A microwave-sized factory in space has generated plasma for the first time, bringing us one step closer to manufacturing materials in microgravity for use on Earth.
Space Forge successfully activated the manufacturing furnace on board its first satellite, ForgeStar-1, reaching temperatures of 1,830 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius) in low Earth orbit, the company announced this week. With its groundbreaking feat, the company established the needed conditions to produce semiconductor materials in space and further develop its orbital factory.
Made in space
ForgeStar-1 launched on June 27, 2025, on board SpaceX’s Transporter-14 rideshare mission. The in-space manufacturing satellite is the first for the UK, with Space Forge hoping to grow semiconductor crystals that are up to 4,000 times purer than those produced on Earth.
As space becomes more accessible, so do the many ways we can benefit from sending and operating satellites in orbit. In-space manufacturing leverages the unique orbital environment to create advanced materials, ones that bypass gravity-induced defects on Earth.
Space Forge’s recent plasma demonstration is an industry first, and it confirms that the extreme conditions needed for crystal growth can be created in low-Earth orbit. The weightlessness of space allows atoms to align in a more ordered and perfect way than is possible on Earth due to the absence of convection (the transfer of heat through the movement of fluids).
“Generating plasma on orbit represents a fundamental shift,” Joshua Western, CEO and co-founder of Space Forge, said in a statement. “It proves that the essential environment for advanced crystal growth can be achieved on a dedicated, commercial satellite—opening the door to a completely new manufacturing frontier.”
The company aims to manufacture materials for semiconductors, which can have multiple applications on Earth, such as electronics, communications infrastructure, and transport. “This sort of semiconductor would go on to be in the 5G tower in which you get your mobile phone signal… it’s going to be in the latest planes,” Western said.
Now that its mission is complete, ForgeStar-1 is destined to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. The company used its first satellite to test a heat shield, named Pridwen, so that future variants have the ability to re-enter through the atmosphere in one piece and return the material to Earth.
SpaceX logo is screened on a mobile phone for illustration photo.
Beata Zawrzel | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Eutelsat, the world’s third-biggest satellite operator by revenue, launched 20 satellites for its communications network on Sunday, using Elon Musk’s SpaceX in its first move since the merger of two European companies last year.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took off, with Eutelsat satellites from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base at 0513 GMT.
“This is the first OneWeb launch of the satellites since the merger,” CEO Eva Berneke told Reuters in an interview. “We will be launching more satellites over the coming years.”
The Paris-based group formed by the merger in September last year of France’s Eutelsat and Britain’s OneWeb has a constellation of over 600 low earth orbit satellites that cater to broadcasters, telecom companies and radio stations.
“We really want to integrate into the telco ecosystem,” Berneke said. “Satellites are an interesting niche in the overall connectivity ecosystems where telcos are the big boys in the class and satellite will always be a smaller part.”
Eutelsat counts telecom operators such as France’s Orange and Australia’s Telstra as clients and is in talks with others such as AT&T in the U.S.
The company, which has a backlog of orders of $4 billion, is waiting for countries such as India and Saudi Arabia to open up.
India – a market set to grow 36% a year to $1.9 billion by 2030 – is in the process of allowing satellite services. It has experienced friction between domestic players and companies such as Starlink.
Two Asian chipmaking giants had a Friday to remember, but for different reasons.00:0201:26
“We have some of our backlog sitting in the Indian market… It sits there until India gets open, the day it gets open, we’ll start building,” Berneke said.
The company is also in talks with aviation companies to offer in-flight connectivity, including internet browsing, and expects revenue to start increasing from next year, she said.
The Super Heavy booster lands on the company’s launch tower during the fifth Starship flight on Oct. 13, 2024.
SpaceX
SpaceX launched its fifth test flight of its Starship rocket on Sunday and made a dramatic first catch of the rocket’s more than 20-story tall booster.
The achievement marks a major milestone toward SpaceX’s goal of making Starship a fully reusable rocket system.
Elon Musk‘s company launched Starship at 8:25 a.m. ET from its Starbase facility near Brownsville, Texas. The rocket’s “Super Heavy” booster returned to land on the arms of the company’s launch tower nearly seven minutes after launch.
“Are you kidding me?” SpaceX communications manager Dan Huot said on the company’s webcast.
“What we just saw, that looked like magic,” Huot added.
SpaceX catches the first-stage “Super Heavy” booster of its Starship rocket on Oct. 13, 2024.
Sergio Flores | Afp | Getty Images
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX in a post on social media.
“As we prepare to go back to the Moon under Artemis, continued testing will prepare us for the bold missions that lie ahead,” Nelson wrote.
Starship separated and continued on to space, traveling halfway around the Earth before reentering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Indian Ocean as intended to complete the test.
There were no people on board the fifth Starship flight. The company’s leadership has said SpaceX expects to fly hundreds of Starship missions before the rocket launches with any crew.
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The full Starship system has flown four spaceflight tests previously, with launches in April and November of last year, as well as this March and June. Each of the test flights have achieved more milestones than the last.
SpaceX emphasizes that it tries to build “on what we’ve learned from previous flights” in its approach to developing the massive rocket.
SpaceX’s Starship lifts off from Starbase near Boca Chica, Texas, on October 13, 2024 during the rocket’s fifth flight test.
Sergio Flores | Afp | Getty Images
The Starship system is designed to be fully reusable and aims to become a new method of flying cargo and people beyond Earth. The rocket is also critical to NASA’s plan to return astronauts to the moon. SpaceX won a multibillion-dollar contract from the agency to use Starship as a crewed lunar lander as part of NASA’s Artemis moon program.
