SpaceNews.com
• Sandra Erwin
The U.S. Space Force awarded SpaceX two launch task orders worth $1.6 billion for 18 Falcon 9 missions through 2027 carrying Pentagon satellites designed to detect and target airborne objects. The awards are described as the largest publicly announced batch of missions under National Security Space Launch Phase 3.
Launch Vehicles & Space Transportation
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ispace and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) have signed a contract covering the launch and transportation of ispace’s Mission 3 ULTRA Lunar Lander using MHI’s H3 rocket. The agreement formalizes the commercial transport arrangement for the company’s next Moon mission.
The U.S. Department of Transportation is proposing to exempt commercial space launch licensing from many environmental regulations. The initiative would narrow the regulatory requirements applied during the licensing process, changing the compliance scope for commercial launch providers seeking authorization.
The U.S. Army awarded Lockheed Martin a record up to $58.62 billion contract for Patriot interceptor missile production, while adding $54 billion to a Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) agreement, bringing the total to about $59B; the latest Army contract is undefinitized. Rocket Lab also secured its largest launch contract to date—$266 million—for multi-launch suborbital missions with the U.S. Space Force.
NASA says the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to launch Aug. 30 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. The observatory will travel nearly 1 million miles from Earth to reach the same orbital “sweet spot” as the James Webb Space Telescope, enabling wide-field science aimed at discoveries currently impossible from existing assets.
True Anomaly says its Victus Haze mission for the U.S. Space Force executed a “space pursuit” between Rocket Lab-built Puma and True Anomaly Jackal-0004. The company frames the engagement as a space-to-space pursuit as part of the mission’s planned activities.
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The U.S. Space Force awarded SpaceX two launch task orders worth $1.6 billion for 18 Falcon 9 missions through 2027 carrying Pentagon satellites designed to detect and target airborne objects. The awards are described as the largest publicly announced batch of missions under National Security Space Launch Phase 3.
Former NASA researchers and spaceflight experts say the heat shield protecting SpaceX’s Starship during Earth reentry could limit how quickly the vehicle can be turned around between flights. The assessment points to a key materials/thermal-management challenge for Musk’s vision of rapid, “rapidly reusable” operations.
SpaceX is preparing an early-morning launch on Thursday, July 30, for a classified U.S. government reconnaissance mission. The company plans a live webcast of the event, underscoring the continued outsourcing of national security space launch activity to commercial providers.
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