NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) released an audit of the agency’s Artemis management. Spoiler alert: not great, but not the biggest surprise. The big picture: The Artemis program is over budget and behind schedule. NASA provided updated timelines last week, and now, OIG is moving the goalpost again. Due to numerous technical delays, Covid, and storm damage, OIG predicts that none of the three phases […]
SpaceX has updated the Starlink suite with a new user terminal. The dish replaces a larger one sold to beta users. Scaling down: The new terminal is a 19” x 12”, 9.2 lb dish that users can mount to the side of a home (like the older version), their roof, or a pole (new capability). But users won’t get […]
ICYMI: Planet Labs has agreed to acquire VanderSat, an analytics provider specializing in water and crop health data, in a transaction valued at ~$28M. The deal represents Planet’s fourth acquisition, as the satellite operator prepares to go public. Key data: In July, Planet announced a SPAC valued at $2.8B. The earth observation (EO) company has 130+ satellites currently in […]
Yesterday, Capella Space said it would install optical communication terminals (OCT) on its commercial synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites. Capella aims to integrate new commercial craft with the SDA’s National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA) by adding inter-satellite links from a partner. More on that in a sec. Catching up: The SDA is building a network of satellites in low-earth orbit […]
ICYMI: Poland signed the Artemis Accords Tuesday, joining 12 other countries in a US-led agreement to pursue cooperative and sustainable space exploration. NASA announced the founding group of eight member countries at last year’s International Astronautical Congress (IAC). It’s incrementally added more since. The agreement establishes principles for peaceful space exploration, and directs member states to register space […]