The Federal Aviation Administration issued SpaceX with a license to launch Starship’s fifth flight on Saturday, sooner than the regulator previously estimated. But the company wanted to launch the fifth flight earlier than October, leading both SpaceX and Musk to be vocally critical of the FAA, saying that “superfluous environmental analysis” was holding up the process.
While the FAA and partner agencies at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Commerce Department’s National Marine Fisheries Service conducted assessments more quickly than anticipated, SpaceX has also had to pay fines to environmental regulators regarding unauthorized water discharges at its Texas launch site.
The SpaceX Starship is seen as it stands on the launch pad ahead of its third flight test from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas on March 12, 2024.
Chandan Khanna | AFP | Getty Images
With the booster catch, SpaceX has surpassed the fourth test flight’s milestones.
The company completed its goal of returning the booster back to the launch site and used the “chopstick” arms on the tower to catch the vehicle. The company sees the ambitious catch approach as critical to its goal of making the rocket fully reusable.
“SpaceX engineers have spent years preparing and months testing for the booster catch attempt, with technicians pouring tens of thousands of hours into building the infrastructure to maximize our chances for success,” the company wrote on its website.
The catch requires thousands of criteria to be met, the company said. If it hadn’t been ready, the booster would have diverted from the return trajectory to instead splash down off the coast in the Gulf of Mexico.
“We accept no compromises when it comes to ensuring the safety of the public and our team, and the return will only be attempted if conditions are right,” SpaceX said.
Starship is both the tallest and most powerful rocket ever launched. Fully stacked on the Super Heavy booster, Starship stands 397 feet tall and is about 30 feet in diameter.
The Super Heavy booster, which stands 232 feet tall, is what begins the rocket’s journey to space. At its base are 33 Raptor engines, which together produce 16.7 million pounds of thrust — about double the 8.8 million pounds of thrust of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, which launched for the first time in 2022.
Starship itself, at 165 feet tall, has six Raptor engines — three for use while in the Earth’s atmosphere and three for operating in the vacuum of space.
The rocket is powered by liquid oxygen and liquid methane. The full system requires more than 10 million pounds of propellant for launch.
A view of a SpaceX rocket, as seen across the Rio Grande in Brownsville, Texas, U.S., July 22, 2024.
Veronica Cardenas | Reuters
SpaceX launched a rescue mission for the two stuck astronauts at the International Space Station on Saturday, sending up a downsized crew to bring them home but not until next year.
Since NASA rotates space station crews approximately every six months, this newly launched flight with two empty seats reserved for Wilmore and Williams won’t return until late February. Officials said there wasn’t a way to bring them back earlier on SpaceX without interrupting other scheduled missions.
By the time they return, the pair will have logged more than eight months in space. They expected to be gone just a week when they signed up for Boeing’s first astronaut flight that launched in June.
NASA ultimately decided that Boeing’s Starliner was too risky after a cascade of thruster troubles and helium leaks marred its trip to the orbiting complex. The space agency cut two astronauts from this SpaceX launch to make room on the return leg for Wilmore and Williams.
Williams has since been promoted to commander of the space station, which will soon be back to its normal population of seven. Once Hague and Gorbunov arrive this weekend, four astronauts living there since March can leave in their own SpaceX capsule. Their homecoming was delayed a month by Starliner’s turmoil.
Hague noted before the flight that change is the one constant in human spaceflight.
“There’s always something that is changing. Maybe this time it’s been a little more visible to the public,” he said.
Hague was thrust into the commander’s job for the rescue mission based on his experience and handling of a launch emergency six years ago. The Russian rocket failed shortly after liftoff, and the capsule carrying him and a cosmonaut catapulted off the top to safety.
Rookie NASA astronaut Zena Cardman and veteran space flier Stephanie Wilson were pulled from this flight after NASA opted to go with SpaceX to bring the stuck astronauts home. The space agency said both would be eligible to fly on future missions. Gorbunov remained under an exchange agreement between NASA and the Russian Space Agency.
“I don’t know exactly when my launch to space will be, but I know that I will get there,” Cardman said from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, where she took part in the launch livestream.
Hague acknowledged the challenges of launching with half a crew and returning with two astronauts trained on another spacecraft.
“We’ve got a dynamic challenge ahead of us,” Hague said after arriving from Houston last weekend. “We know each other and we’re professionals and we step up and do what’s asked of us.”
SpaceX has long been the leader in NASA’s commercial crew program, established as the space shuttles were retiring more than a decade ago. SpaceX beat Boeing in delivering astronauts to the space station in 2020 and it’s now up to 10 crew flights for NASA.
Boeing has struggled with a variety of issues over the years, repeating a Starliner test flight with no one on board after the first one veered off course. The Starliner that left Wilmore and Williams in space landed without any issues in the New Mexico desert on Sept. 6, and has since returned to Kennedy Space Center. A week ago, Boeing’s defense and space chief was replaced.
Delayed by Hurricane Helene pounding Florida, the latest SpaceX liftoff marked the first for astronauts from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. SpaceX took over the old Titan rocket pad nearly two decades ago and used it for satellite launches, while flying crews from Kennedy’s former Apollo and shuttle pad next door. The company wanted more flexibility as more Falcon rockets soared.
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Boeing aims to launch its first Starliner flight with astronauts on Wednesday, in the latest attempt to fly the long-delayed spacecraft.
The launch is scheduled for 10:52 a.m. ET from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Two NASA astronauts will be aboard the Starliner capsule, which will be carried by United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket to the International Space Station.
