China launches new-gen Haiyang ocean monitoring satellite

China launched the first of a new series of Haiyang ocean observation satellites late Wednesday. A Long March 2C rocket lifted off into clear skies above Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 10:55 p.m. Eastern, Nov. 15 (0355 UTC, Nov. 16). The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) announced launch success within an hour of liftoff, also revealing the payload to be Haiyang-3 (01). Haiyang-3 (01) will operate in a dawn-dusk sun-synchronous orbit. It will provide all-weather ocean observation using an X-band SAR payload over a planned mission lifetime of eight years. CASC says the new high-precision ocean water color observation satellite will target various water bodies around the world using multiple detection methods, providing insights into various environmental and biological processes. It will be able to provide continuous dynamic monitoring of water color, water temperature, sea ice and other variables, to deliver timely remote sensing information. The Haiyang-3 series will complement the Haiyang-2 satellites with SAR observations. The earlier series focus on variables including wind speed, sea level and sea surface temperature. The satellite was developed by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST). It will be operated by China’s National Satellite Ocean Application Service (NSOAS).

Ocean monitoring satellites are valuable for providing data for weather models for forecasting and monitoring climate change. They also deliver information helpful for tracking pollution and marine navigation and safety.

The Haiyang-3 (01 launch was China’s 53rd orbital launch of the year. CASC stated early in the year it would aim to launch more than 60 times, and has so far completed 39 launches.

Galactic Energy, a commercial launch service provider, announced Thursday that it would soon resume launches of its Ceres-1 solid rocket. The company had suffered its first failure in late September. Galactic Energy enjoyed a run of nine consecutive successful launches before the setback.

The company released results of its investigation into the failure in late October. The report stated that abnormal ablation of a first stage engine nozzle occurred, causing the rocket to lose attitude control just over a minute into the flight.

Virgin Galactic to halt Unity suborbital flights by mid-2024

Virgin Galactic will reduce the frequency of flights of its current suborbital vehicle and stop them entirely by mid-2024 as it concentrates resources on the next generation of vehicles. In a Nov. 8 earnings call, company executives said flights of VSS Unity, which completed its fifth commercial suborbital mission Nov. 2, would move to a quarterly frequency starting with its next mission, Galactic 06 in January. That would be followed by Galactic 07 early in the second quarter. There could be a third mission, Galactic 08, around the middle of the year, but Michael Colglazier, Virgin Galactic’s chief executive, said the company had not decided yet whether to fly that mission before moving personnel and other resources to work on its Delta-class of vehicles. Virgin Galactic announced Nov. 7 it would be laying off staff and reducing other expenses to concentrate resources on the Delta class, which Colglazier said was key to the company’s future. The company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it would be cutting 185 jobs, or about 18% of its current workforce. That announcement did not provide any indications about the future of Unity, but Colglazier suggested in the earnings call that the company had learned what it needed about spaceflight operations and the experience of its customers over the five commercial flights it carried out between June and November. “Unity’s flight objectives are to demonstrate our system, showcase our astronaut experience and provide learnings for our Delta program,” he said. “The total costs to support Unity’s flights surpass the relatively modest monthly revenues.”

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane, VSS Unity, on the Unity 25 test flight May 25. Credit: Virgin Galactic

“The big move we’re making here is pivoting the resources that have been put into the Unity flights and redirecting them over to get the Delta ships done with the cash we have on hand,” he said later in the call.

Colglazier said that for the remaining flights, Virgin Galactic will concentrate on higher revenue opportunities. That includes research, which offers more revenue per seat than private astronauts. He said some seats might be sold to private astronauts who are willing to pay a “premium price” of up to $1 million each, versus the current price of $450,000.

Once Unity flights end, he said company staff who work on the vehicles at Spaceport America in New Mexico will go to a new factory near Phoenix the company expects to complete in the second quarter of 2024 to help with the assembly of the first Delta-class vehicles. Doing so, he said, will help with company resources and give personnel experience with the spaceplanes before test flights begin in 2025.

Those layoffs and other cost-cutting measures, along with a sale of stock in an “at-the-market” deal in the third quarter, should give the company enough funding to complete development of the first two Delta vehicles and begin commercial flights in 2026, the company concluded. Virgin Galactic ended the quarter with $1.1 billion of cash and equivalents on hand.

He said the company projected that the Delta-class vehicles will be able to fly twice a week, versus the monthly cadence of Unity flights. With the Delta vehicles able to carry six customers versus four on Unity, each Delta vehicle will be able to produce 12 times as much revenue per month as Unity.

That is key, executives said, in enabling the company to achieve a positive cash flow in 2026, with the increased revenues from Delta flights and a reduction in expenses from the end of the vehicles’ development.

“We project we have sufficient capital to build the revenue-generating assets necessary to achieve positive free cash flow,” said Doug Ahrens, the chief financial officer of Virgin Galactic. He added there is still $113 million available in its at-the-market stock offering it can sell for additional funding.

Virgin Galactic reported $1.7 million in revenue in the third quarter from its spaceflight as well as “membership fees” from customers, and projects $3 million in revenue in the fourth quarter. The company had a net loss of $105 million in the third quarter.

