#HELSINKI — #China is set to launch its Queqiao-2 communications relay satellite to support upcoming moon missions late March 19.

A Long March 8 rocket was vertically transferred to a launch pad at Wenchang #Satellite Launch Center early March 17. The rocket will launch Queqiao-2 towards the moon in preparation for the Chang’e-6 lunar far side sample return mission in May.

Queqiao-2 has a mass of 1,200 kilograms and is equipped with a 4.2-meter parabolic antenna. Its elliptical orbit will allow it to maintain communication with both Earth and lunar far side, which never faces the Earth.

#WASHINGTON — Turion Space’s debut satellite should be ready to start imaging objects in space by May after nearly a year of commissioning in low Earth orbit (LEO), according to CEO and cofounder Ryan Westerdahl.

The three-year-old Californian space situational awareness (SSA) startup first opened the door to the imaging sensor on its 32-kilogram Droid.001 spacecraft a couple of months ago, Westerdahl said, following its SpaceX launch in June.

“We wanted to make sure we had good control of the satellite before doing it because we didn’t want to damage the optical sensor,” he told SpaceNews in an interview, “like for example if all of a sudden the satellite was staring at the sun.”

Peregrine payloads returned useful data despite no lunar landing.
THE WOODLANDS, Texas — Despite not making it to the moon, #NASA and others flying payloads on Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander say they still got useful data from the mission.

Peregrine launched Jan. 8 on the first flight of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur. The #spacecraft, though, suffered a propellant leak hours after launch that ruled out any chance of attempting a lunar landing. The spacecraft instead reentered a week and a half after launch.

Although Peregrine did not reach the moon, many of the payloads on board were tested during the flight. “In transit, we were going to keep most of those payloads in a survival mode,” said Dan Hendrickson, vice president of Astrobotic, during a March 11 session about the mission at the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference here. “But as our mission deviated, the plan deviated as well, much to the benefit of all the payloads.”

While many of the science payloads on Peregrine weren’t able to collect their intended data from the surface of the moon, they were able to be tested in space and, in some cases, perform some science.

THE #WOODLANDS, Texas — Efforts by scientists to use a Mars rover to collect samples are continuing even as #NASA wraps up a new assessment of when and how those samples will be brought back to Earth.

The Perseverance rover, which landed on Mars in February 2021, has filled 26 of its 43 sample tubes, scientists involved with the mission said in presentations at the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference (LPSC) here March 12. The rover is climbing up the remains of a river delta that once flowed into Jezero Crater.

Of those 26 tubes, 20 contain rock cores, said Meenakshi Wadhwa, a planetary scientist at Arizona State University who serves as principal scientist for Mars Sample Return (MSR) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Two contain regolith and another holds a sample of the atmosphere, while the other three are “witness tubes” that serve as controls to identify any terrestrial contamination in the other tubes.

#WASHINGTON — Space infrastructure company #Redwire plans to continue its growth and its push to profitability by seeking larger contracts for its lines of components while moving up the value chain, including a new satellite design.

In financial results released after the markets closed March 14, Redwire reported revenue of $243.8 million in 2023, a 51.9% increase over 2022. When excluding the contribution from QinetiQ Space NV, a Belgian company Redwire acquired in late 2022, Redwire’s revenue still grew by 26.9%.

The company also reported positive adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $15.3 million, versus an adjusted EBITDA loss of $11 million in 2022. The company still reported a net loss of $27.3 million in 2023, but that was an improvement of $103.4 million over 2022

#TAMPA, Fla. — U.S. regulators have approved ground rules for allowing #SpaceX and other satellite operators to use radio waves from terrestrial mobile partners to keep smartphone users connected outside cell tower coverage.

The Federal Communications Commission voted March 14 unanimously in favor of its Supplemental Coverage from Space (SCS) regulatory framework.

SCS providers would operate as a secondary service to companies providing Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) with conventional frequencies already approved for use from space.

This means an SCS operator would have to immediately cease operations if they interfere with an MSS provider or terrestrial telco with primary rights. The SCS regulatory framework also includes protections to guard against interference with astronomy.

#WASHINGTON — After recently winning a major contract to build military #satellites, Sierra Space is aiming to capture a larger share of the national security market in new sectors like in-orbit services and transportation.

Sierra Space is perhaps best known for developing Dream Chaser, a reusable spaceplane designed to ferry cargo and supplies to the International Space Station, and for partnering with Blue Origin on the construction of a commercially developed space station.

But the company also is gaining traction in the national security space business, with $1.3 billion worth of defense-related orders, Erik Daehler, Sierra Space’s vice president of orbital systems and services, told #SpaceNews.

#WASHINGTON — SpaceX’s Starship vehicle lifted off on its third test flight March 14, making significant progress compared to its first two.

The #Starship/Super Heavy vehicle lifted off from the company’s Starbase site at 9:25 a.m. Eastern. The liftoff was delayed by nearly an hour and a half because of ships in restricted waters offshore. SpaceX reported no technical issues during the countdown.

The Super #Heavy booster fired all 33 of its Raptor engines for nearly three minutes before executing “hot staging”, with the Starship upper stage’s engines igniting while still attached to Super Heavy. The booster then performed burns to attempt what SpaceX webcast hosts called a “soft splashdown” in the Gulf of Mexico, where it would not be recovered. However, the landing burn did not appear to go correctly, and telemetry suggested the booster hit the water at speeds in excess of 1,000 kilometers per hour

#WASHINGTON — A startup named Defense Unicorns has won a $15 million contract to update IT systems and #software applications used to support rocket launches at U.S. Space Force ranges.

The company, based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, won a so-called Strategic Funding Increase, or #STRATFI, agreement from SpaceWERX, the technology arm of the Space Force.

STRATFI contracts are awarded to companies that have won Small Business Innovation Research projects to help transition products from development to production and to help small businesses attract private investors.

#TAMPA, Fla. — Omnispace is exploring how its proposed constellation of more than 600 low Earth orbit (LEO) #satellites could help connect phones and other devices subscribed to #MTN, Africa’s largest terrestrial mobile network operator.

The companies said March 12 they will use Omispace’s two prototypes in #LEO and the medium Earth orbit satellite acquired 12 years ago from bankrupt satellite services firm ICO to test the network, which would use S-band spectrum to keep mobile customers connected outside cell tower coverage.

MTN provides voice, data, and other connectivity services to more than 290 million customers in 19 countries across Africa and the Middle East.

Financial details about their partnership were not disclosed.