A Crew #Dragon spacecraft returned four people from the International Space Station March 18, including two #NASA astronauts whose extended stay became entangled in sensationalism and political controversy.

The Crew Dragon spacecraft Freedom undocked from the station at 1:05 a.m. Eastern on the final leg of the Crew-9 mission. The spacecraft splashed down off the Florida coast near Tallahassee at 5:57 p.m. Eastern.

The spacecraft returned with NASA astronaut Nick Hague, commander of Crew-9, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, the mission’s pilot. The two launched to the station on the spacecraft in September.

Also on board were NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. The two arrived on the station in June on the Crew Flight Test mission of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, originally for a stay intended to be as short as eight days. However, problems with the spacecraft’s thrusters led NASA in August to decide to bring Starliner back uncrewed. The agency removed two astronauts originally assigned to Crew-9, Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson, to free up seats for Wilmore and Williams to use for the trip back to Earth.

The spacecraft’s return appeared to be technically flawless. The spacecraft splashed down near the SpaceX recovery ship, which had the capsule on board within about a half-hour. The four people on board were taken off the capsule a short time later, appearing to be in good spirits.

Crew-9 departed the ISS barely 48 hours after their replacements arrived on another Crew Dragon spacecraft, Crew-10. NASA shortened an already condensed handover between the crews to take advantage of excellent weather conditions at the splashdown location given the possibility of less favorable weather later in the week.

However, NASA officials said at a post-splashdown briefing that shortened handovers won’t be the norm in the future. Bill Spetch, operations integration manager for the ISS program at NASA, said they immediately took care of critical briefings during the handover covering emergency procedures, but there was less time for the departing Crew-9 astronauts to discuss routine station operations and procedures, institutional knowledge that isn’t necessarily written down.

“A lot of the handover we do with the crews is more set up to be an efficiency gain, and that really helps them be more effective,” he said, particularly in the new crew’s first days and weeks on the station. “In general, we don’t look to reduce that because we want to be as efficient as possible.”

Crew-9 returns from space station

Ceres-1 rocket launches 8 Chinese commercial #satellites.
HELSINKI — Chinese commercial launch company Galactic Energy successfully sent eight satellites into orbit early Monday with its light-lift Ceres-1 rocket.

The Ceres-1 solid rocket lifted off at 4:07 a.m. Eastern (0807) March 17 from a transport erector launcher at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, northwest China. Galactic Energy confirmed launch success within an hour of liftoff, stating that eight satellites had been sent into 535-kilometer-altitude sun-synchronous orbits (SSO).

The payloads consisted of six Yunyao-1 (55-60) satellites, each equipped with GNSS occultation payloads. The satellites are for commercial firm Tianjin Yunyao Aerospace Technology Co., Ltd, and dedicated to obtaining information including atmospheric temperature, humidity, pressure, and ionospheric electron density to provide data for global weather forecasting.

The final two payloads were the AIRSAT (Zhongke) 06 and 07 satellites, equipped with multispectral imager payloads, for Aerospace Information Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (AIRCAS), a mixed ownership enterprise. Previous AIRSAT satellites include synthetic aperture radar and optical payloads, supporting a variety of Earth observation applications.

The mission was codenamed Auld Lang Syne and was Galactic Energy’s 18th Ceres-1 launch and 17th successful flight. The company suffered its only failure in September 2023 on its 10th launch attempt. The launcher can carry 400 kilograms of payload to low Earth orbit (LEO) or 300 kg to a 500-km SSO. Monday’s Ceres-1 rocket was the second produced at Galactic Energy’s research and development and production base for new-generation solid-propellant rockets in Ziyang, Sichuan Province. Competitor iSpace has also committed to new facilities in Sichuan following a funding round.

Galactic Energy plans to debut the new Ceres-2 rocket in the first half of the year. It is an upgraded variant of the Ceres-1 with an increased payload capacity of 1,600 kg to 500-km LEO, and 1,300 kg to 500-km SSO, according to Galactic Energy.
Liquid propellant rocket debut

The company is also working towards the first launch of its Pallas-1 rocket, a kerosene-liquid oxygen rocket which will later be adapted for first stage reusability. Pallas-1 has a payload capacity of 8,000 kg to a 200-kilometer-altitude LEO, while the company says a three-core-stage variant will be capable of carrying up to 30,000 kg to LEO.

Galactic Energy stated Dec. 31 that the final assembly of the first Pallas-1 rocket is underway. It is expected to launch from new facilities at Hainan commercial spaceport, while a dedicated site is being constructed at the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Test Area at Jiuquan spaceport.

