Moonshot #6

Another day...another SpaceX launch, RFA completes hot fire test, and Leo DiCaprio not only "looks up" but also down

Hello Continuum readers and Celestial Citizens,

Welcome back to Moonshot where we will give a bi-weekly rundown of all the private sector space news. Also, if you haven’t already, consider becoming a paid subscriber ($6/month) so you can get past that pesky paywall and read the full Moonshot post!

And here is the commercial space beat…

Germany’s Rocket Factory Augsburg successfully completes a hot fire test for a full 280 seconds. Credit: RFA

SpaceX – In addition to a recent successful ISS cargo mission, SpaceX can celebrate an important sale of Starlink internet terminals to the Pentagon, which will allow for continued communication aid in Ukraine amidst the Russian invasion. While for security reasons, we don’t know the contract details, the announcement came only a couple days before Musk’s company launched an additional 22 Starlink satellites into orbit to join the over-4000 satellite constellation. While the company currently has approval to deploy 12,000 more satellites, they’re working on extending that permission to 30,000. And who can even keep up anymore? SpaceX is scheduled to launch another 72 satellites today.

Axiom – Staying on theme with SpaceX success stories, the Ax-2 mission astronauts splashed down to Earth last week in a Dragon capsule after approximately one week at the ISS. The historic mission to the station – only the second funded and operated by a private company – was a huge milestone for Houston-based Axiom Space, who has also signed a deal with NASA to build a commercial addition onto the ISS.

Rocket Factory Augsburg  – German company RFA completed a milestone hot fire test last week, the first time that “a privately developed staged combustion upper stage has been successfully hot fired” in Europe. The achievement not only qualifies the engine for its next test of the first stage, but also proves the company’s strategy around powerful small launchers is a competitive one. 

Nuview – Lidar lidar! A new Florida-based startup is answering the call for light detection and ranging (lidar) satellites, and they have the great LDC behind them. That’s right, Leo DiCaprio is amongst the investors sidling up to Nuview, who touts their satellites’ native 3D quality, enabling them to”see through a canopy of trees to get a 3D rendering of what’s beneath,” according to CEO Clint Graumann.  

The Exploration Company – Based in the UK, The Exploration Company is competing for a contract with ESA to design a cargo space capsule, or in their words, "the first European cargo capsule that will go to the ISS and commercial space stations.” The company already has a capsule dubbed “Nyx” in development, which is designed to hold approximately 4,000 kilograms of experiments in LEO. It should be noted, however, that technically, the “first European cargo capsule” to go to the ISS was the ATV, made by Aérospatiale. This company has now disintegrated, with Thales and Airbus inheriting its bits and pieces.