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Amazon plans 5,105 satellites for mobile connectivity

Campers looking at smartphone with tent and streams of Leo logos in background
An illustration shows campers using a smartphone to connect with a stylized Amazon Leo satellite network. (Amazon Photoillustration)

Amazon Leo has asked the Federal Communications Commission to approve its plan to launch up to 5,105 satellites capable of providing space-based connectivity for mobile devices.

“Our plan is to start deploying in 2028, and we’re excited to work with partners to make it happen,” Chris Weber, vice president of business and product for Amazon Leo, said on X.

The direct-to-device network, Amazon Leo D2D, would complement Amazon’s satellite network for high-speed internet service via fixed antennas. It would also leverage the existing direct-to-device network operated by Globalstar, which is in the midst of a merger with Amazon.

So far, more than 390 Amazon Leo satellites have been launched into low Earth orbit. Amazon says it plans to start rolling out commercial service later this year. The company plans to have 3,232 first-generation satellites in orbit by mid-2029, and the FCC has already given the go-ahead for more than 4,500 second-generation satellites that would give an extra boost to network coverage.

This latest move, which was expected ever since the plans for acquiring Globalstar were announced in April, aims to capitalize on the growing interest in direct-to-device connectivity.

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NASA funds research into nuclear heaters for astronauts

Collage of illustrations highlighting NASA-funded research projects, including picture of astronaut working on moon with a glowing heater on backpack
This collage highlights some of the projects selected for funding through the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, including a study looking at radioisotope heating systems for moonwalking astronauts, depicted at center left. (NASA Graphic)

NASA says it’s funding a new batch of far-out research projects, including a study evaluating how radioactive heaters can keep astronauts warm while they work on the moon.

The heating project was proposed by Zeno Power Systems, a nuclear battery company with operations in Seattle, California and Washington, D.C. It’s one of 18 projects selected for nine-month, $225,000 Phase I grants by the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program. For decades, NIAC grants have helped researchers test concepts with potential space applications.

Zeno’s research project is led by A.C. Charania, the company’s senior vice president of space business development. Charania previously spent two years as NASA’s chief technologist and five years in management roles at Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture.

The project comes with an acronym taken from J.R.R. Tolkien’s tales of Middle-earth: EARENDIL, which stands for Extended Astronaut Radioisotope-EVA in Nighttime and Deep-Space Icy Landscapes. In “The Silmarillion,” Eärendil is a half-Elven mariner who voyaged to the Undying Lands. As described in Zeno’s proposal, EARENDIL technology would warm space voyagers while they work outside during the frigid lunar night, amid temperatures that can plunge as low as 410 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (-246 degrees Celsius).

Zeno is already developing a new class of compact nuclear devices powered by the heat of radioactive decay. One type of device would convert that heat into electricity, but the device proposed for EARENDIL would function strictly as a heater rather than a battery.

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Universe Today

Lucky 13! Starship sends out satellites and stays intact

Aerial view of Starship rising from launch pad
SpaceX's Starship launch system rises from its Texas launch pad for a suborbital flight test. (Credit: SpaceX via X)

SpaceX’s Starship super-rocket deployed operational next-generation Starlink satellites for the first time during its 13th flight test, which addressed snags that arose in the previous test.

The 407-foot-tall, two-stage rocket rose from its Starbase launch pad in Texas at 5:51 p.m. CT (3:51 p.m. PT) today, with all 33 Raptor engines firing on the Super Heavy booster. On the way up, the rocket set a record for maximum dynamic pressure, also known as Max-Q.

Minutes after liftoff, the Starship upper stage — known as Ship — separated to continue on the flight test’s trajectory, and then the booster relit its engines for a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX launch commentator Dan Huot noted that not all of the engines fired up as planned — making for a splash that was a bit spicier than expected but still safe.

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GeekWire

Mars Society plans to put research station in Seattle

Researchers dressed in spacesuits walking in the desert with habitat buildings in background
Two analog astronauts trudge toward the Mars Society's Mars Desert Research Station in Utah. (Mars Society Photo)

The Mars Society is planning to build a Pacific Northwest research station suitable for simulating missions to the moon or Mars, in partnership with South Seattle College.

