June 5, 2026 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.
- Rocket Lab’s touts its new Gauss electric propulsion system for satellites
Developed in-house, once again demonstrating the company’s successful diversification beyond rockets.
- Satellite-data-center startup Starcloud’s value just reached $1 billion
The valuation is part of a funding round bringing in $170 million in new investment capital.
- Axiom signs a partnership deal with German aerospace company OHB
The deal appears aimed at providing OHB and German scientists access to Axiom’s space station for research.
- On June 5, 1989, the Soviet’s showed off their Buran space shuttle, flown on top of an Antonov An-225 Mriya airplane, at the Paris Air Show
Total take-off weight was 1,234,600 pounds, a record at that time.
- A Boeing video touting the June 5, 2024 Atlas-5 launch of the company’s first manned Starliner mission
The epic music and editing have certainly not aged well.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Some Amazon Leo news today:
1) Arianespace has announced the date for their next Ariane 6 launch: 17 June. This launch will be LE-03 and carry 36 satellites for Amazon Leo. It will also be the first flight of the P160 solid rocket booster, four of which will fly on this mission.
2) ULA has begun stacking the Atlas V for flight LA-08, which will carry another 29 satellites for Amazon Leo. It is currently scheduled for early July.
3) Perhaps most importantly, Amazon has been granted a waiver to continue launching Leo satellites beyond the July deadline. This should allow them to start Leo service late this year or early next.
I’m not surprised they got a waiver. Especially with ULA’s and Blue’s struggles. Maybe ten years from now when there’s a plethora of space launch things might be different, but in the present day it’s harder to blame Amazon (except for not buying more launches from SpaceX sooner, but that’s partially hindsight). On a per-satellite basis, I think New Glenn is actually the cheapest means of boosting Leo satellites into orbit at present. SpaceX would have to reduce its prices to match, and there’s still not the pressure for them to do so.
Good catch by mkent on the FCC waiver, which I had not heard about. The FCC waiver document can be found here, BTW:
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-553A1.pdf
Key passage:
There is one condition, however. Amazon will temporarily lose the “priority status” for any satellites deployed after July 30, 2026. Losing that status means any new Leo satellites launched after July 30 are supposed to show they can operate “compatibly with, and protect” other low-Earth satellite systems authorized in earlier processing rounds, or in this case, Starlink. They can regain the priority status if and when they get 50% of the constellation deployed.
I think most of us were expecting that some sort of waiver would be granted to Amazon.
Richard M: Thank you for the link. I will post this on the main page today.
I think most of us were expecting that some sort of waiver would be granted to Amazon.
True. I think we all expected that the FCC would hold to the spirit of the rule rather than the letter of the rule.
Unfortunately, the passage that you, Richard M, cited suggests that rather than upholding the spirit, they “found” a reason — special circumstances — for an exception. This may be good, in that it continues to put pressure on future constellation builders to quickly assemble the first half of their projects — to not hesitate in their development and execution — but it may be bad, in that it suggests that the FCC remains bureaucratically fixated on the letter of the rule rather than the reason for the rule in the first place.
It is clear that Leo (formerly Kuiper, for anyone who has forgotten), is not sitting on the frequency(s) allotted to it but are genuinely executing their business plan, expecting to use their frequency(s) for the intended purpose. it seems to me that a constellation is somewhat more difficult to assemble than a single satellite, especially when that constellation consists of hundreds of satellites. The world’s satellite makers are not yet up to the task of developing and making that many satellites that fast, and the world’s launch companies are already at capacity. The FCC’s rules are not keeping up with the reality of the booming space industry. Even the booming launch industry cannot keep up with the even more booming space industry.*
No plan survives first contact with reality — Unknown
Reality betrays us all — Hoffman (the movie Hofman)
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* I’m not sure that the commercial manned space industry can keep up with the coming demand for transportation to the coming commercial space stations. No commercial space station yet exists, but national space programs are scrambling to get scheduled into slots on them.
No pun intended!
Jokes aside, I think politics (will, believe, what have you) is generally one of the biggest barriers to success in space, more so than technology or money.
Robert,
I just noticed that they year in the post’s title is a bit off. Should be “2026.”
Edward: Typo fixed. Thanks!