Pallas-1 is just one of a number of state-owned and commercial liquid propellant launch vehicles that could have debut launches in 2025, with a number of these to also attempt recovery of the first stages.
China space activities in 2025

Monday’s launch was Galactic Energy’s second launch of the year and China’s 13th orbital launch attempt overall. It follows the Saturday launch of the SuperView Neo-3 (02) high-resolution remote sensing satellite and the piggybacking Tianyan-23 satellite for MinoSpace. The launch used a Long March 2D rocket, lifting off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 12:11 a.m. (0411 UTC) March 15.

China has not yet published an overview of its plans for 2025. However, the country, with expanded spaceport capabilities, megaconstellation projects underway, and new launchers expected to debut, could be targeting around 100 or more launches across the year. This would eclipse the national record 68 launches last year, and involve increasing commercial launch activity.

Major missions will include the Shenzhou-20 and 21 human spaceflight missions to the Tiangong space station and the Tianwen-2 near-Earth asteroid sample return mission, expected to launch around May.

TAMPA, Fla. — SES has outlined plans for a more streamlined board of directors, but one of the satellite operator’s biggest shareholders says the changes don’t go far enough amid mounting competition in the space industry.

The Luxembourg-based company said it has decided to reduce its board from 11 to nine members while proposing two new directors with extensive U.S. national security and defense leadership experience:

Ellen Lord, former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment of the United States Department of Defense.

John Shaw, former Deputy Commander of the U.S. Space Force and first Commander of the USSF Space Operations Command and Combined Forces Space Component Command.

These appointments will help SES “effectively navigate this rapidly changing landscape,” the company said, and will be put to a vote at its next annual shareholder meeting April 3.

SES also kicked off a search for a director with capital markets experience after hedge fund Appaloosa called for an overhaul of its share capital and board structure.

Appaloosa holds more than 7% of SES’ economic interests and has a similar stake in Intelsat, which SES is acquiring in a $3.1 billion deal.

While SES said it would put Appaloosa’s proposal for a structured program to distribute capital to shareholders to a vote — despite recommending its rejection — the operator dismissed other proposals from the hedge fund, such as reducing state control.

“The initial steps the SES Board is taking to modernize its structure are long-overdue and only came following shareholder pressure,” Appaloosa said in a statement.

“However, much more can, and must, be done — with a greater sense of urgency than is evident from the Board’s incrementalism.”

Appaloosa urged other shareholders to vote in favor of its plan to return excess cash flow to shareholders annually.

SES said it already strikes a healthy balance between returning capital to shareholders and maintaining flexibility for growth investments, warning that Appaloosa’s proposal could jeopardize its investment-grade credit rating.

Luxembourg has been an anchor shareholder since the company’s inception, SES noted, and the government’s special Class B shares cannot be taken away by a vote of other shareholders.

“In any event, SES considers the Luxembourg Government to be a valuable shareholder and stakeholder in the Company and the Luxembourg Government has on numerous occasions confirmed its strong support for the Company,” SES said.

SES added that the government is unable to appoint more than a third of its total number of board directors, preventing it from dictating or inhibiting the company’s growth strategy.

Appaloosa had also called on SES to remove its entire board and replace it with a smaller number of directors, which SES said would be chaotic and unnecessary.

#Rocket Lab launches Japanese SAR #satellite ,Rocket Lab launched a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging satellite for a Japanese company March 14, the first of eight such missions Rocket Lab has under contract with that customer.

The Electron rocket lifted off from Pad B of Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 at Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand, at 8 p.m. Eastern. The payload, the QPS-SAR-9 satellite, separated from the kick stage nearly an hour later after being placed into a planned orbit of 575 kilometers at an inclination of 42 degrees.

The satellite is the latest for the Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Space, Inc. (iQPS), a Japanese company with long-term ambitions to operate a constellation of 36 SAR satellites to provide high-resolution radar imagery.

Rocket Lab announced in February two separate contracts with iOPS, each for four launches. Each launch would carry a single satellite. Six of the launches are scheduled for this year and the other two in 2026.This launch was the first under those contracts and the second overall for iQPS, after a launch of the QPS-SAR-5 satellite in December 2023.

Where no rover has gone before: how Mars helicopters enable a new era of exploration .

One of NASA’s greatest successes of the 21st century thus far came in a very unexpected form: a four-pound helicopter called Ingenuity. Ingenuity created a new Wright Brothers moment when it flew the Martian skies in 2021, pioneering an entirely new way of exploring Mars and captivating the global public’s attention. Built and delivered to the launch pad in less than 18 months for a cost of less than 3% of the rover that it accompanied to Mars, Ingenuity punched above its weight class in every respect — and made a strong case that NASA should follow up with even more helicopter missions.

The Ingenuity mission was considered a technology demonstrator, intended only to prove something could fly in the barely-there atmosphere of Mars. After accomplishing that with its first flight, it also showed that even a helicopter with no dedicated science instrumentation could conduct meaningful science. Through 72 flights, Ingenuity was Perseverance’s trusty sidekick, leading directly to collections of intriguing rock samples and helping researchers understand the winds, the movement of sand, and the shaping of the landscape on Mars.

