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WIRED
07-08-2025
- Business
- WIRED
NASA Rewrites the Rules for Developers of Private Space Stations
Eric Berger, Ars Technica Aug 7, 2025 3:30 AM In the face of budget cuts, NASA has issued a new directive on how it will procure replacements for the International Space Station. Illustration of Vast Space's Haven-1 space station. Photograph: Vast About five years from now, a modified Dragon spacecraft will begin to fire its Draco thrusters, pushing the International Space Station out of its orbit and sending the largest object humans have built in space inexorably to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. And then what? China's Tiangong Space Station will still be going strong. NASA, however, faces a serious risk of losing its foothold in low-Earth orbit. Space agency leaders have long recognized this and nearly half a decade ago awarded about $500 million to four different companies to begin working on 'commercial' space stations to fill the void. But in that time there has been precious little metal cut, and there are serious concerns about whether any of these replacement stations will be ready to go when the International Space Station falls into the drink. On Monday, in one of his first official tasks, NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy signed a new 'directive' on commercial space stations that seeks to address this concern. 'To meet the goals of a commercial system within the proposed budget, a modification to the current approach for LEO platforms is required as specified in the remaining sections of this directive,' states the document, signed by Duffy. To succeed, he wrote, the strategy 'must be altered.' NASA's previous plan involved issuing a 'request for proposals' early next year as part of a competition that would have selected one or, at most, two companies to move forward into assembly and certification of their stations prior to flight. However, according to Duffy's directive, there is up to a $4 billion shortfall in the budget NASA was expected to receive, and what would be needed for this program. The president's budget request included $272.3 million in fiscal year 2026 and $2.1 billion over the next five years for the development and deployment of new commercial space stations. Because of this plan's perceived shortcomings, with the new directive, NASA is making some substantial changes to the Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations Program moving forward: Instead of moving forward in Phase 2 with a firm, fixed-price contract for certification and services, NASA will extend the current program of Space Act Agreements awarded to 'multiple' participants. There will be a 'full and open' competition for interested companies to receive Space Act Agreements. NASA will award a minimum of two and preferably three providers within six months of the formal announcement of a proposal. NASA will shift the formal design, acceptance, and certification from this Space Act Agreement phase to a follow-on certification phase (so companies cannot get certified until after they fly). At least 25 percent of milestone funding will be withheld until after a successful in-space crewed demonstration of a space station. There is a new minimum capability NASA seeks, which is significantly less than the original 'full operational capability' the agency sought. Now, the minimum required capability will be '4 crew for 1-month increments.' Changing the Program Completely Some of these are rather big changes. The ongoing reliance on Space Act Agreements, for example, will allow companies more leeway in how they design their stations. Had the agency moved into a more structured contract, known as Federal Acquisition Regulations, NASA could have levied more specific requirements on the companies. This approach of lowering the minimum capabilities will also give companies a better chance to develop operational space stations by 2030, when the International Space Station is expected to be deorbited. Phil McAlister, who directed NASA's Commercial Space Division from 2005 to 2024, which included this commercial space station program, said the changes give NASA and the companies a chance for success, given that the agency's budget will be less than anticipated. 'How was NASA's previous strategy for commercial stations going to work when they lost close to a third of their budget?' McAlister told Ars. 'They had no chance. This gives them a chance.' It is unclear how widely this document was circulated before Duffy signed it on Monday. It appears to have been hastily written. Northrop Grumman, for example, is spelled two different ways. One source told Ars that senior leaders in NASA's space operations division were not made aware of the changes before the directive was distributed. Winners and Losers About five years ago, NASA awarded initial space station development contracts to four different companies: Northrop Grumman, Blue Origin, Axiom Space, and Voyager Space. Since then, Northrop has dropped its effort and joined Voyager's team. There has also been some interest from other companies, most notably Vast, which is working with SpaceX to develop its initial space station. Probably the most striking thing about the new directive is that it seems to favor Vast over NASA's original contractors. Specifically, Vast's Haven-1 module is designed for four astronauts to spend two weeks in orbit, and the company has a more straightforward pathway to building a station that would meet NASA's minimum requirements. The other companies had been planning larger stations that would have more permanence in orbit, which matched NASA's original desires for a successor to the International Space Station. The new directive favors a company building up capabilities through interim steps, including stations with a limited lifespan on orbit. 'All the current players are going to have to do some kind of pivot, at least revisit their current configuration,' McAlister said. 'Certain players are going to have to do a harder pivot.' One industry official, speaking anonymously, put it more bluntly: 'Only Haven-1 can succeed in this environment. That is our read.' The chief executive officer of Vast, Max Haot, told Ars that the company bet that starting with a minimum viable product was the best business strategy and fully funded that approach without government money. 'It seems like NASA is now leaning into an approach for the future of CLDs that is led by what industry believes it can achieve technically and build a credible business model around,' Haot told Ars. 'Seeing that information from contractors before committing to buying services can help increase long-term risk reduction. This seems similar to the successful approaches used by NASA for cargo and crew.' Vast has worked closely with SpaceX in the development of its station, to the extent that Haven-1 will largely rely on the Dragon spacecraft for life support and some other functions. Future stations, such as Haven-2, will have more independent capabilities. This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.