Wednesday is the latest in a series of attempts to launch the mission, which is known as the Boeing crew flight test. On Saturday, a launch attempt was called off in the final minutes of the countdown due to a problem with one of the computer’s that provides ground support to the rocket. In early May, another attempt was called off due to an issue detected with the rocket itself.
If the launch is postponed again, Boeing has a backup opportunity scheduled for Thursday.
United Launch Alliance – or ULA, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin – replaced the rocket’s problematic valve after the May attempt and replaced a faulty part in the ground infrastructure computer after Saturday’s attempt.
The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft sits to Space Launch Complex 41 at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on June 3, 2024.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, left, and Suni Williams.
Credit: Kim Shiflett | NASA
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are flying on Starliner, with the former serving as the spacecraft’s commander and the latter as its pilot.
Wilmore joined NASA in 2000 and has flown to space twice previously on the Space Shuttle and Russia’s Soyuz. Before NASA, Wilmore was a U.S. Navy pilot.
Williams was selected by NASA in 1998 and has also flown to space twice before, on the Space Shuttle and then the Soyuz. Williams was also a Navy pilot, like Wilmore, before joining the space agency.
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft atop the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is seen on the launch pad of Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Thursday, May 30, 2024.
Isaac Watson | NASA
Starliner launches on ULA’s Atlas V. The rocket debuted in 2002, and the Starliner crew flight test represents its 100th launch.
The capsule itself is built to carry as many as four NASA astronauts per flight and more than 200 pounds of research and cargo. The spacecraft lands using a parachute and airbag system. Starliner is reusable, with each capsule designed to fly as many as 10 missions.
Boeing’s crew flight test aims to certify the Starliner system as capable of carrying NASA astronauts to and from the ISS.
If Starliner launches on Wednesday, it will fly in space for about 25 hours before a planned docking with the International Space Station at 12:15 p.m. on Thursday. The astronauts will then spend about a week on the ISS, focused on testing Starliner, before returning to Earth.
SpaceX is building a network of hundreds of spy satellites under a classified contract with a U.S. intelligence agency, five sources familiar with the program said, demonstrating deepening ties between billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s space company and national security agencies.
The network is being built by SpaceX’s Starshield business unit under a $1.8 billion contract signed in 2021 with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), an intelligence agency that manages spy satellites, the sources said.
The plans show the extent of SpaceX’s involvement in U.S. intelligence and military projects and illustrate a deeper Pentagon investment into vast, low-Earth orbiting satellite systems aimed at supporting ground forces.
If successful, the sources said the program would significantly advance the ability of the U.S. government and military to quickly spot potential targets almost anywhere on the globe.
The contract signals growing trust by the intelligence establishment of a company whose owner has clashed with the Biden administration and sparked controversy over the use of Starlink satellite connectivity in the Ukraine war, the sources said.
The Wall Street Journal reported in February the existence of a $1.8 billion classified Starshield contract with an unknown intelligence agency without detailing the purposes of the program.
Reuters reporting discloses for the first time that the SpaceX contract is for a powerful new spy system with hundreds of satellites bearing Earth-imaging capabilities that can operate as a swarm in low orbits, and that the spy agency that Musk’s company is working with is the NRO.
Reuters was unable to determine when the new network of satellites would come online and could not establish what other companies are part of the program with their own contracts.
SpaceX, the world’s largest satellite operator, did not respond to several requests for comment about the contract, its role in it and details on satellite launches. The Pentagon referred a request for comment to the NRO and SpaceX.
In a statement, the NRO acknowledged its mission to develop a sophisticated satellite system and its partnerships with other government agencies, companies, research institutions and nations, but declined to comment on Reuters’ findings about the extent of SpaceX’s involvement in the effort.
“The National Reconnaissance Office is developing the most capable, diverse, and resilient space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance system the world has ever seen,” a spokesperson said.
The satellites can track targets on the ground and share that data with U.S. intelligence and military officials, the sources said. In principle, that would enable the U.S. government to quickly capture continuous imagery of activities on the ground nearly anywhere on the globe, aiding intelligence and military operations, they added.
Roughly a dozen prototypes have been launched since 2020, among other satellites on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets, three of the sources said.
A U.S. government database of objects in orbit shows several SpaceX missions having deployed satellites that neither the company nor the government have ever acknowledged. Two sources confirmed those to be prototypes for the Starshield network.
All the sources asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to discuss the U.S. government program.
The Pentagon is already a big SpaceX customer, using its Falcon 9 rockets to launch military payloads into space. Starshield’s first prototype satellite, launched in 2020, was part of a separate, roughly $200 million contract that helped position SpaceX for the subsequent $1.8 billion award, one of the sources said.
The planned Starshield network is separate from Starlink, SpaceX’s growing commercial broadband constellation that has about 5,500 satellites in space to provide near-global internet to consumers, companies and government agencies.
The classified constellation of spy satellites represents one of the U.S. government’s most sought-after capabilities in space because it is designed to offer the most persistent, pervasive and rapid coverage of activities on Earth.
“No one can hide,” one of the sources said of the system’s potential capability, when describing the network’s reach.
Musk, also the founder and CEO of Tesla and owner of social media company X (formerly Twitter), has driven innovation in space but has caused frustration among some officials in the Biden administration because of his past control of Starlink in Ukraine, where Kyiv’s military uses it for secure communications in the conflict with Russia. That authority over Starlink in a war zone by Musk, and not the U.S. military, created tension between him and the U.S. government.
A series of Reuters’ stories has detailed how Musk’s manufacturing operations, including at SpaceX, have harmed consumers and workers.