The nonprofit space advocacy group announced today that its executive director, James L. Burk, and the college’s president, Monica Brown, have signed a 10-year memorandum of agreement establishing the partnership.

The plan calls for the Mars Society to lease land on the college’s 87-acre West Seattle campus and build the research station, contingent on funding. Both parties will raise funds from aerospace companies and other donors to support construction, with the goal of opening the station at the start of the 2027-2028 academic year.

The agreement provides for the creation of a joint space studies curriculum and certificate program; a student capstone project and internship program tied to industry partners; and a regional workforce pipeline and community engagement effort.

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GeekWire

Interlune comes up with a cool way to produce helium-3

Interlune engineers working with helium-3 extraction equipment in lab
Mechanical engineer Sam Heyd, Chief Technology Officer Gary Lai and chemical engineer Brenden Pelkie operate the Cold Capture system in Interlune’s Cryogenic Lab at the company’s Seattle headquarters. (Interlune Photo)

Seattle-based Interlune says it has managed to produce 99% pure helium-3 from a standard supply of industrial-grade helium, marking a milestone for a technology that the company aims to use on the moon.

The process, known as Cold Capture, could be profitably used on Earth even before Interlune begins lunar mining operations.

Only 0.000137% of the world’s helium exists in the form of helium-3, as opposed to the much more common helium-4 isotope. But helium-3 is uniquely suited for use as a refrigerant for quantum computers. It can also be used in radiation detectors, medical scanners and eventually fusion reactors.

Because of its rarity and utility, the price of helium-3 can range as high as $20 million per kilogram ($9 million per pound). Interlune is betting on the proposition that helium-3 is more abundant and easier to access on the moon, due to the lunar surface’s exposure to the solar wind. If Interlune’s business model works out, it will be able to turn a profit by delivering lunar helium-3 to Earth for industrial applications.

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GeekWire

TerraByte takes its ‘Earth Search Engine’ to the next level

Screenshot of TerraByte News' interactive map, focused on events being tracked in U.S.
An interactive map displays the sites of wildfires, earthquakes and severe weather events, with links to satellite imagery. (Credit: TerraByte)

Two months after emerging from stealth mode, TerraByte AI is using artificial intelligence and a new partnership to upgrade its “Earth Search Engine.”

The startup, which maintains operations in Seattle as well as San Francisco, has just rolled out a TerraByte News service that pinpoints wildfires, earthquakes and severe weather events on an interactive map. Users can follow links to access news reports, social media posts and satellite views related to selected events.

The satellite views include open-source images from NASA’s Earth observation system as well as Europe’s Sentinel satellites. And now the database also features high-resolution pictures provided through a newly announced partnership with Texas-based SkyFi. The partnership gives TerraByte’s users access to SkyFi’s self-service Earth intelligence platform, which offers satellite and aerial imagery from more than 300 sources at prices as low as $15 per image.

“In May, when we came out of stealth, we made the planet searchable,” TerraByte CEO Rishi Madhok told me. “Now, the moment you find something, you can hold the imagery in your hands within a day. The next step is making Earth intelligence as routine as a web search — you ask, you see, and then you act.”

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Fiction Science Club

How ‘Star City’ reimagined the Soviet space effort

Female cosmonaut on moon in scene from "Star City"
A female cosmonaut (played by Alice Englert) speaks via video after landing on the moon in "Star City." (Credit: Apple TV)

How do you capture the mood of the 1960s space race in a fictional universe where the Soviets beat the Americans to the moon?

The American side of the story was told in “For All Mankind,” an Apple TV series that concluded its fifth season in May. Now a spinoff series called “Star City,” which tells the Soviet side of the story, is set to wrap up its critically acclaimed first season.

Reimagining the Soviet space effort — and the Star City cosmonaut training center that served (and still serves) as its epicenter — was a challenge worthy of the Chief Designer himself. But cinematographer Brendan Uegama and the rest of the production team were up to it.

“We set up a really high bar for our standard of what our world was,” Uegama says in the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast.