WIRED
29-07-2025
- Science
- WIRED
A Secretive US Space Plane Will Soon Test Quantum Navigation Technology
Eric Berger, Ars Technica Jul 29, 2025 10:30 AM The space plane's test flight will advance development of a new navigation technology based on electromagnetic wave interference. The US Air Force X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle being encapsulated before a launch. Photograph: DOD/Getty Images The X-37B, the US Space Force's secretive space plane, will soon take flight again. On Monday, the Space Force announced that it will fly the small, Space Shuttle–shaped vehicle on the program's eighth mission next month. The launch of the vehicle, on a Falcon 9 rocket, is scheduled to occur no earlier than August 21 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. There are two active X-37Bs in the Space Force fleet, both built by Boeing. The first made its debut flight in April 2010. Since then, the two uncrewed spacecraft have made a succession of longer flights. The first made its longest and latest flight from 2020 to 2022 over a span of 908 days. The second flew more recently, landing at Vandenberg Space Force Base on March 7 after 434 days in orbit. It's likely that the first of these two vehicles, both of which are about 29 feet (9 meters) long and roughly one-quarter the length of one of NASA's Space Shuttle orbiters, will launch next month. Some Details About the Upcoming Flight Over the past decade and a half, the Space Force has largely remained silent about the purpose of this space plane, flying classified payloads and providing only limited information about the purpose of each flight. However, for this flight, OTV-8, the military has provided a bit more detail about its intentions. The vehicle will fly with a service module that will expand its capacity for experiments, allowing the space plane to host payload for the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Defense Innovation Unit. The mission's goals include tests of 'high-bandwidth inter-satellite laser communications technologies.' 'OTV-8's laser communications demonstration will mark an important step in the US Space Force's ability to leverage commercial space networks as part of proliferated, diversified, and redundant space architectures,' said General Chance Saltzman, US Space Force chief of space operations, in a statement. 'In so doing, it will strengthen the resilience, reliability, adaptability, and data transport speeds of our satellite communications architectures.' Navigating in a World Without GPS The space plane will also advance the development of a new navigation technology based on electromagnetic wave interference. The Space Force news release characterizes this as the 'highest-performing quantum inertial sensor ever tested in space.' Boeing has previously tested a quantum inertial measurement unit, which detects rotation and acceleration using atom interferometry, on conventional aircraft. Now, an advanced version of the technology is being taken to space to demonstrate its viability. The goal of the in-space test is to demonstrate precise positioning, navigation, and timing in an environment where GPS services are not available. 'Bottom line: Testing this tech will be helpful for navigation in contested environments where GPS may be degraded or denied,' Saltzman said in a social media post Monday, describing the flight. Quantum inertial sensors could also be used near the moon, where there is no comparable GPS capability, or for exploration further into the solar system. Notably, the small X-37B is back to launching on a medium-lift rocket with this new mission. During its most recent flight that ended in March, the space plane launched on a Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time. This allowed the X-37B to fly beyond low Earth orbit and reach an elliptical high Earth orbit. This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.
