THE #WOODLANDS, Texas — The first flight of privately developed Japanese rocket ended in a catastrophic failure seconds after liftoff March 12.

The Kairos rocket, built by Japanese company Space One, exploded about five seconds after liftoff at 10:01 p.m. Eastern from #Spaceport Kii, a launch site in the southern part of Honshu. In a webcast of the launch, the rocket had not yet cleared a hillside surrounding it when it exploded.

Fragments of the #rocket fell back to the ground near the launch pad. There were no reports of injuries, and the launch pad itself appeared to escape damage.

#HELSINKI — Japan has established a multibillion-dollar Space Strategic Fund to help develop the country’s innovation, autonomy and international competitiveness in space.

Japan’s cabinet approved a bill to establish a $6.7 billion (1 trillion yen), 10-year fund for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in November, aimed at supporting development, technology demonstration, and commercialization of advanced technologies in the space field. New details were presented in a Space Policy Committee meeting in February, including defining three areas for support: satellites, space exploration and space transportation

#TAMPA, Fla. — The Airbus-built Eutelsat 36D geostationary communications #satellite landed in Sanford, Florida, March 11 ahead of a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch slated from the nearby Kennedy Space Center at the end of the month.

Eutelsat 36D had set off Saturday on an Airbus BelugaST (Super Transporter) from France where the satellite maker is based. It is the third time the manufacturer’s alternative to Ukrainian Antonov aircraft has flown a large satellite across the Atlantic since Airbus started offering an outsized freight transportation service two years ago.

The roughly 5,000-kilogram satellite is due to travel by truck to its launch site.

#TAMPA, Fla. — SpaceX has secured conditional approval to use extremely high-frequency E-band radio waves to improve the capacity of its low Earth orbit Starlink #broadband #constellation.

The Federal Communications Commission said March 8 it is allowing #SpaceX to use E-band frequencies between second-generation Starlink satellites and gateways on the ground, alongside already approved spectrum in the Ka and Ku bands.

Specifically, SpaceX is now also permitted to communicate between 71 and 76 gigahertz from space to Earth, and 81-86 GHz Earth-to-space, using the up to 7,500 Gen2 satellites SpaceX is allowed to deploy.

SpaceX has plans for 30,000 Gen2 satellites, on top of the 4,400 Gen1 #satellites already authorized by the #FCC.

#TAMPA, Fla. — Belgian camera maker Simera Sense has raised nearly $15 million to expand system assembly facilities out of South Africa and closer to its component producers in #Europe to develop higher-resolution #Cubesat products.

Simera Sense CEO and cofounder Johann du Toit said the company is also looking to establish a new facility this year, likely in Europe, to increase production capacity at least five times to meet growing demand from Earth observation satellite manufacturers.

“Our current production capacity is about 25 payloads plus additional 30-40 engineering and test models per year,” he told SpaceNews via email.

THE #WOODLANDS, Texas — #NASA says its fiscal year 2025 budget proposal is constrained by the second year of a debt-ceiling agreement that caps overall spending, leading to delays, potential cancellations and broader uncertainty for many NASA science programs in particular.

NASA released its fiscal year 2025 budget proposal March 11, requesting $25.384 billion, the exact amount it received in fiscal year 2023. It is a little more than half a billion dollars more than what the agency received in the final fiscal year 2024 spending bill enacted last week.

However, NASA had requested nearly $27.2 billion in its original fiscal year 2024 budget request a year ago. That request projected seeking $27.73 billion in 2025, so the new fiscal year 2025 proposal reflects a reduction of more than $2.3 billion from those earlier ambitions

#SANFRANCISCO – Phantom Space Corp. closed a bridge round to fund the Tucson, Arizona-based startup’s development and manufacturing of #satellites and launch vehicles.

#Phantom’s March 11 news release did not disclose the value of the latest round. To date, the company has raised about $37 million.

Phantom is developing Daytona, a launch vehicle for payloads with a maximum mass of 500 kilograms. In addition, Phantom plans to establish the Phantom Cloud small satellite constellation. Phantom Cloud is designed to provide #satellite data backhaul services, on-orbit cloud storage and edge computing.

#WASHINGTON — The Defense Department is requesting $144 million for the Office of Strategic Capital, created to help bring private investment to companies developing dual-use technologies with both commercial and national security applications.

In an investment strategy released March 8, the Pentagon identified space services, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity among its priorities for attracting private capital.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin launched the Office of Strategic Capital in December 2022. But the program thus far has been stuck in limbo due to a lack of congressional authorization to make loans and actual funding. The OSC wants to use financial tools like loan guarantees to spur #commercial investment.

#WASHINGTON — Earth imaging and analytics company #BlackSky won a $3.5 million contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory to supply satellite imagery and analysis in support of “global moving target engagement,” the Air Force said March 8.

This award comes on the heels of a research contract last year, and a $2 million award announced March 4 to supply the Air Force #satellite imagery data and access to the BlackSky data analytics platform. Under the $2 million contract, the #AFRL will use the data for studies and to help train artificial intelligence models focused on detecting and tracking moving objects and targets from space.

#WASHINGTON — #Rocket propulsion startup Ursa Major announced March 9 its Hadley engine successfully flew for the first time powering a Stratolaunch #hypersonic test vehicle.

Stratolaunch operates a giant aircraft — a modified version of a double-fuselage Boeing 747-400 — that serves as a mobile launchpad. It carries hypersonic vehicles underneath its center wing until reaching the desired altitude. This allows hypersonic vehicles to reach higher speeds before ignition and avoids the complexities of ground launching

The March 9 test off the coast of California, over the Pacific Ocean, was the first powered flight of Stratolaunch’s Talon hypersonic test vehicle. The company said the vehicle reached high supersonic speeds approaching Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound.