Tag: competition

Another ESA rendezvous demo mission proposed

10:52 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Luxembourg startup ClearSpace yesterday announced a new demo mission to test autonomous rendezvous and proximity maneuvers, scheduled to launch in 2027.

PRELUDE aims to validate autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations in real flight conditions. The mission will test high-accuracy tracking, navigation and maneuvering using a combination of vision-based and complementary sensors feeding onboard algorithms and autonomous, fault-tolerant guidance, navigation and control (GNC) software. The goal is to demonstrate full freedom of movement and safe, repeatable maneuvers around another spacecraft.

Sounds good, eh? Not so fast. ClearSpace has had a bunch of these missions proposed, and none has yet flown. In 2019 ClearSpace won an ESA contract to de-orbit an old piece of space junk by 2025. In 2023 however that mission was stymied when that space junk, a payload adapter from a 2013 launch of Vega rocket launch, was hit by another piece of space junk.

Both ESA and ClearSpace apparently had difficulties re-designing the mission. In 2024, the ESA forced a major shake-up in ClearSpace’s management and missions, with the established company OHB taking over the startup. Subsequently the mission was redesigned to de-orbit a different defunct satellite, but delayed until 2029.

In 2024 the United Kingdom gave ClearSpace and Japan’s Astroscale a contract to de-orbit two satellites in ’26. It is however not clear at this time whether that mission will launch as planned.

This new PRECLUDE mission is interesting in that it will test the rendezvous and proximity technology that ClearSpace must have for all the other de-orbit missions. In other words, those other missions were never possible, because ClearSpace didn’t have the capability to do them. This new mission appears designed to develop that capability.

I ask: Why wasn’t PRECLUDE scheduled first, in the first place? That it wasn’t reflects very badly on both ClearSpace and the ESA.

0 comments

A small European prototype re-entry capsule survived PSLV launch failure

9:24 am

A small prototype re-entry demonstration capsule, built by the Spanish startup Orbital Paradigm and dubbed the Kestrel Initial Demonstrator (KID), apparently survived for a short period the failure of the third stage of India’s PSLV rocket early this week.

According to an Orbital Paradigm press release, the survival of its little demonstrator came as a surprise. “When we understood that the launch was non-nominal it was a bit of a hit for us,” explained Orbital Paradigm CEO Francesco Cacciatore. … “I think the launch livestream was still ongoing when the team saw that we had 190 seconds of flight data transmitted and received. We needed a few minutes to realize it was real data and not a glitch.”

…“KID was tested beyond its design envelope, and it worked. Separation, power-on, and data transmission, even after reentry, all performed well despite degraded conditions,” explained the company in a 13 January update. “Based on initial analysis, it seems that we achieved 4 out of 5 launch milestones, albeit through an off-nominal profile. The failure to deliver customers’ data prevents us from declaring the mission a success.”

The company considers the mission a failure because it did not get the re-entry data back that it really needed. It says however it is moving forward on a more advanced demonstrator it hopes to launch in 2027. I suspect it will not hire India’s space agency ISRO to launch it.

1 comment

ULA loses another launch contract to SpaceX

9:09 am

The Space Force yesterday announced it has switched rocket companies for its next GPS satellite launch, taking the launch away from ULA and its Vulcan rocket and giving it to SpaceX.

SpaceX could launch the GPS III Space Vehicle 09 (SV09) within the next few weeks, as the satellite was entering the final stages of pre-flight preparations. As part of the swap, United Launch Alliance (ULA) will instead launch the third of the next generation of Global Positioning System satellites. The GPS III Follow-on (GPS IIIF) SV13 satellite was originally scheduled to launch on a Falcon Heavy, but will now fly on Vulcan.

“SV09 and SV13 were traded between ULA and SpaceX to get capability to orbit as soon as possible, for the same reason as the prior swap, which resulted in the last GPS launch in May 2025,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The trade results in an overall net cost savings to the government and again demonstrates our sustained commitment to moving at speed to deliver combat-credible capabilities on orbit to meet warfighter needs.”

While at first glance it appears ULA has lost nothing, the military’s decision here bodes ill for the company. First, it indicates ULA has been unable to get Vulcan ready on time, forcing the Space Force to look to someone who could.

Second, this is the second time the Pentagon has taken a launch from ULA for these reasons. Increasingly it appears the military is losing patience with ULA’s inability to launch on time. For example, in awarding its most recent set of nine launches, it gave them all to SpaceX, bypassing ULA entirely.

In the past the Space Force tolerated ULA’s delays and high launch cost in order to guarantee the military had more than one launch provider. It now appears it is placing more importance on reliability and cost savings. And as I say, this bodes ill for ULA, which has not done a good job of providing either.

5 comments

China launches twice from today different spaceports

5:02 pm

China finally entered the 2026 launch race today with two launches from two of its spaceports.

First, it placed a classified remote sensing satellite into orbit, its Long March 6A rocket lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in northeast China.

No word on where the rocket’S lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

About an hour later it launched the 18th group of Guowang (also Satnet) satellites into orbit, its Long March 8A lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport in south China.

Though the lower stages of this rocket fell in the ocean, they did so in the territorial waters of the Philippines, forcing its government to issue a warning to its citizens.

Though China’s state-run press provided no information about the number of Guowang satellites launched, all previous launches using the Long March 8A placed nine in orbit. Based on this guess, this internet-of-things constellation now has 137 satellites in orbit out of a planned 13,000.

The 2026 launch race:

5 SpaceX
2 China

0 comments

China claims it has launched and landed a new suborbital reusable spacecraft

10:05 am

Reports from China’s state-run press today and yesterday claim that a pseudo-company, CAS Space (wholly owned by a government agency) has successfully completed the first test flight and parachute recovery of a new small scale suborbital reusable spacecraft dubbed PH-1.

The vehicle lifted off at about 4 pm and reached an altitude of roughly 120 kilometers, passing the Karman line — commonly regarded as the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space — before descending back to Earth. After re-entering the atmosphere, its recoverable payload cabin deployed a parachute at around 10 km and landed smoothly at a designated site, the company said.

CAS Space said the test validated key technologies, including re-entry deceleration, parachute recovery and precision landing control. Engineers also assessed the performance of critical components during the flight.

A handful of images were released yesterday, but none showed the recovered capsule or its landing.

It is probably that this test was as successful as China’s press claims. It is also possible that this reporting has been carefully designed to hide aspects of the flight that were a failure.

Once developed, CAS Space claims the spacecraft, also dubbed Lihong-1, could be used to provide experiments about 300 seconds of weightlessness. This is not much longer than the periods of weightlessness produced when flying in a “vomit comet” airplane. Moreover, this spacecraft appears too small for manned flights. A larger spacecraft would have to be developed for that purpose.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay for the link to the images.

3 comments

Mitsubishi buys space on proposed Starlab space station

9:01 am

Starlab design in 2025
The Starlab design in 2025. Click
for original image.

The Japanese company Mitsubishi has now signed an agreement with the consortium building the large single module Starlab space station that will launch on Starship, reserving part of that station for the company’s own use while also increasing its financial investment in the project.

Starlab Space LLC today announced that Mitsubishi Corporation has reserved and pre-purchased capacity on Starlab’s commercial space station, becoming a foundational customer while simultaneously increasing their investment in the company and joining Starlab’s Board of Directors through representative Issei Shinohara.

The expanded partnership includes acquisition of usage rights for designated payload volume and utilization of on orbit laboratory facilities on Starlab, positioning Mitsubishi to accelerate space-based research opportunities for Japanese institutions. This customer commitment is accompanied by an expanded equity partnership that brings additional investment to support Starlab’s development.

Mitsubishi had in April 2024 already joined the Starlab partnership, though almost no details were announced at that time. Today’s announcement provides those details. It also appears Mitsubishi is bypassing Japan’s space agency JAXA, which in the past always ran such international projects. Instead Mitsubishi will directly “support Japanese space development objectives while contributing to advancements in areas such as life sciences research, advanced materials development, and next-generation manufacturing technologies.” In other words, it is telling JAXA to jump in the lake. It can do this better without that government third party, which by the way has not been very effective in recent years.

This deal continues Starlab’s aggressive momentum in recent months. Though Axiom is still listed above it in my rankings below of all the American space stations under development, I now consider the two essentially tied for second.
» Read more

0 comments

SpaceX launches another 29 Starlink satellites

2:49 pm

SpaceX today completed its fifth launch in 2026, placing 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage competed its 25th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

At this moment the entire 2026 launch race is SpaceX, and SpaceX only. The only other entity to attempt a launch so far in 2026 has been India’s space agency ISRO, and that launch was a failure last night.

0 comments

Comparing the global ground stations of China and the U.S.

10:49 am

Link here. The article is an excellent review of China’s ground stations located globally, noting how its network is far more limited that the United States, caused by a lack of trust of its intentions by foreign countries.

China currently has access to at least 18 overseas space facilities in Africa, Antarctica, Latin America, South Asia, and the South Pacific. There is no evidence to suggest that any of these countries might expel China’s space tracking and surveillance stations anytime soon. But the longevity of these sites is more precarious than those of the United States. Changing political conditions and concern that these sites may play a role in a conflict involving the United States could undermine China’s ability to maintain key parts of its overseas space tracking network.

The article then notes how China has recently lost stations in Australia, New Zealand, and the Czech Republic and has been forced to field a fleet of ocean-going satellite-tracking ships, similar to what the Soviet Union did during the Cold War.

1 comment

China proposes building two new satellite constellations, each with about 100,000 satellites

9:46 am

China has filed papers with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) — the international licensing agency comparable to the U.S.’s FCC — to build two new satellite constellations, each with about 100,000 satellites that would be linked as one gigantic constellation.

The filings, submitted to the ITU in late December 2025, are designated CTC-1 (CHN2025-79441) and CTC-2 (CHN2025-79398), each covering 96,714 satellites in 3,660 orbital planes, according to documents posted in the Union’s “as-received” database.

CTC-1 includes both advance publication information (API) and a more detailed coordination request, reflecting progression through different stages of the ITU regulatory process for a single notional Non-Geostationary Orbit (NGSO) system, while CTC-2 currently remains at the API-only stage. Both reference a “new operating agency” as a placeholder for their operating agencies.

Together, the pair represent one of the largest constellation filings ever made, highlighting the growing competition over orbital and spectrum resources.

Both filings appear to be very preliminary, and in fact appear to be an attempt by China to grab control of as much orbital territory and satellite spectrum as possible, to block others from access. Neither has been approved, and won’t be without a detailed review by the ITU.

11 comments

Space station Starlab gets major new investor

9:25 am

Starlab design in 2025
The Starlab design in 2025. Click
for original image.

The consortium led by Voyager Technologies that is building the Starlab space station announced last week that it has obtained a major new investor with more than a billion dollars in assets.

The investor, Seven Grand Managers, is based in New York. The announcement did not specify how much the firm had committed to the Starlab project, but it was clear from this statement that involved significant funds.

“Starlab is being built to be commercially viable from Day One,” said Chris Fahy, founder and chief investment officer, Seven Grand. “Our investment recognizes that commercial infrastructure in the post-ISS era is not speculative, but tangible, bankable and poised for growth. Starlab’s world-class management team and strategic partners are unlocking the beginning of this enormous opportunity.” [emphasis ine]

The highlighted quote suggest Seven Grand was impressed with the Starlab concept, a single very large ready-to-go station launched on Starship. Most of the other stations will involve assembly of multiple modules on multiple launches before they are “ready-to-go.” The only other station launching as a single module, Max Space’s Thunderbird, has only recently entered the race, and is thus far behind.

Starlab had previously raised $383 million in a public stock offering, in addition to the $217.5 million provided by NASA. This new private investment capital further strengthens its future, and suggests the station could get built and launched, even if it fails to win a major station construction contract from NASA.

Below are my rankings of the five American space station projects:
» Read more

1 comment

India’s PSLV rocket experiences the second launch failure in a row

11:43 pm

India’s space agency ISRO tonight attempted its first launch in 2026 and the first launch of its PSLV rocket since the rocket’s third stage failed during a May 2025 launch.

Unfortunately the rocket’s third stage failed again, near the end of its engine burn. The animation on the mission control displays, based on actual telemetry, showed the stage suddenly tumbling, its engines no longer firing. It appears something catastrophic occurred the end of that burn.

The rocket’s primary payload (a satellite for India’s military) as well as 18 smallsats for a variety of other customers were all lost.

While ISRO last year was able to complete five successful launches of its larger GSLV and LVM rockets, the PSLV was grounded due to that May 2025 failure. Today’s launch was intended to show the third stage problem had been fixed. Instead, it showed that the modifications hadn’t fixed the problem. In fact. it occurred at almost the same time as in the May launch. The link above is cued to just before the stage began tumbling. In May the failure took place 374 seconds into the flight. Today it occurred at 377 seconds into the flight.

0 comments

SpaceX launches NASA’s Pandora exoplanet space telescope

9:32 am

SpaceX today successfully launched a new NASA space telescope, Pandora, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

Pandora is a smallsat focused on studying 20 stars known to have transiting exoplanets. It will look at each repeatedly to draw as much information about the star and the exoplanet as possible. Also deployed were two other NASA smaller astronomy cubesats.

The Falcon 9 first stage completed its 5th flight, landing back at Vandenberg. The two fairing halves completed their first and seventh flights respectively.

At this moment, SpaceX is the only entity to have launched in 2026. This was its fourth launch.

5 comments
1 … 29 30 31 32 33 … 785