WIRED
25-06-2025
- Science
- WIRED
A European Startup's Spacecraft Made It to Orbit. Now It's Lost at Sea
Eric Berger, Ars Technica Jun 25, 2025 4:25 PM The Exploration Company lost contact with its 'Mission Possible' vehicle a few minutes before touchdown in the ocean. Photographer: The Exploration Company A European company that seeks to develop orbital spacecraft for cargo, and eventually humans, took a step forward this week with a test flight that saw its "Mission Possible" vehicle power up and fly successfully in orbit before making a controlled reentry into Earth's atmosphere. However, after encountering an "issue," the Exploration Company lost contact with its spacecraft a few minutes before touchdown in the ocean. In an update on LinkedIn Tuesday morning, the company characterized the test flight as a partial success—and a partial failure. "The capsule was launched successfully, powered the payloads nominally in-orbit, stabilized itself after separation with the launcher, re-entered and re-established communication after black out," the company said in a statement. "We are still investigating the root causes and will share more information soon. We apologize to all our clients who entrusted us with their payloads." Maybe It Was the Parachutes Reestablishing communications with the spacecraft after the blackout period suggests that the vehicle got through the most thermally challenging part of reentry into Earth's atmosphere and perhaps validated the spacecraft's handling and ability to withstand maximum heating. Following this, according to the company's timeline for Mission Possible, the capsule's parachutes were due to deploy at a velocity between Mach 0.8 and Mach 0.6. The parachutes were selected for their "proven flight heritage," the company said, and were procured from US-based Airborne Systems, which provides parachutes used by SpaceX's Dragon, Boeing's Starliner, and other spacecraft. Given when the spacecraft was lost, it seems most likely that there was a problem with the deployment of the drogue or main parachutes. Mission Possible was a 2.5-meter diameter demonstration vehicle that was among the larger payloads launched Monday afternoon on SpaceX's Transporter 14 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The mission sought to test four primary areas of spaceflight: structural performance in orbital flight, surviving reentry, autonomous navigation, and recovery in real-world conditions. It only clearly failed in this final task, recovering the vehicle within three days to return on-board payloads to customers. Meeting an Aggressive Timeline It is refreshing to have such clear and concise communication from a space company, especially the acknowledgment that a flight was a partial failure, within hours of launch. And it is not a surprise that there were technical challenges on a vehicle that was put together fairly rapidly and at a low cost. In an interview with Ars last November, the founder of The Exploration Company, Hélène Huby, said Mission Possible was developed at a cost of about $20 million in 2.5 years, in addition to $10 million for the rideshare launch on the Falcon 9 rocket. At the time, she said Mission Possible was on track to launch this summer, and the company met this timeline. Given the potential issues with the parachute system or other problems near touchdown, it is possible that The Exploration Company may fly another subscale demonstration mission before moving into development of its full-size Nyx cargo spacecraft. "This partial success reflects both ambition and the inherent risks of innovation," the company said Tuesday morning. "Leveraging the technical milestones achieved yesterday and the lessons we will extract from our ongoing investigation, we will then prepare to re-fly as soon as possible." Working Toward Nyx To date, the company has raised more than $230 million and plans to use much of that for the development of Nyx, which could fly as early as 2028 and focus on cargo delivery missions to low-Earth orbit. By demonstrating this capability, Huby said her company would like to secure funding from the European Space Agency to develop a crew-rated version of the spacecraft and a vehicle to return cargo from the Moon. This is not an unreasonable plan. SpaceX required significant funding from NASA, nearly $3 billion, to develop its Crew Dragon vehicle after demonstrating an initial cargo version. Huby said The Exploration Company would require a similar amount of funding from European nations. It is not possible to raise that money from private capital markets right now by promising a great return a decade from now. By one metric, Monday's flight was a significant success. Compared to the United States and China, the commercial space industry in Europe has lagged behind, beset by a less favorable environment for startups and opposition by large, traditional space companies that have dominated Europe's orbital activities for decades. The Exploration Company reached space with a fairly large vehicle and flew it back through Earth's atmosphere less than four years after its founding. This is a credible start for the company. This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.
Gulf Insider
06-05-2025
- Business
- Gulf Insider
Chinese Space Program Copying Elon Musk's Starlink
Eric Berger, the senior space editor at Ars Technica, quoted a post on X from a China space observer detailing how Beijing appears to be copying Elon Musk's Starlink space internet company, operated by SpaceX. 'The Chinese space program copying SpaceX? Well, I never …,' Berger wrote. Berger quoted Blaine Curcio, founder of Orbital Gateway Consulting and an expert on China's space industry, who identified SpaceSail—a Chinese space company backed by the Shanghai municipal government—as having unveiled its 'commercial' version of Starlink satellites at China Space Day 2025. The only problem China has is its launch cadence. For the year, SpaceX has 50 launches. This includes 48 Falcon 9 launches and 2 Starship launches. They have also launched 17 non-Starlink missions and 45 reused boosters. The latest count of Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit has surpassed 7,000, delivering high-speed internet to five million customers across 125 countries, territories, and other global markets. SpaceX's third quarter 2024 launch report showed the US leading the global space race, launching 84% of all mass to orbit globally. This is 15 times all Chinese launches combined in the quarter, according to data from BryceTech. Goldman turned bullish on Starlink earlier this year.