Ingenuity has earned awards and citations in scientific journals, but its greatest legacy lies in its role as a trailblazer for future aerial vehicles. It has definitively proven that controlled flight on Mars is not just possible — it’s a game-changer. Thanks to the invaluable data gathered from Ingenuity’s flights, the next generation of Mars helicopters will be even more capable. Future vehicles will carry scientific payloads, cover greater distances, reach previously inaccessible locations and fly with unmatched precision, enabling groundbreaking science missions.

Low-cost vehicles that make heavy use of Ingenuity legacy hardware could carry more than two pounds of dedicated scientific instrumentation on daily flights of nearly a mile each. They can operate alone, collaboratively in pairs or swarms, or partnership with rovers or landers. And since they can access terrain that no rover or lander could navigate, helicopters may well give us our first close-up views into some of the most interesting and challenging places on Mars — like glacial crevasses, vertical cliff faces or skylight openings into hollow lava tubes.

The scientific potential of Ingenuity’s successors seems limitless. Last summer, researchers held two workshops dedicated to the discussion of aerial science on Mars. The “Rise of the Drones” workshop, led by Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) researcher Serina Diniega, spurred an open discussion between scientists, engineers, mission planners, and instrument developers about what new planetary science is enabled with already-existing drone technologies and applications, yielding plentiful ideas for how to carry those terrestrial technologies to Mars. A second workshop focused on a JPL concept in early development to use a more complex flying vehicle to survey the length of Valles Marineris, the grandest canyon in our solar system. With each passing scientific conference, ideas and concepts for flying vehicles on Mars keep adding up.

SpaceX launches Transporter-13 rideshare mission .

WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Falcon 9 launched more than 70 payloads in the latest in its series of dedicated rideshare missions that have reshaped the small satellite industry.

The Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 2:43 a.m. Eastern March 15 on the Transporter-13 mission. It was the second of three launches the company performed in a little more than 12 hours, after the launch of the Crew-10 mission from the Kennedy Space Center and before a launch of Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral.

SpaceX said Transporter-13 carried 74 payloads, including hosted payloads and satellites that will be deployed later from an orbital transfer vehicle by D-Orbit. SpaceX’s website listed 47 separate deployments planned over 90 minutes.

As with previous Transporter missions, this launch included a mix of new and returning customers from government and industry. Spire flew seven of its Lemur satellites on Transporter-13, while Iceye launched four more of its synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites. Iceye said one of the four was the company’s first “Gen4” satellite with an antenna double the size of the previous model and with twice the power.

Another returning customer is Varda Space Industries, which launched its third orbital processing and return capsule mission, W-3. It comes on the heels of W-2, launched on Transporter-12 in January and whose capsule landed in Australia Feb. 28. Varda said the W-3 capsule will also land in Australia after a few weeks in orbit, testing an inertial measurement unit for the U.S. Air Force.

#ESA lays foundations for the future of data transmission.

Europe’s investment in HydRON, a multi-orbit optical data relay network, signals a pivotal shift in how data is moved across Earth and beyond.

The program aims to transform satellite connectivity, bridging the gap between low Earth orbit (LEO), geostationary orbit (GEO) and terrestrial networks with blazing-fast laser links.

According to the European Space Agency, it would not only deliver a technological leap forward for optical communications, but also reshape the space economy and future-proof Europe’s role in an increasingly competitive global market.

As spacefaring nations and companies race to develop faster, more resilient connectivity, the question isn’t whether optical relays will become the new standard — it’s how quickly and at what scale.

Using lasers capable of delivering up to 100 gigabits per second (Gb/s) and potentially beyond, HydRON would enable real-time data transfer to overcome the typical delays of LEO satellites, which can take up to 90 minutes to pass over approved ground stations for communication.

The stakes are high. Operators relying on legacy systems face growing pressure to integrate with next-generation networks. Real-time connectivity will be critical for everything from Earth observation and defense to deep-space exploration and direct-to-device services.

But with cutting-edge technology comes new challenges: cybersecurity risks, regulatory hurdles and cost barriers that could slow adoption.

WASHINGTON — Italian smallsat developer Argotec has unveiled a new modular satellite bus design that it believes provides flexibility in accommodating a wide range payloads.

The company announced the Hawk Plus satellite design March 11 during the Satellite 2025 conference. The design uses modular panels that can be swapped out using a plug-and-play architecture to accommodate different mission needs.

“What we are introducing is one flexible platform which, on one hand, is standardized enough to offer a high level of industrialization, but on the other hand, is designed to accommodate flexibility and to evolve over time in order to cope with different missions,” said Emilio Fazzoletto, head of product management at Argotec, during a presentation about Hawk Plus.

