Portfolio Company News
Lynk
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Axiom
Axiom Space and Hungary Sign MOU To Expand Relationship in Space
Axiom and Hungary signed an MOU to further Hungary’s astronaut program which aims to send a Hungarian astronaut to the ISS through Axiom’s commercial astronaut mission.
General Space News
NASA authorization included in CHIPS Act
The new version of the CHIPS Act includes a long awaited NASA Authorization bill. The Senate Commerce Committee released text for their bill to support domestic manufacturing of semiconductors through their Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) Act. Starbridge portfolio company, Lucid Circuit, benefits from the larger CHIPS Act bill. While the NASA Authorization isn’t expected to survive the reconciliation with the House, the language does indicate the Senate’s frustration with NASA on program management for Artemis and strongly states that NASA’s human spaceflight focus is Mars and there is little support for doing anything permanently on the Moon.
Impulse and Relativity announce a proposal for a joint Mars landing mission
The two companies jointly announced that they are working on a robotic Mars lander that they anticipate launching in 2024. Impulse will be building the lander, cruise stage, and entry capsule. Relativity will launch the spacecraft.
NASA sets late August and early September launch dates for Artemis 1
NASA announced their target launch dates of Aug 2nd, Sept 2nd, and Sept 5th for their Artemis I mission on an uncrewed test flight of the Orion Spacecraft and the first launch of the SLS. The increasingly controversial SLS program is facing multi-billion dollar cost overruns, a slower and slower launch cadence, and the threat that commercial vehicles will quickly outstrip its capabilities. While some of this is due to how NASA operates internally, it is also being driven by a Congress that seems much more concerned about how many flights per year over what timeframe SLS will fly rather than any concern about where or why.
Millennium Space reveals results of DARPA’s ‘Red-Eye’ smallsat experiment
Millennium Space launched 3 small satellites back in 2019 and 2020 funded by DARPA to demonstrate capabilities such as on-board data processing, inter-satellite communications, and software-defined radios called the Red-Eye experiment. Millennium CEO, Jason Kim, told reporters that they discovered the ability to control the orbital spacing of the 3-satellite constellation using atmospheric drag management techniques without the use of a propulsion system.
China could shift to fully reusable super heavy-launcher in wake of Starship
New plans for a reusable two-stage and three-stage launcher were recently presented and differ dramatically from previous versions of China’s Long March 9 rocket that were previously presented last year. The new concepts are more in line with SpaceX, Blue Origin, and ULA in switching their fuel to methane-liquid oxygen as well. China's government approved the development of a Long March 9 super heavy lift launcher last year which was to be operational by 2030, their new concept looks to be ready by 2035 instead.
Other Space News
Mattel has signed an agreement with SpaceX to produce SpaceX-themed toys.
A SpaceX cargo Dragon spacecraft docked with the International Space Station Saturday.
A Chinese cargo spacecraft undocked from the country's space station Saturday night.
China is preparing for the launch its Wentian lab mobile this weekend.
DirecTV says a 5G plan by rival Dish Network would degrade satellite TV reception.
Raytheon is acquiring Northern Space and Security (NORSS), a space domain awareness startup.
NASA awarded a contract to SpaceX Tuesday for the launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.