The Starshield network is part of intensifying competition between the U.S. and its rivals to become the dominant military power in space, in part by expanding spy satellite systems away from bulky, expensive spacecraft at higher orbits. Instead a vast, low-orbiting network can provide quicker and near-constant imaging of the Earth.
China also plans to start building its own satellite constellations, and the Pentagon has warned of space weapon threats from Russia, which could be capable of disabling entire satellite networks.
Starshield aims to be more resilient to attacks from sophisticated space powers.
The network is also intended to greatly expand the U.S. government’s remote-sensing capabilities and will consist of large satellites with imaging sensors, as well as a greater number of relay satellites that pass the imaging data and other communications across the network using inter-satellite lasers, two of the sources said.
The NRO includes personnel from the U.S. Space Force and CIA and provides classified satellite imagery for the Pentagon and other intelligence agencies.
The spy satellites will house sensors provided by another company, three of the sources said.
November 11-15, 1966 – Serves as the commander of Gemini 12, with pilot Buzz Aldrin.
December 21-27, 1968 – Along with crewmen Borman and William Anders, Lovell serves as command module pilot of Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon.
April 11-17, 1970 – Serves as commander of Apollo 13 with crew John Swigert and Fred Haise. An explosion two days into the flight causes the mission to be aborted, and the remaining time is spent working towards returning to Earth safely.
April 18, 1970 – Receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
November 2011 –An Apollo 13 checklist that Lovell used for calculations sells at auction for $388,375. After the sale, NASA questions whether Lovell had the right to sell the checklist.
January 2012 – NASA Chief Charles Bolden meets with Lovell and other astronauts to discuss to work out the issue of artifact ownership. No agreement is reached.
September 2012 – President Barack Obama signs a bill into law giving NASA’s Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts full ownership rights to the artifacts they collected from their missions.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is known for its frequent launches, which now dominate the space industry. But thesatellites that the rockets send to space are just as important for the company as the launches. Starlink is SpaceX’s answer to providing global, high-speed internet coverage using a network of thousands of satellites buzzing around the planet in a region known as low Earth orbit (LEO), about 342 miles above the Earth’s surface.
SpaceX launched its first batch of Starlink satellites in 2019. Adoption of the service has ballooned since then. The company has said Starlink has more than 2 million active customers and is available on all seven continents and in over 60 countries.
“This growth is uncharacteristic in the sense of its magnitude. Whereas prior satellite service providers have ramped up to anywhere at most between 500,000 to a little bit over a million subscribers. And this has taken, you know, a ten-year period, Starlink’s race to 2 million subscribers has taken only the better part of two years,” says Brent Prokosh, a Senior Affiliate Consultant at Euroconsult.
A Falcon 9 rockets launches a Starlink mission on January 20, 2021.
SpaceX
Experts estimate that the global market for consumer satellite services, including TV, radio, and broadband internet, was worth over $92 billion in 2022. And Starlink could be in a good position to capture a big piece of the market. Although initially conceived for the consumer segment, Starlink’s offerings have expanded to serve enterprise customers including in the maritime and aviation industries.
“Starlink’s importance to SpaceX overall as a company is imperative. Euroconsult estimates that, optimistically, by the end of 2023, this business of Starlink could represent upwards of 40% of SpaceX’s overall business. This total would be somewhere in excess of $3 billion generated from Starlink,” Prokosh says.
Starlink has been praised for its ability to connect remote parts of the world that would otherwise not have access to reliable internet. The service has also become indispensable in areas hit by natural disasters, and, more recently, during times of conflict, particularly in the Russia-Ukraine war.
“The big benefit of Starlink and how it’s being used in Ukraine today is communications. It’s providing a pathway for the military, for civilians to stay connected to the outside world. It allows a pathway for the military to communicate with each other and to provide command and control direction to their forces,” says Kari Bingen who is the Director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Ukrainian forces set up Starlink satellite receivers to provide connection for civilians at Independence Square after the withdrawal of the Russian army from Kherson to the eastern bank of Dnieper River, Ukraine, on November 13, 2022.
Metin Atkas | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
But Starlink’s growing influence is garnering condemnation from critics who say Musk is meddling in geopolitics. Meanwhile, the scientific community has its own concerns.
“The astronomical community got concerned about the first launch of the Starlink satellite a few years ago because the projection of the full constellation of several tens of thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit was immediately seen as an interference to both the optical observation and to radio observation,” says Piero Benvenuti, who is the Interim General Secretary, International Astronomical Union.
To find out more about Starlink’s rapid expansion and if it can continue, watch the video.
Astra tests a rocket at its headquarters on the San Francisco Bay in Alameda, California.
Astra
The founders of struggling space company Astra have offered to take the company private at a value of about $30 million, according to a securities filing on Thursday.
Chris Kemp, chairman and CEO, and Adam London, chief technology officer, delivered a proposal to the Astra board of directors on Wednesday to acquire all the company’s outstanding stock at $1.50 a share.
That price is a 103% premium to Wednesday’s closing price at 74 cents a share, which represents a market value of about $16 million.
“We believe that Astra’s strategic objectives and business prospects will be best served as a private company. Taking the company private while delivering a meaningful premium to current shareholders allows for the best interests of shareholders as well as the Company, its employees and its customers to be met,” Kemp and London wrote in a letter to the board.
The founders anticipate raising $60 million to $65 million in capital to fund the take-private move, given the purchase price as well as transaction expenses and bridge financing. Kemp and London are also “open to certain accredited investor stockholders of the Company rolling their equity into the transaction.”
Astra’s rocket launching business has been on hiatus since a June 2022 mission failure. The company is running out of cash, with its acquired spacecraft propulsion business yet to drive meaningful quarterly revenue. Astra cut 25% of its workforce in early August to shift focus from its rocket development to its spacecraft engine production.
