of accelerated relocation payments set by the FCC based on objective criteria to determine the amounts available to SES and Intelsat.”

SES spokesperson Suzanne One said it is “disappointed with the ruling,” and “is reviewing with outside counsel its options to appeal.”

Intelsat, which emerged from bankruptcy in February and is looking to use C-band proceeds to pay off more debt and fuel its return to growth, “is pleased to have resolved this matter with a ruling in our favor based on the clear and convincing evidence presented,” Intelsat spokesperson Clay McConnell said.

Merger implications

The court’s decision likely lessens the need to rush any merger talks between the two satellite operators.

The Financial Times reported Aug. 4. that SES and Intelsat were in active talks about combining their companies amid consolidation deals elsewhere in the industry.

While SES and Intelsat have not explicitly commented on the rumor, they have each touted the benefits of satellite operator consolidation to help rationalize the industry.

“If the opportunity of consolidation is there, and it makes sense for our shareholders, we’ll grab it and execute hard,” SES CEO Steve Collar in a Sept. 14 SpaceNews interview during World Satellite Business Week in Paris.

“If not, we’ve got a fantastic plan … using the cash flows that we’re generating from video to invest meaningfully in” SES’ data-focused networks business.

More replacement satellites needed

SES and Intelsat have ordered 13 C-band replacement satellites between them to clear the spectrum for mobile operators.

SpaceX is slated to launch two more for SES on Falcon 9 rocket toward the end of the year.

Collar said in the media call that “we may end up pushing into early next year depending on the manifest,” but the satellites are essentially “more or less ready to go.”

The operator’s remaining work to vacate C-band following this launch will be on the ground as the operator moves customers and filters antennas across the United States.

SES ordered six C-band replacement satellites in total, and the sixth will be used as a ground spare.

Intelsat has ordered seven satellites for its C-band clearing plan, with none of them intended as ground spares, and has lined up Arianespace and SpaceX for launches starting Oct. 6.

SpaceX is slated to launch Galaxy 33 and Galaxy 34 on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 7:07 p.m. Eastern.