We are cutting through the orbital debris for you. In other words, we’re keeping an eye on space news on the web so you don’t have to.
Here is our round-up of the most important, and interesting, space news stories of February (space orders can be found in another post):
Anomalies, delays and failures
Lunar Trailblazer has woes on way to Moon as does its fellow launch passenger, the ODIN asteroid probe
Falcon 9’s uncontrolled upper stage re-entry over Europe was caused by internal propellant leak
Fire in aft compartment doomed Starship IFT-7 flight says SpaceX
Part of New Glenn’s rocket fairing washes up on beach in Bahamas
Human space
A Pakistani astronaut may be sent to space, with some help from China
India revealed that its crewed mission to the Moon will be launched by a pair of Soorya rockets
Meanwhile, NASA loses four officials key to its Moon programme
The International Space Station’s orbit was raised ahead of a Soyuz MS-27 crewed spacecraft launch, Roscosmos announced
Elon Musk wants NASA to deorbit the ISS “as soon as possible” to turn its attention to Mars missions instead
Space Science
New radiation rings formed around Earth – for a time
Rogue asteroid will not hit Earth just before Christmas 2032, but the Moon might be struck
Some meteors striking Earth’s atmosphere probably come from Alpha Centuri star system
Boulder seen moving on Comet had ice rocket propulsion
Space Technology
NASA plans to make a significant update to its core Flight System (cFS), the reusable software it has relied on for two decades
Chinese scientists are developing a drone – that weighs as much as an apple – that can roll and fly across Mars
Military Space
Trump moves to cut $50 billion from the 2026 US defense budget, while safeguarding the ‘Iron Dome’ initiative – which, incidentally, has been renamed to ‘Golden Dome’
US defence contractor KBR cinched a US$176 million contract to modernize the Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing Site
The Space Force has some way to go if it wants to counter China, according to a new report by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies
In separate news, the Space Force cancelled its contract with Astrion, one of the four companies developing designs for its Resilient GPS program
Companies/Money:
Airbus is hit with another €300 million euros space program charges, but it is not all bad news. Airbus SE has hired Goldman Sachs to get advice on developing a new European space and satellite company to compete with SpaceX
ABL Space rebrands to Long Wall as its pivots to defence
Space consultancy Novaspace has published the 7th edition of its FSS Capacity Pricing Trends report. The upshot is that FSS capacity pricing faces new challenges as the industry “Shifts from Scarcity to Abundance”
SpaceNews writer Jason Rainbow tries to make sense of the rapidly changing space economy
Behemoths Eutelsat Group, MediaTek Inc. and Airbus Defence and Space have pulled off the first successful trial of 5G Non-Terrestrial Network technology over Eutelsat’s OneWeb LEO
Things are not looking good for Boeing staff working on the Space Launch System (SLS) program, after the company warned of possible layoffs, including cutting 71 roles in Alabama. It comes as the company reported cumulative losses of over US$2 billion on its Starliner programme
SES had something to say about Ratings agency Moody’s downgrading its outlook from stable to negative
In further gloomy news, Blue Origin will be reducing its workforce by 10%
Spire Global sues Kpler, a Belgian analytics provider, to complete an acquisition
In another legal battle, Geost has filed a US$17.1 million breach of contract lawsuit against Sierra Space. In better news for the aerospace company, the US Air Force awarded Sierra Space a US$16 million extension to its contract to continue testing its VR35K-A upper stage rocket engine
BlackSky to support the development of India’s first private Earth observation constellation
Lynk Global has raised more than US$85 million to further expand its direct-to-smartphone satellite network
Payload published a deep dive into what newly revealed direct-to-cell pricing means for the market
Spaceports:
Saxavord launch base in Shetland to host its first orbital launch in July as Danish billionaire ups his stake
Rocket operators queue up to use Etlaq spaceport in Oman including PLD
Space Agencies:
NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free has retired after 30 years at the space agency
Some staff working on the Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS) and others in the Office of Space Commerce have been laid off as part of broader cuts made to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Poland has agreed to continue funding Ukraine’s Starlink access
There are mixed messages from the US when it comes to its Moon programmes – as a White House statement referenced the Artemis campaign of human lunar exploration.
Sources include Cision, BBC, CNBC, msn.com, NASA, Orbitaltoday, Payload, phys.org, Politico, scmp.com and SpaceNews with links provided to each story.