Last month, Astra’s cash reserve slipped below $10.5 million and it defaulted on a debt raise, it disclosed on Friday. The company then on Monday raised financing from a pair of investors to pay off that outstanding debt.
Astra went public via a SPAC merger at a $2.6 billion valuation in February 2021. The company aimed to cheaply and rapidly produce small rockets. While Astra reached orbit twice successfully, the company suffered three launch failures after going public.
An uncaptioned image posted on the company’s website appears to show Starshield technology in orbit.
SpaceX
The Pentagon has awarded Elon Musk’s SpaceX its first confirmed contract for the Starshield network it’s developing, a military-specific version of the company’s Starlink satellite internet system, the defense agency said Wednesday.
A Space Force spokesperson confirmed that SpaceX on Sept. 1 was awarded a one-year contract for Starshield with a maximum value of $70 million. The award came alongside 18 other companies through a program run by the Space Force’s commercial satellite communications office.
“The SpaceX contract provides for Starshield end-to-end service (via the Starlink constellation), user terminals, ancillary equipment, network management and other related services,” Space Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek told CNBC.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the Starshield contract.
The company unveiled Starshield last year as a new business line. The Pentagon is already a high-value buyer of the company’s rocket launches and had shown increasing interest in its Starlink satellite internet.
SpaceX has given few details about the intended scope and capabilities of Starshield. It markets the service as the center of an “end-to-end,” dedicated offering for national security with capabilities distinct from its Starlink consumer and enterprise network.
SpaceX’s award for Starshield follows its June win of a Pentagon contract to buy an undefined number of Starlink ground terminals for use in Ukraine.
The initial phase of the Starshield contract obligates $15 million to SpaceX by Sept. 30, to provide services that support 54 military “mission partners” across Department of Defense branches, the spokesperson said.
The company’s Electron rocket carrying the CAPSTONE mission lifts off from New Zealand on June 28, 2022.
Rocket Lab
Rocket Lab stock fell in premarket trading after the company suffered its first launch failure in over two years early Tuesday morning.
The company confirmed its 41st Electron rocket launch – lifting off from New Zealand and carrying the Acadia 2 satellite for San Francisco-based Capella Space – failed about 2 minutes and 30 seconds into the flight. Rocket Lab said it has begun working with the Federal Aviation Administration on investigating the root cause of the issue, which appeared to happen around the time the rocket’s first and second stages separated.
“We are deeply sorry to our partners Capella Space for the loss of the mission,” Rocket Lab said in a statement.
Shares of Rocket Lab fell as much as 26% in premarket trading from its previous close at $5.04. The stock was up 34% for the year as of Monday’s close.
The company’s 42nd Electron mission was set to launch before the end of the third quarter. But Rocket Lab warned it will be postponed while it resolves the launch failure. As a result, Rocket Lab expects to issue revised third quarter revenue guidance. In its second quarter report, Rocket Lab forecast about $30 million of launch services revenue – the minority of its overall forecast revenue between $73 million and $77 million, as the bulk was expected to come from its space systems unit.
Rocket Lab’s failure comes after the company built up a steady rhythm of successful launches, becoming the second-most active U.S. rocket company behind Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The Electron rocket hadn’t suffered a mission failure since May 2021, stringing together 19 successful launches in 28 months since then.
A rocket can remain grounded for an uncertain amount of time, with the length of investigations depending upon the severity and complexity of the issue. After its previous launch failure, Rocket Lab launched its next Electron mission 70 days later.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrives for a U.S. Senate bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Insight Forum at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Sept. 13, 2023.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images
WASHINGTON — Three Democratic members of the Senate Committee on Armed Services have asked the Pentagon for information about SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, and whether he “directed the unilateral disabling or impediment of function of Starlink satellite communications terminals used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in southern Ukraine in 2022,” or ever had the authority to do so.
Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois wrote a letter Friday to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to express their “serious concerns about whether Musk has personally intervened to undermine a key U.S. partner at a critical juncture.”
Their questions follow the publication of a biography of Elon Musk, who is CEO of SpaceX and automaker Tesla, and owner and chief technology officer of the social network X, formerly known as Twitter. In the book, author Walter Isaacson wrote that a Ukrainian drone submarine attack on Russian warships was disrupted by a disconnect from Starlink, ordered by Musk.
Excerpts from the book raised alarm bells in Washington, among NATO allies and in the Ukrainian capital. After they were published, Musk painted himself as a peacekeeper and wrote on social media that he did not disconnect Starlink over Crimea, but rather denied a request by Ukraine to provide it there. He wrote, “If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.” Isaacson has issued a correction to his biography stating that connectivity had already been disabled in the affected area, and that Musk had simply refused a request to turn it on.
Musk also argued, as he has in the past, that Ukraine should strike a “truce” with Russia. Musk’s “peace plan” argument was shouted down by Ukraine officials, politicians and Putin experts.
On Tuesday, in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Isaacson discussed SpaceX developing a military-grade version of Starlink, which would help resolve concerns expressed by Musk regarding the satellite networks’ use in war.
CNBC asked the U.S. Department of Defense several questions pertaining to SpaceX, including whether the department would be re-evaluating any of the company’s government contracts, whether Musk’s calls for a truce between Ukraine and Russia reflect the U.S. government’s position and whether Musk’s conduct, including taking personal meetings with Putin in the past, had been in line with the terms of contracts awarded to his company.
A spokesperson for the department, Jeff Jurgensen, told CNBC via email, “The Department does contract with Starlink for satellite communication services in support of our Ukrainian partners,” but declined to offer further details or answer the specific questions posed.
