Airbus Ventures announced this morning that it’s invested in ispace. The moon exploration startup was one of five finalists in Lunar XPRIZE, Google’s $30M lander competition. While no team ultimately won the grand prize, the competition was still successful in kicking off a wave of privately funded companies who have their sights set on the moon. Meet ispace. Headquartered […]
ICYMI: Nanoracks and Lockheed Martin have announced a partnership to develop and launch Starlab, a free-flying commercial space station in low-Earth orbit (LEO). Nanoracks, which is majority owned by Voyager Space Holdings, expects Starlab to “achieve initial operational capability” by 2027. The continuously crewed station will double as a research site and commercial hub. Commercial use cases could manufacturing […]
Last month, Lynk claimed a first: two-way satellite-to-smartphone connectivity. The breakthrough was not the connection, but that Lynk satellites communicated with ordinary, unmodified phones. Phones were talking to satellites without any special satellite receiver. Lynk is negotiating contracts with mobile carriers and preparing for Gen-1 satellite production, CEO Charles Miller tells Payload. You can find the full interview […]
Phantom Space Corp. said today that longtime space exec Chris Thompson has joined the company as CTO. In the chief technologist role, Thompson will oversee the development of Phantom’s rockets and satellites. Thompson’s résumé, in reverse-chronological order: Chief engineer of advanced projects at Astra VP of advanced programs at Virgin Orbit 2nd “official” employee at […]
What’s the expert view on hypersonic glide vehicles, in light of recent news? To get some answers, we spoke with Jaganath Sankaran, a professor at UT Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs. Sankaran’s research spans space weapons, missile defense, and arms control policy. NB: HGV = hypersonic glide vehicle; FOBS = fractional orbital bombardment system. Payload […]
With all the talk of satellite constellations in beta or build phase, we figured we’d check up on one that’s fully up and running. Satellite operator Iridium reported Q3 earnings Monday. The McLean, VA-based company generated ~$162 million in Q3 revenue, a 5.5% beat. Its net loss was $2.1 million. Commercial services revenue totaled ~$102 million, equal […]
Can anyone catch SpaceX? That’s the question posed by a Morgan Stanley Research team in a recent, updated note to investors. Spoiler alert: The analysts seem to believe the answer is no. Payload read and digested the updated memo, which was first covered Tuesday by CNBC. For starters, the report is front-loaded with choice quotes from investors: […]
The Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday released its fiscal year 2022 appropriations bill. We’ll Ctrl+f to the part you’re here for: The bill would provide ~$24.8 billion to NASA, almost exactly what the agency asked for in its 924-page FY22 budget request (yes, we counted). Allocating nearly $25 billion to NASA would be a 6+% bump over FY21, which was a 3% boost […]
China conducted a successful test of a hypersonic glide vehicle over the summer, according to an in-depth report published by the Financial Times. The FT’s story draws on interviews with five unnamed officials. The purported launch and covert demonstration of the vehicle, which glides around space, caught US intelligence agencies off guard. The nuclear-capable spacecraft travels through […]
Up and away Lucy went in the wee hours of Saturday morning, hitching a ride on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket. The robotic asteroid hunter is now traveling at a brisk ~67,000 mph, per NASA. Lucy blasted off from launch complex 41 in Cape Canaveral at 5:34 AM ET. The launch of the Lockheed-built […]
Cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, actress Yulia Peresild, and director Klim Shipenko landed in Kazakhstan yesterday. Novitskiy was in space for 191 days; Peresild and Shipenko were there for 12. The crew’s Soyuz MS-18 undocked from the ISS at 9:14 ET on Saturday night and landed just after midnight. Unexpected plot twist: Due to unintentional MS-18 thruster firing, the ISS […]
Yesterday, China successfully launched a Long March 2D rocket to orbit, carrying the H-alpha Solar Explorer and 10 additional small satellites. H-alpha is China’s debut solar observatory, SpaceNews reports. The telescope-equipped spacecraft is headed for 517-KM, sun-synchronous orbit. The mission was China’s 37th orbital launch of 2021. Next up: Shenzhou 13. Hours after this hits your […]