The design uses a series of modular panels hosting different subsystems, such as power and communications, that can be reconfigured to meet different mission needs. That design builds on the heritage of the satellites Argotec is building for the IRIDE Italian Earth observation constellation.

One advantage of the design, he said, is that it decouples the payload from the bus. “You can install the payload at a later stage,” he said. “It also means that payload integration can happen at later stage, also at facilities other than ours. So, for example, we can let our customers integrate classified payloads at their facilities.”

Argotec opted for a modular approach rather than try to develop a family of buses of different sizes and capabilities to meet customer needs. “They want something that already exists, but it’s hard to have something that already exists with almost no NRE [non-recurring engineering] and fit their unique payload into it,” said Corbett Hoenninger, U.S. managing director of Argotec, in an interview.

The company plans to produce the Hawk Plus modules at its new SpacePark headquarters and production facility in Turin, Italy, that it opened last October, with the option to also produce them in the United States at a facility it is developing Florida. That opens up what Hoenninger called “hybrid” approaches, where the bus modules are produced in Italy and shipped to the U.S. for final assembly and payload integration.

Where are we on the journey to a lunar economy?


Former NASA Administrator and LogiQ co-president Mike Griffin framed it best: “the question about the vision for space exploration boils down to whether we want to incorporate the solar system in our economic sphere or not.” To live off the land within the solar system, not depending on Earth for the necessities of life, requires in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). Some moons of Saturn and Jupiter may be candidates but, with current propulsion technologies, remain off-limit for commercial round trips. For accessible ISRU, we draw a line in the vicinity of Mars and the Main Belt asteroids. Mars is a settlement project self-funded by governments and individuals, with opportunities for privateers. At the other end of the inner solar system, excluding Mercury, Venus may be habitable in its upper atmosphere.

But it is in between that we might have a business case in the making: Greater Earth, comprising of Earth orbits, cislunar space, the moon, and near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), is the piece of real estate that enables propellant depots, with logistical and industrial opportunities. This cislunar perimeter is meant to act as an ISRU hub toward the Solar System. Public funding of lunar political commitment stems from such common sense understanding. Private sector contracts and investors are working hard to make it happen: Intuitive Machines was among the top four best performing space stocks of 2024. But is a cis/lunar economy even a thing at all, if meant as a sustainable market economy on the moon, in its vicinity, and the cislunar space that starts beyond the currently occupied Earth orbits? In a nutshell, we aren’t there yet. What follows is a pathway for what it would take to get there.
Cis/lunar commercial development: a clear and pragmatic vision

The moon is the closest planetary body on which to practice ISRU, which would allow humanity to build value chains within the greater Earth perimeter. Moving beyond Flags and Footprints missions, establishing Antarctic-style research stations, producing propellant and setting up industrial pilots would enable a market based on manufacturing and trading industrial goods and consumables, all while developing space habitats in various locations. For the industrialization of space the investment and trade in high-value goods for Earth markets is paramount: dumping unprocessed raw materials from space back on Earth makes no economic sense. Over time, mineral resources from NEAs may be integrated in these Greater Earth value chains. Cis/lunar closed systems and power generation may be used to solve terrestrial environmental issues. This does take decades. Yet, self-sustaining lunar stations may emerge post-2050, invested by international civil and commercial stakeholders with sustained political will and sustainable resources. The biggest market opportunities are cis/lunar transportation, infrastructures, habitat and ISRU, with various power generation options (such as solar and nuclear). Next come essential supporting activities such as communications, agrifood production and consumable supplies.
From speculation to validation

Potentially extractable lunar resources include volatiles such as ice water and oxygen (to be used for propellant, life support systems and radiation shields) and platinum group metals (valuable to tech markets). Helium-3 recently made a comeback with a use case as a cooling device for quantum computers, rather than for the elusive albeit increasingly invested-in nuclear fusion. A first principle of resources extraction economic realism is to go through the motions of increasing geological (or here, selenical) confidence from resources to reserves: from inferred to indicated to measured mineral resources, it is crucial to precisely quantify mineral reserves, or the techno-economically mineable part of these carefully measured resources — the ground truth. We don’t have lunar ground truth yet, so we need to explore, map, measure and extract. That’s a lot of missing data, but that is only a first step.

Next, ISRU needs to not only work but scale up at a reasonable level of industrial production for commercial exploitation. That depends on technology readiness in-situ, not with a prototype on Earth. The subsequent requirement is affordable shipping of a marketable output to a customer in space or on Earth. With capital expenditures, cis/lunar shipping, and the cost in treasure and human health, if the commercial invoice math doesn’t add up, you’ve built yourself a white elephant.