He added that the Department of Defense “continues to work closely with commercial industry to ensure we have the right capabilities the Ukrainians need to defend themselves — and more broadly — the kind of communication and space-related capabilities necessary to accomplish our own global missions and support our national defense strategy.”
Earlier in the week, Sen. Warren called for a Congressional probe of Musk and SpaceX. “Congress needs to investigate what’s happened here, and whether we have adequate tools to make sure foreign policy is conducted by the government and not by one billionaire,” Warren said Monday, Bloomberg first reported.
SpaceX is currently working to obtain a new license from the Federal Aviation Administration and approvals from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to resume test flights for its Starship Super Heavy launch vehicle from its Boca Chica, Texas, facility. An earlier test flight this year resulted in an explosion and a mishap investigation overseen and recently completed by the FAA.
The company plans to use Starship to launch and deploy its next generation Starlink satellites. Musk also envisions Starship taking astronauts and supplies to the moon, and eventually, Mars.
Days after India’s successful moon mission, the country is now setting its sights on the sun.
According to the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the Aditya-L1 spacecraft will be launched from the Sriharikota Spaceport on Sept. 2 in a bid to study the sun and its effect on space weather.
Aditya, which refers to the sun in Hindi, is to be placed in a halo orbit around the Lagrangian point 1 of the Sun-Earth system, where the sun can be observed without any obstructions, an ISRO report stated.
Lagrange points are positions in space where gravitational forces of two large masses produce “enhanced regions of attraction and repulsion,” according to NASA. The resulting force can be used to remain in position and reduce fuel consumption — and can be likened to “parking spots” for spacecraft.
The launch will mark India’s first space-based observatory to study the sun, and would offer a “major advantage of continuously viewing the sun without any occultation or eclipses,” the ISRO report stated.
The mission would also allow for the study of solar wind, which could potentially cause disturbances on Earth, such as disrupting communications and navigation systems.
India’s government had put forth a $46 million budget for the mission back in 2019, but has not published any updates since.
On Wednesday, India became the fourth country to land on the moon, doing so with the relatively low starting budget of $75 million.
While a first attempt for India, other countries have successfully placed orbiters to study the sun. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe in 2021 which was sent to the sun’s corona to sample particles and magnetic fields, as well as the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter which was launched the year before.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket with the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft on top is seen after sunset at Launch Complex 39A ahead of the launch of the Crew-7 mission.
Joel Kowsky / NASA
SpaceX launched four people to the International Space Station from Florida as Elon Musk’s company begins its 11th human spaceflight mission to date.
Known as Crew-7, the mission for NASA will bring the group up to the space station for a six-month stay in orbit. The mission is SpaceX’s sixth operational crew launch for NASA to date, and the first of the additional missions the agency awarded SpaceX.
Crew-7 launched in the early hours of Saturday morning from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, beginning a nearly one day journey to the ISS.
The mission brings the number of astronauts SpaceX has launched to 42, including both government and private missions, since its first crewed launch in May 2020.
Crew-7 consists of NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli as the commander, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen from Denmark as the pilot, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov as mission specialists.
(From L) Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, wearing SpaceX spacesuits wave as they prepare to board the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft for the Crew-7 mission launch, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on Aug. 26, 2023.
Gregg Newton | AFP | Getty Images
SpaceX launched the astronauts in its Crew Dragon capsule called Endurance, on top of a Falcon 9 rocket. Both the rocket and capsule are reusable, with the Endurance flying on its third mission to date.
SpaceX developed its Crew Dragon spacecraft and fine-tuned its Falcon 9 rocket under NASA’s program, competing against Boeing’s Starliner capsule. But Boeing’s capsule remains in development, with costly delays putting the start of operational Starliner flights years behind schedule.
The moon’s surface is seen below the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on August 20, 2023 as it orbited in preparation for landing.
ISRO
India staked new claim as a national superpower in space on Wednesday, landing its Chandrayaan-3 mission safely on the moon’s unexplored south pole.
The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft launched last month and touched down on the lunar surface around 8:34 a.m. ET.
The feat makes India the fourth country – after the then-Soviet Union, the U.S. and China – to land on the moon, and the first to land on one of the moon’s lunar poles.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tuned in to the livestream of the landing from South Africa’s Johannesburg, where he attended the 15th BRICS summit of emerging markets.
“All the people of the world, the people of every country and region: India’s successful moon mission is not just India’s alone … this success belongs to all of humanity,” Modi said, speaking on the ISRO webcast of the event.
“We can all aspire for the moon, and beyond,” Modi added.
The Indian Space Research Organisation mission control room celebrates the successful landing of the Chandrayaan-3 mission.
ISRO
The lunar south pole has emerged as a place of recent exploration interest thanks to recent discoveries about traces of water ice on the moon. India previously attempted a lunar south pole landing in September 2019, but a software failure caused the Chandrayaan-2 mission to crash into the surface.
“[The south pole is] really a very interesting, historical, scientific and geologic area that a lot of countries are trying to get at that can serve as a base for future exploration,” Wendy Cobb, professor of strategy and security studies at the U.S. Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, told CNBC.
Cobb added that the discovery of water on the south pole of the moon is “really important for future exploration,” as it could serve as a source of fuel for rockets and spacecraft.
People wave Indian flags as an Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) rocket carrying the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft lifts off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh on July 14, 2023.
R.satish Babu | Afp | Getty Images
Modi visited the U.S. in June, during which he signed agreements alongside President Joe Biden to join the Artemis Accords and further collaborate on missions between ISRO and NASA.