“That was not a perfectly beautiful world of photography like you would typically see or experience in a lot of movies,” he says. “We didn’t go to the beauty just for the sake of making a pretty picture. We stuck with our gut and said, no, it’s better if it’s a little uglier, because it feels a little more truthful to what this would be.”

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GeekWire

Pulse Space wins Pentagon backing for laser power

Illustration: Satellite in orbit with laser light striking solar arrays
An artist’s conception shows a satellite receiving energy from a laser beam. (Credit: Pulse Space via Vimeo)

Bellevue, Wash.-based Pulse Space says it has received a $40 million award from the U.S. Space Force to develop technologies for laser-based power beaming and orbital tracking systems.

The startup, founded in 2022, is working on a system that would collect energy using solar arrays and send that energy via a laser beam to remote nodes in space. The technologies developed for the system could also be used to track objects in orbit and transmit data.

“This historic $40 million award is a defining moment for Pulse Space, and I am exceptionally proud of our team for making it happen,” Karl Stedman, Pulse Space’s founder and CEO, said in a news release. “We are honored to partner with the United States Space Force to mature our laser-based technologies and are proud to share this massive step forward with our investors and shareholders. Pulse’s technical development platform is helping pave the way toward that future.”

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GeekWire

Amazon Leo hits its mark for satellite internet service

Night launch of Atlas 5 rocket with Amazon Leo satellites
An Atlas 5 rocket lifts off from its Florida launch pad, sending 29 Amazon Leo satellites into orbit. (United Launch Alliance Photo)

Amazon says the overnight launch of 29 satellites should clear the way for its Amazon Leo network to start offering commercial high-speed internet service from space this year, in direct competition with SpaceX’s Starlink network.

United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket sent the satellites into low Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 12:30 a.m. ET today (9:30 p.m. PT July 1).

This was the last of eight Atlas 5 launches that Amazon reserved for its satellites. Going forward, ULA will use its next-generation Vulcan rocket to support Amazon Leo’s years-long deployment schedule. Amazon has also made launch reservations with Blue Origin, Arianespace and SpaceX.

The latest liftoff boosts Amazon Leo’s constellation to 396 operational satellites. That will be enough to support continuous connectivity in the initial latitudes targeted for commercial service, according to Chris Weber, vice president of business and product for Amazon Leo.

“Still lots of work ahead — including raising all these new satellites to their assigned altitude — but we’ve completed enough launches for initial service this year, and future missions just add coverage and capacity,” Weber said in a LinkedIn post.

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K2 Space comes to Seattle with big plans for big satellites

Engineers at K2 Space satellite factory
Engineers prepare a high-power satellite for testing at K2 Space’s manufacturing facility in Torrance, Calif. (K2 Space via PRNewswire)

California-based K2 Space has established a satellite engineering hub in the Seattle area, joining a thriving regional ecosystem of satellite ventures.

The Pacific Northwest operation will support the company’s drive to build large, high-power satellites for government and commercial customers. The satellites are manufactured at K2’s factory in Torrance, Calif. The company also maintains a policy and strategy office in Washington, D.C.

Since its founding in 2022, K2 Space has raised more than $500 million in capital and registered more than $1 billion in contracts. While many satellite companies focus on miniaturization, K2 Space is going big on satellite mass and power. K2 had its first “mega-class” satellite, dubbed Gravitas, launched into orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in March. The two-ton, 20-kilowatt satellite carried a dozen undisclosed payload modules for multiple customers, including the Department of Defense.

That “go-big” approach is gaining traction: Last month, for example, the U.S. Space Force confirmed that K2 Space would be one of the suppliers for its next-generation military communications network. To serve the anticipated market, K2 Space says it plans to produce hundreds of satellites annually by 2030.

“As we carefully evaluated our expansion plans to align with our next phase of growth, the Seattle area was a natural fit, given its decisive reputation as an aerospace and engineering hub,” K2 Space CEO and co-founder Karan Kunjur said today in a news release. “From flight software and autonomy to the low-level systems that drive our satellites’ most demanding workloads, our Seattle team will contribute to satellites operating at the edge of what’s possible.”

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