SpaceNews This Week | Ukraine changes tactics on North Korea engine claims

08.04.17 View this email in your browser Ukraine changes tactics on North Korea engine claims Matthew Bodner — In the days that followed Monday's  report in The New York Times that North Korea may have illicitly procured advanced Soviet-era rocket engines from Ukraine, the response out of the post-Soviet nation could best be described as trolling. Not long after the report was published, outraged Ukrainian social media users directed their outrage at the source of the allegations: Michael Elleman, a missile defense expert with the International Institute for Strategic Studies.  SEE FULL STORY North Korea puts spotlight on U.S. space-based missile defense Mike Fabey — North Korea's threat to strike Guam with a salvo of ballistic missiles has raised the stakes for a U.S. missile shield some see as compromised by potentially exploitable seams in its all-important space layer. Years of program changes, delays and cancellations have created gaps in parts of the space-based layer of the missile defense shield meant to protect the United States and some allies from ballistic missile attacks, say military space analysts, although U.S. missile defense officials dispute such claims. SEE FULL STORY Options grow for smallsats seeking secondary payload opportunities Jeff Foust — As the number of small satellites seeking launch continues to grow, new opportunities are emerging fly those satellites as secondary payloads on other launches as well as tools to identify those opportunities. The latest entrant in the field is Precious Payload, a company that seeks to provide a global reservation service for smallsat secondary payloads analogous to booking airline tickets or hotel rooms. Andrey Maksimov, the company's founder, said in an Aug. 6 interview that he decided to pursue the venture after talking with people developing smallsats who found it difficult and expensive to find accommodations for their spacecraft. "When I started to engage with different companies, I easily recognized that the bottleneck, the biggest problem for them, is actually to find a space launch," he said. SEE FULL STORY Google Lunar X Prize teams get extra time to win competition Jeff Foust — After months of stating that it would offer no further extensions of the Google Lunar X Prize competition, the X Prize Foundation announced Aug. 16 it was effectively giving the five remaining teams a little extra time. In a statement, the foundation, which administers the lunar landing competition, said that teams now had until March 31, 2018, to complete all the requirements of the prize, which include landing on the lunar surface, traveling at least 500 meters, and returning video and other data. Prior to the announcement, teams had until the end of 2017 to launch their missions. The revised deadline, therefore, offers an extension of less than three months, to account for the time needed for each team's spacecraft to travel to and land on the moon and perform required activities there. SEE FULL STORY RigNet, Inmarsat disputing cancelled $65 million Global Xpress contract Caleb Henry — RigNet, a supplier of telecommunications services to the oil and gas industry, has pulled out of a $65 million capacity lease on Inmarsat's Global Xpress satellite constellation, triggering a legal dispute between the two companies. In an Aug. 8 filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, RigNet said it gave Inmarsat a "notice of termination" for the contract, "pursuant to its contractual rights under the agreement." Houston-based RigNet and Inmarsat in London formed the agreement in January 2014, whereby RigNet said it agreed to purchase up to $65 million of Global Xpress, or GX, capacity "under certain conditions" for the first five years after the high-throughput constellation began operations. SEE FULL STORY TDRS launch marks end of an era Jeff Foust — The successful launch of a NASA communications satellite Aug. 18 is the final flight of the current generation of data relay spacecraft as well as for a venerable satellite bus. A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 401 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 8:29 a.m. Eastern. The launch was delayed by 26 minutes because of an issue with the temperature on the Centaur upper stage detected during the standard T-4 minute hold. The Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) M spacecraft separated from the Centaur in a geostationary transfer orbit nearly two hours after liftoff. In a statement, NASA confirmed TDRS-M was in good health and in contact with controllers after separation. SEE FULL STORY   Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Advertise with Us | Privacy Policy | Subscribe Copyright © 2017 SpaceNews Inc., All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: SpaceNews Inc. 1414 Prince St, Suite 204 Alexandria, VA 22314