Next year, the space agencies are expected to work together to fly Indian astronauts to the International Space Station.
India has also done more with less than its top global counterparts, with ISRO’s annual budget a fraction of NASA’s. In 2020, ISRO estimated the Chandrayaan-3 mission would cost about $75 million.
The mission was originally slated for 2021, but was delayed by the Covid pandemic.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated ISRO on the successful landing in a post on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, adding, “We’re glad to be your partner on this mission!”
A Soyuz-2.1b rocket booster with a Fregat upper stage and the lunar landing spacecraft Luna-25 blasts off from a launchpad at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the far eastern Amur region, Russia, Aug. 11, 2023.
Roscosmos | Via Reuters
Russia reported an “abnormal situation” Saturday on its moon-bound Luna-25 spacecraft, which launched earlier this month.
The country’s space agency, Roscosmos, said the spacecraft ran into unspecified trouble while trying to enter a pre-landing orbit, and that its specialists were analyzing the situation.
“During the operation, an abnormal situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the maneuver to be performed with the specified parameters,” Roscosmos said in a Telegram post.
Roscosmos did not specify whether the incident will prevent Luna-25 from making a landing.
The spacecraft is scheduled to land on the south pole of the moon on Monday, racing to land on Earth’s satellite ahead of an Indian spacecraft. The lunar south pole is of particular interest to scientists, who believe the permanently shadowed polar craters may contain water. The frozen water in the rocks could be transformed by future explorers into air and rocket fuel.
Also on Saturday, the Russian spacecraft produced its first results. Though Roscosmos said the information was undergoing analysis, the agency reported that the preliminary data obtained contained information about the chemical elements of the lunar soil and that its equipment had registered a “micrometeorite impact.”
Roscosmos posted images of the Zeeman crater – the third largest in the moon’s southern hemisphere – taken from the spacecraft. The crater has a diameter of 190 kilometers (118 miles) and is eight kilometers (five miles) deep.
The launch from Russia’s Vostochny spaceport in the Far East of the Luna-25 craft on Aug. 10 was Russia’s first since 1976 when it was part of the Soviet Union.
The Russian lunar lander was expected to reach the moon between Aug. 21-23, around the same time as an Indian craft that was launched on July 14.
Only three governments have managed successful moon landings: the Soviet Union, the United States and China. India and Russia are aiming to be the first to land at the moon’s south pole.
Roscosmos said it wants to show Russia “is a state capable of delivering a payload to the moon,” and “ensure Russia’s guaranteed access to the moon’s surface.”
Sanctions imposed on Russia after it invaded Ukraine make it harder for the country to access Western technology, impacting its space program. The Luna-25 was initially meant to carry a small moon rover but that idea was abandoned to reduce the weight of the craft for improved reliability, analysts say.
“Foreign electronics are lighter, domestic electronics are heavier,” Egorov said. “While scientists might have the task of studying lunar water, for Roscosmos the main task is simply to land on the moon — to recover lost Soviet expertise and learn how to perform this task in a new era.”
The spaceport is a pet project of Russian President Vladimir Putin and is key to his efforts to make Russia a space superpower and move Russian launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
A previous Indian attempt to land at the moon’s south pole in 2019 ended when the lander crashed into the moon’s surface.
A rendering of Telesat’s low earth orbit broadband constellation.
Telesat
Shares of Canadian telecommunications satellite operator Telesat surged Friday after the company announced it would swap suppliers for its planned Lightspeed global internet network.
Canadian space company MDA will now build the Lightspeed satellites, taking the place of French-Italian manufacturer Thales Alenia Space and resulting in “total capital cost savings” of about $2 billion, Telesat announced.
The company expects to begin launching the first Lightspeed satellites in mid-2026, with global service beginning once the first 156 satellites are in orbit. The full network is planned to consist of 198 satellites.
Telesat stock surged as much as 64% with heavy volume in early trading from its previous close at $8.45 a share, before slipping slightly to closer to 50%.
“I’m incredibly proud of the Telesat team for their innovative work to further optimize … resulting in dramatically reduced costs,” Telesat CEO Dan Goldberg said in a release.
Telesat stock surges Friday after the company swaps its internet satellite supplier.
The company had previously contracted Thales Alenia Space to manufacture the satellites at an estimated cost of $5 billion, including about $3 billion for the satellites, plus the costs of rocket launches, building ground infrastructure and developing software platforms to operate the network.
Goldberg previously emphasized to CNBC that Lightspeed is not intended to compete in direct-to-consumer markets against SpaceX’s Starlink or Amazon’s Kuiper. Instead, it will maintain Telesat’s existing focus on enterprise customers — government and commercial markets that Starlink has expanded into over the past year.
Telesat also reported second-quarter results Friday, including $180 million in revenue, a decrease of 4% from the same period a year prior. Telesat’s net income jumped to $520 million in the quarter, compared with a net loss of $4 million a year prior, a dramatic shift the company attributed largely to a $260 million payment from the FCC for clearing spectrum for 5G use in the U.S.
The company reaffirmed its full-year 2023 revenue guidance, expecting to bring in between $690 million and $710 million.
Viasat offices are shown at the company’s headquarters in Carlsbad, California, March 9, 2022.
Mike Blake | Reuters
Viasat reported a jump in quarterly revenue Wednesday, as the company continues to investigate its recent satellite malfunction and explores options to make up for some of the service it expected to add this year.
The company, which reported fiscal 2024 first-quarter results, wrote in a letter to shareholders that the problem with the ViaSat-3 Americas communications satellite disclosed last month “creates unanticipated challenges that we are already addressing.”