WIRED
12-04-2025
- Science
- WIRED
Proposed NASA Budget Cuts ‘Would Decimate American Leadership in Space'
Eric Berger, Ars Technica Apr 12, 2025 4:00 AM The approximate 20 percent budget cut could force the closure of the Goddard Space Flight Center and would see projects such as the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope scrapped. This week, as part of the process to develop a budget for fiscal-year 2026, the Trump White House shared the draft version of its budget request for NASA with the space agency. This initial version of the administration's budget request calls for an approximately 20 percent overall cut to the agency's budget across the board, effectively $5 billion from an overall top line of about $25 billion. However, the majority of the cuts are concentrated within the agency's Science Mission Directorate, which oversees all planetary science, Earth science, astrophysics research, and more. This story originally appeared on Ars Technica, a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, reviews, and more. Ars is owned by WIRED's parent company, Condé Nast. According to the "passback" documents given to NASA officials on Thursday, the space agency's science programs would receive nearly a 50 percent cut in funding. After the agency received $7.5 billion for science in fiscal-year 2025, the Trump administration has proposed a science top-line budget of just $3.9 billion for the coming fiscal year. Detailing the Cuts Among the proposals were a two-thirds cut to astrophysics, (down to $487 million), a greater than two-thirds cut to heliophysics (down to $455 million), a greater than 50 percent cut to Earth science (down to $1.033 billion), and a 30 percent cut to Planetary science (down to $1.929 billion). Although the budget would continue support for ongoing missions such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, it would kill the much-anticipated Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, an observatory seen as on par with those two world-class instruments that is already fully assembled and on budget for a launch in two years. "Passback supports continued operation of the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes and assumes no funding is provided for other telescopes," the document states. Other significant cuts include ending funding for Mars Sample Return as well as the DAVINCI mission to Venus. The budget cuts also appear intended to force the closure of Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland where the agency has 10,000 civil servants and contractors. The Passback Process The cuts are in line with what Ars Technica exclusively reported last month, that the Trump administration was considering a massive 50-percent cut to NASA's science programs. Publicly, some officials downplayed these concerns. As recently as this week, NASA's acting administrator, Janet Petro, characterized this reporting as "rumors from really not credible sources." However, science policy experts have been more alarmed, characterizing such cuts as an "extinction level" event for what is seen as the crown jewel of the space agency. Nearly all of NASA's most significant achievements over the past 25 years have been delivered by the science programs, including feats such as the Ingenuity helicopter flying on Mars, New Horizons swooping by Pluto, and Cassini's discovery of water plumes on Enceladus. This passback document represents just the opening salvo of the process to establish a federal budget for fiscal-year 2026, which begins on October 1 of this year. The budget is produced by the White House Office of Management and Budget, which is overseen by Russell Vought, who has long made his anti-science budgeting priorities clear through his Center for Renewing America. The Trump administration nominee to lead NASA, private astronaut Jared Isaacman, said during a confirmation hearing this week that he strongly supported NASA's science programs. It is unlikely that Isaacman was involved in drafting this document, as he has not yet been confirmed by the US Senate. Nominees, typically, are excluded from policy prior to confirmation. After receiving passback documents, NASA usually has 72 hours to review the materials and then submit appeals and justification for changes. Any modifications are then incorporated into a final document that becomes the "President's Budget Request" for the next fiscal year. It is not clear when the Trump administration plans to release this budget request, a public document. It could happen within the next four to six weeks. Congress Will Likely Fight Back Following this, the White House will work with Congress to actually set the budget. The US House and Senate each have separate appropriations committees that consider (or not) the White House priorities in establishing a final budget that the president must then sign into law. Fierce opposition to some of these NASA cuts is likely in Congress. "This massive cut to NASA Science will not stand," Representative George Whitesides, a California Democrat, told Ars. "For weeks we have been raising the alarm about a rumored 50 percent cut to NASA's world-leading science efforts. Now we know it is true. I will work alongside my colleagues on the Science Committee to make clear how this would decimate American leadership in space and inflict great damage to NASA centers across the country." One concern, however, is that should the budgeting process be delayed—as is often the case with the federal budget—the White House could force agencies to make operational plans based on the president's budget request once the new fiscal year begins on October 1. Again this will depend on negotiations with Congress, but, using a process called impoundment, some Trump officials believe it may be possible to turn the budget request into an actual budget for all intents and purposes. This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.