Astra, low on cash, defaults on loan

Dwindling cash reserves caused launch vehicle and spacecraft propulsion company Astra Space to default on a loan at the end of October, adding to doubts about the company’s future. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after the markets closed Nov. 3, Astra disclosed that it had triggered a default on a $12.5 million loan it secured in August from an unnamed institutional investor when its cash on hand fell below minimums required by the loan agreement. According to the filing, that loan required the company to have at least $15 million of cash and cash equivalents or else be in default of the agreement, but fell below that threshold on Oct. 11. The investor agreed to waive the default provide the company kept at least $10.5 million in cash and cash equivalents on hand and made a $2.1 million payment. The interest rate on the loan also went from 9% to 15%. However, Astra said it fell below that lower cash threshold on Oct. 30, which led to a default. Astra paid the investor $3.1 million on Nov. 1. It did not disclose how much cash it had remaining but said $8 million remains on the loan with that investor. Astra had been working to raise additional funding. The company said in a separate Oct. 23 SEC filing that it had signed a non-binding term sheet with JMCM Holdings LLC to be the lead investor in a loan of up to $25 million. The funds, Astra said, would be used to pay off the August loan and for “general corporate purposes.”

In the new SEC filing, Astra said it is in “continued discussions” with other investors about financing, but could not guarantee it could close any deal, or that the terms of any funding would be the same as what it disclosed in October.

In an Aug. 14 earnings call, Astra executives said they were working to identify strategic investors for both its Astra Spacecraft Engines spacecraft propulsion business as well as its Rocket 4 launch vehicle in development. The company had laid off a quarter of its workforce between the beginning of July and early August and shifted others from rocket to satellite propulsion work, delaying work on Rocket 4.

In that call, the company projected having $15 million to $20 million of cash on hand by the end of the third quarter Sept. 30. Company executives said both the August loan and a planned “at-the-market” sale of stock would help buy the company time to secure a strategic investment.

Shares in Astra fell nearly 19% in aftermarket trading Nov. 3. The company performed a 1-for-15 reverse stock split in September to get the company’s shares above a $1 threshold required by Nasdaq, but those shares have since fallen back below $1.

Astra is scheduled to release its third quarter financial results and hold an earnings call after the markets close Nov. 13.

Space Development Agency awards Northrop Grumman $732 million contract for 38 satellites and support services

The Space Development Agency awarded Northrop Grumman a $732 million contract for 38 communications satellites that will be part of the U.S. military’s low Earth orbit space architecture, the company announced Oct. 30. These satellites are for the portion of SDA’s mesh network known as Transport Layer Tranche 2 Alpha that will have a total of 100 satellites. The agency selected York Space Systems to build the other 62 spacecraft. Northrop Grumman’s contract includes ground systems and five years of operations and sustainment. The agreement includes an incentive payment for on-time delivery. The Alpha satellites are projected to launch in late 2026. Northrop won order for Alpha and Beta satellites. SDA, an organization under the U.S. Space Force, is building a layered network of military satellites. The Transport Layer will serve as a tactical network to move data to users around the world, transmitting classified data such as early warnings of missile launches. Alpha satellites carry optical communications terminals, Ka-band communications and Link 16 data transmission payloads. Transport Layer Tranche 2 also includes 72 Beta satellites that SDA recently ordered from Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. These carry more complex communications payloads.

Rendering of Space Development Agency's Transport Layer Tranche 2 Alpha satellites. Credit: Northrop Grumman

 

Northrop Grumman to date has won orders from SDA for 132 satellites for the Transport and the Tracking Layer. Both layers are designed to interoperate in space using a common data standard allowing satellites made by various manufacturers to communicate with one another.

Intuitive Machines delays first lander mission to January

Intuitive Machines announced Oct. 27 that is has pushed back the launch of its first lunar lander mission by two months to mid-January. In a statement issued after the markets closed, the company said its IM-1 mission is now scheduled to launch on a Falcon 9 in a “multi-day” window that opens Jan. 12 from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A. The mission had been scheduled to launch in a six-day window that opened Nov. 16. “There are inherent challenges of lunar missions; schedule changes and mission adjustments are a natural consequence of pioneering lunar exploration,” Steve Altemus, chief executive of Intuitive Machines, said in a statement. “Receiving a launch window and the required approvals to fly is a remarkable achievement, and the schedule adjustment is a small price to pay for making history.” The company did not elaborate on the reasons for the delay. However, executives warned at a media event Oct. 3 that “pad congestion” at LC-39A could delay their launch. The mission has to launch from that pad, rather than nearby Space Launch Complex 40, because only LC-39A is equipped to fuel the lander with methane and liquid oxygen propellants on the pad shortly before liftoff. That pad is used for Falcon 9 crew and cargo missions to the International Space Station as well as Falcon Heavy launches. The pad is scheduled to host the Falcon 9 launch of the CRS-29 cargo mission Nov. 5 followed by a Falcon Heavy mission for the Space Force in late November. Converting the pad between Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches can take up to three weeks.

The Nova-C lander built by Intuitive Machines seen during a media day Oct. 3 for the upcoming IM-1 mission. Credit: SpaceNews/Jeff Foust

In its statement, Intuitive Machines did not provide an update on the status of the lander. The company said at its Oct. 3 event that the lander was complete and had passed a “pre-ship review” the day before.

IM-1 is the first flight of the company’s Nova-C lander. The 675-kilogram lander is carrying five payloads for NASA as part of the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program and six commercial payloads, ranging from artwork to a camera that will detach during the lander’s final descent to take images as the lander touches down.

IM-1 is targeted to land seven days after launch in the vicinity of Malapert A, a crater in the south polar region of the moon. The spacecraft will operate for nearly two weeks, until the end of the lunar day deprives the lander of power.

The delay means that the first CLPS mission scheduled to launch is now Astrobotic’s Peregrine. That lander is scheduled to launch Dec. 24 on the inaugural flight of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur. Astrobotic said Oct. 27 that Peregrine has left its Pittsburgh headquarters and its on its way to Florida for pre-launch processing.