“We are currently working closely with our antenna supplier to assess the status of the antenna,” Viasat Chairman and CEO Mark Dankberg and President K. Guru Gowrappan wrote in the letter.
Dankberg added on the company’s earnings call that Viasat expects to give an update on “corrective actions” for the the satellite at the end of its second quarter. Viasat has approximately $420 million in insurance on the malfunctioning satellite, “which is nearly half of the net book value” of ViaSat-3 Americas, putting its value at about $750 million.
Viasat stock rose about 3% in after-hours trading from its close at $28.20 a share.
Viasat brought in $780 million in revenue during the quarter, a 36% increase compared to the same period last year.
It reported a net loss of $77 million for the quarter, wider than a net loss of $21.6 million a year ago. It cited higher interest expenses, as well as costs related to its acquisition of Inmarsat. As of the end of quarter, Viasat had $5.5 billion in net debt, with about $2 billion in cash and equivalents.
Viasat said it is investigating the root cause of the ViaSat-3 Americas problem to determine how to avoid the issue on its upcoming ViaSat-3 EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) satellite. Beyond a problematic reflector, which appears to have been made by Northrop Grumman, Viasat said the Americas satellite’s other systems “are performing as expected, or better.”
The company said it expects “to gain additional bandwidth from the existing in-orbit fleet” through improvements to its ground network. After its acquisition of Inmarsat, Viasat has 22 satellites in space.
“We believe these augmentations will allow us to provide the high-quality experience our mobility customers have come to expect and allow us to support our near- and intermediate-term growth objectives,” Viasat said.
While broadband service to U.S. residential customers makes up about 13% of Viasat’s current revenue, the company expects “that percentage will decline” after the satellite malfunction. Part of Viasat’s mitigation strategy is to “assure service” to high demand and key customers, as growth in VIasat’s fixed broadband business is expected to be delayed.
Despite the issues, Viasat forecast that revenue will grow further in fiscal year 2025.
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is seen before docking with the International Space Station on May 20, 2022 during the uncrewed OFT-2 mission.
Boeing
Boeing said Monday it aims to be ready to fly NASA astronauts with its Starliner capsule for the first time by March, resetting its timeline after the company delayed a planned launch this summer.
“Based on the current plans, we’re anticipating that we’re going to be ready with the spacecraft in early March,” Boeing VP and Starliner manager Mark Nappi said during a press conference.
“That does not mean we have a launch date in early March,” Nappi added. “We’re now working with NASA — Commercial Crew program and [International Space Station] — and ULA [United Launch Alliance] on potential launch dates based on our readiness … we’ll work throughout the next several weeks and see where we can get fit in and then then we’ll set a launch date.”
The company continues to work toward Starliner’s crew flight test, which is planned to carry NASA astronauts to the ISS in a final demonstration before beginning regular spaceflights.
On Monday, representatives from NASA and Boeing said work to replace the problematic tape is expected to be complete by the end of September, and a parachute drop test is planned for “mid-to-late” November. Boeing’s Nappi noted that the parachute work “is the critical path” toward being ready in March.
NASA’s Commercial Crew manager Steve Stich said Starliner is 98% complete in terms of progress toward the agency certifying the spacecraft to carry its astronauts.
As for the timing of Boeing’s first operational flight, Stich deferred, saying it depends on the timing and outcome of the final test flight.
“Could we fit it into the end of next year? It’s probably a little too early to tell whether we could fit that flight in or not,” Stich said.
Starliner continues to be a costly and behind-schedule endeavor for Boeing. Due to the years of delays and development cost overruns, Boeing last month reported that it’s absorbed about $1.5 billion in overrun costs to date.
Struggling space company Astra is cutting 25% of its workforce, the company announced Friday, and restructuring to focus more on its spacecraft engine business, which will delay progress on the small rocket it has been developing.
Astra is cutting about 70 employees, as well as reallocating about 50 personnel from its rocket development program over to its space products unit, which builds the company’s spacecraft engines.
“We are intensely focused on delivering on our commitments to our customers, which includes ensuring we have sufficient resources and an adequate financial runway to execute on our near-term opportunities,” Astra chairman and CEO Chris Kemp said in a statement.
The workforce reductions are expected to result in $4 million in quarterly cost savings, beginning in the fourth quarter. Astra noted that it had 278 total orders for spacecraft engines, as of four months ago, worth about $77 million in contracts. It expects to deliver on “a substantial majority” of those orders by the end of 2024.
In a separate filing Friday, Astra said it raised $10.8 million in net proceeds from selling debt to investment group High Trail Capital.
Astra stock was little changed in after-hours trading Friday from its close at 38 cents a share.
Last year, Astra moved away from its Rocket 3.3 vehicle earlier than expected to focus on the next version, an upgraded system called Rocket 4.0, after its final Rocket 3.3 mission failed mid-launch. While the company was targeting a first launch of Rocket 4 by the end of this year, in a securities filing, Astra noted the prioritization of the spacecraft engine business “will affect the timing of the Company’s future test launches.”
“The Company’s ability to conduct paid commercial launches in 2024 and beyond will depend on the ultimate timing and success of the initial test launches which will in turn depend on the resources that the Company is able to devote to Launch Systems development in the coming quarters,” Astra warned.
The company also released preliminary second-quarter results. Astra expects it brought $1 million or less in revenue during the quarter, with a net loss between $13 million and $15 million, and a remaining amount of cash and securities of about $26 million. The company plans to report finalized second-quarter results Aug. 14.
In Friday’s filing, Astra said it hired PJT Partners as a financial advisor, with the company “focused on thoughtfully pursuing opportunities to raise additional capital.”
