¶SSST’s Thousand Sails launch ends ignominiously. A Chinese Long March 6A launched 18 flat-panel Qianfan broadband Internet satellites into polar orbit last week. Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST)’s new constellation, translated as "Thousand Sails," may grow to as many as 14,000 satellites (1,296 were requested in the latest ITU filing). It joins potentially two other under-development broadband Chinese megaconstellations, each proposing over 10,000 satellites, in competition with OneWeb, Kupier, and Starlink (Qianfan’s previous name was G60 Starlink). SSST raised a whopping $938M in February. Unfortunately, the LM-6A’s upper stage appears to have malfunctioned and scattered over 700 pieces of space debris in a fairly high 800 km orbit (again). The debris at this altitude will likely take about a century for orbital decay. There has been no comment so far from SAST, CASC, or CNSA. This continues the Chinese space industry’s exceptionally poor recent track record with regard for space sustainability. |
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 | A Long March 6A carried 18 satellites (and 700+ pieces of space debris) to orbit, an unfortunately inauspicious start to Thousand Sails. |
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¶Late summer is flush with funding. A bunch of funding rounds were announced in the first two weeks of August, perhaps indicating a rebound within the space sector from the continued difficult VC funding environment of 2023. Space Capital’s dashboard is always a solid data trove on investment in the sector. - Muon Space raised a $56.7M Series B to build out their Halo satellite bus platform, underscoring the announcement by sharing news of SNC’s selection of Muon to build three RF monitoring satellites. London-based Lodestar raised $2.5M to build a platform-agnostic robotic servicing arm.
- EtherealX, an India-based startup, raised a $5M seed to develop a fully reusable (booster + upper stage) medium-lift launch vehicle capable of putting an 8-ton payload into LEO.
- GalaxEye, also part of the growing Indian newspace industry, raised $6.5M to launch their first satellite and develop multi-sensor (optical/SAR) payload technology.
- Canadian startup Perceptive Space emerged with a $2.8M pre-seed round with aims to build a more accurate, AI-based space weather model.
- German startup Dcubed raised a $4.8M Series A to increase production of satellite actuators and develop in-space manufacturing capabilities.
- Equatorial Space closed a $1.5M Pre-Series A (that’s a Seed round, right?) to build their eco-friendly, low-cost, and explosives-free sounding rocket. (We assume they mean no explosive bolts, as we don’t see how you can build an explosive-free rocket.)
- Japanese startup Interstellar raised $21M—the company’s Momo suborbital rocket reached space in 2019 and they are now working on what they hope will be Japan’s first newspace orbital launcher.
- We previously mentioned it, but the $200M raised last month by Astranis for more of their microGEO sats was the largest space funding round of 2024.
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¶Starliner in stasis. NASA has been cagey about the state of Starliner… is it currently in a stable safe state, and only remaining on orbit to ensure we test and learn everything we can about its struggling thrusters before they burn up as part of the service module on reentry? Or, is it actually a risky return vehicle for its crew or even the station itself? It’s becoming more clear that there is internal disagreement at NASA and that at least a small group has safety concerns. Additionally, contingency plans for the use of the next SpaceX Dragon capsule for astronaut return are being explored, even as Boeing itself remains confident in Starliner (and keeps losing money). Crew-9, which has been delayed until late September, could launch with fewer astronauts, leaving room to act as a return vehicle for Starliner’s 2-person crew. This assumes that Starliner can safely be autonomously detached, a capability that is unsupported by the current CFT vehicle and will require a 4-6 week software update process to enable (it’s unclear why this isn’t supported already on the vehicle since the OFT-2 mission in 2022 included this capability). Worst-case scenarios include “bricking” one of the ISS international segment’s two docking ports with a disabled spacecraft (it also has two berthing ports for non-autonomously-docking craft, while the Russian segment has 8 SSVP docking ports), additional thrusters failing while in proximity to the station, leaving the craft unable to maneuver or perform attitude control and endangering the station, and perhaps least likely but most scary, a failed reentry burn with very unhappy outcomes. |
