The Southern Ring nebula from the Webb telescope’s NIRCam instrument
Portfolio Company News
GeoOptics
GeoOptics, PlanetIQ and Spire to supply NOAA with space weather data
The 3 companies will provide NOAA with Radio Occultation datasets concerning the Earth’s ionosphere to determine the impact that these commercial datasets will have on existing and future space weather models and applications.
Axiom
NASA is considering sending scientists to the ISS on short-duration private astronaut missions.
This has been one of Axiom’s proposals to NASA to increase the scientific outpost of the ISS. Bringing the actual scientist doing the research up to the Station to do the initial setup and calibration of the equipment greatly improves the success rate because of their ability to troubleshoot problems. Astronauts unfamiliar with the research can only follow a strict set of instructions. When a problem occurs the failure rate becomes very high because the person who knows how to fix the problem is not on Station.
Umbra
This is an additional DoD market for many SAR companies, Umbra included.
General Space News
The Kremlin has fired Dmitry Rogozin as head of the Russian space agency
In the above released announcement from the Kremlin, long time and controversial Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin was removed from his post to be replaced by Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov. Borisov has a much more military background. Rumors abound concerning Rogozin's future which ranges from being the Governor of the Donbas region in Ukraine to being a high-level role in Putin's inner circle. Given Rogozin's history of encouraging fantastic rumors about himself and Roscosmos, none of the current crop of rumors seem credible.
NASA sees JWST success helping win agency support and funding
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is garnering more support for NASA after the release of its first "deep field" image that revealed galaxies from the early universe.
Defense Innovation Unit selects contractors to build hybrid space network
DIU awarded contracts to Anduril, Aalyria Technologies, Atlas Space Operations, and Enveil to demonstrate a hybrid architecture to share data across commercial, civil, and military satellites. Demonstrations on orbit are planned within 2 years.
Northrop Grumman gets $22 million Space Force contract to build small-satellite carrier bus
Space Force awarded Northrop Grumman $22M to build a Rapid On-Orbit Space Technology Evaluation Ring (ROOSTER) to carry multiple small payloads to demonstrate on-orbit refueling in GEO.
Russia threatens ISS European robotic arm after ExoMars termination
ESA announced on July 12th that they formally decided to terminate cooperation with Russia on the ExoMars mission which then prompted the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, to threaten to halt the use of the European robotic arm on the ISS.
Video of SpaceX Booster 7 Experiencing an Explosion
Latest reports from SpaceX indicate the explosion was external to the engine and due to an incorrect venting of liquid oxygen as seen just before the explosion.
Going personal here from Michael Mealling: My start in the space business began with the founding team at Masten Space in 2004. Raising money and building hardware back then was FAR more difficult than it is now. We had many failures and successes. We did things before SpaceX did and may have even inspired them. My hopes are with the team that they can recover. I know the company has gone through multiple similar cycles over the years.
Other Space News
China is preparing to launch the next module for its space station in a little more than a week.
The House passed its version of a defense authorization act Thursday.
A Japanese startup will test a robotic arm on the International Space Station next year.
India's space agency ISRO opened a new space situational awareness center.
The European Space Agency launched the first Vega-C rocket this morning.
A new report suggests the recent increase in U.S. military space funding may be short lived.
OneWeb says it shares SpaceX's concerns that 5G services could interfere with satellite signals.
China is planning a mission to test asteroid deflection technologies.
Earth observation companies are changing how their satellites are tasked by customers.