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 | Six vehicles, including Starliner, were docked (or berthed) with the ISS on August 6th. Credit: NASA |
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| ¶News in brief. Rocket Lab conducted their first static-fire test of the Archimedes engine that will power the company’s in-development Neutron rocket ● Rocket Lab also launched two Electron rockets for repeat SAR customers Synspective and Capella ● Vast will offer microgravity research space on Haven-1 (with two lockers taken so far by Redwire and Yuri) ● NordSpace will spend $5M to fund Phase A development for Spaceport Canada where they hope to launch their Tundra vehicle—a suitable final location for the spaceport is yet-to-be determined ● SpaceX is exploring landing and recovering a Starship rocket off the Australian coast (after being launched from Texas) but needs to navigate ITAR to do so ● Firefly signed a multi-launch agreement with L3Harris Technologies for up to 20 Alpha launches ● SpaceX is building up their launch tower at Starbase Pad B ● The FCC approved the operation of AST Mobile’s first five massive BlueBird direct-to-smartphone satellites ● A Cygnus cargo spacecraft arrived at the ISS despite some minor thruster issues ● GHGSat gained NASA approval to integrate their methane emission data into NASA’s Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition program ● China launched a second secretive internet satellite to GEO ● UAE-based Orbital Space is sending a student experiment to the Moon aboard an Astrobotic mission ● A ULA Atlas 5, which uses a Russian RD-180 engine, launched a US military payload for the last time—15 Atlas Vs remain for commercial use ● Astronaut and early Space Shuttle pilot John McBride passed away at 80 years old ● Umbra plans to sell whole spacecraft with SAR sensors, not just data from their own satellites ● SpaceX plans to fly a multiple-day private CrewDragon mission over the north and south poles, which would be the first-ever human spaceflight over the Earth’s poles—the mission “Fram2” is being funded by a Chinese crypto-billionaire ● The massive Park fire burned through 170,000+ hectares in northern California, sending up Pyrocumulus clouds, as seen by GOES-18. |
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 | The Park fire burning in northern California and very visible from space. |
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¶Etc.- SpaceX has asked the FAA to allow RTLS for Starship and Super Heavy and to allow up to 25 flights a year from Texas. Meanwhile, there is an evolving story about potential Clean Water Act violations at Starbase, which we’re waiting to write about until more is known. (What we do know is that SpaceX strongly denies it, but also that Musk’s companies have a track record of asking for forgiveness, rather than permission.)
- In a surprising and disappointing move, ULA is forbidding launch photographers with remote cameras at their LC-41 launch pad to sell their photos in any non-editorial format.
- A montage of the construction of Ariane 6.
- A gorgeous video of Dawn Aerospace’s small Mk-II Aurora test aircraft flying up to 15,000 m altitude in New Zealand.
- Metallic minerals on the deep-ocean floor split water to generate 'dark oxygen,' a new study finds.
- Gaia data has identified 352 potential asteroids with ‘asteroid-moons’. Astronomers found them by measuring minute wobbles in the light from these binary systems. All will need to be confirmed, as they could just be irregularly shaped asteroids. This likely significantly increases the number of known binary asteroids, which currently sits around 500 (paper).
- Astroscale released a free video game about capturing space debris. In orbit, the company’s ADRAS-J has now completed two 360-degree fly-arounds of its H-IIA upper stage debris target. ADRAS-J is the first space mission to perform proximity operations around a piece of real, uncooperative space debris.
- NASA astronauts held their own Olympics on the ISS.
- SpaceX released images of their third generation Raptor engine that offers increased thrust (280 tons) at reduced mass (1,525 kg) by eschewing exterior plumbing and wiring and moving all systems within the engine’s major components. These components are all actively cooled, meaning it will not need heavy heat shielding. Tory Bruno, the internet-beloved CEO of ULA, initially questioned whether the pictures were showing the engine halfway assembled, but SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell has since posted pictures of the same engine in the midst of a test burn.
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A side-by-side comparison of the three generations of SpaceX Raptor sealevel engines, highlighting the refined design of Raptor 3. Credit: SpaceX |  |
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