NASA Needs Urgent Artemis III Internet | This Week in Spaceflight

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]NASA needs a fast internet connection for Artemis 3. Blue Origin fills its launchpad hanger with boosters. PLLD Space shows off its first Morura 5 flight hardware. And methane powered engines fire up on both sides of the Atlantic. As always, we've got all that and more coming up this week in Spaceflight.

[00:00:28]You may have thought we'd be done talking about the moon now that Artemis 2 has returned, but no, that was just the beginning. So, once again, we're kicking off this episode with even more news about lunar missions, starting with the next Aremis mission. Earlier this year, NASA revised the plans for this mission to no longer attempt a lunar landing, but rather meet up with the lander in low Earth orbit to test rendevu and docking. This will allow NASA to build up flight cadence with the SLS rocket instead of waiting for a lander to be ready to do its job of landing on the moon. But it also introduces some new problems. One of which has to do with spacecraft communications. On Artemis 2, the Orion capsule and its crew perform most of their communications through NASA's deep space network and the near space network as well as via an experimental optical laser communication system. But staying in low Earth orbit means that the primary communication systems will suffer from reduced data rates. That's not ideal as NASA would like to get live 4K footage of rendevu and docking. The agency is now looking for a commercial partner to provide an alternative system, but whoever that partner will be won't have much time to implement it since the goal is a summer 2027 launch.

[00:01:36]So NASA is willing to settle for one of two options. First, the system could be mounted to Orion's European service module, but that means that the flight hardware has to be delivered by the fall of this year. Alternatively, the agency is okay with the astronauts having to put an antenna up to one of Orion's windows, which could then be delivered a few months later. So, what other options could NASA have? Well, there is one obvious solution that's been tested in space by none other than NASA's current boss, Jared Isaacman. I am, of course, talking about Starlink. Jared's Polaris Dawn mission featured a Starlink laser terminal which enabled much faster connections than NASA is willing to settle for on Artemis 3. That said, we don't know whether the Starlink antenna will fit NASA's mass volume and power budgets. So, another company could come in and provide an even more attractive option. We'll just have to wait and see who NASA selects.

[00:02:25]And speaking of the European service module, the one for Artemis 3 has received its wings. This week, Airbus attached the four solar arrays to the third European service module or ESM.

[00:02:36]This is the module that provides propulsion and electrical power to the Orion spacecraft, as well as air, water, and thermal control for the astronauts inside. The work took place at the Kennedy Space Center, where the module arrived in summer 2024 after being shipped from Airbus facilities in Bremen, Germany, where it was manufactured. Although the European Space Agency formally handed over the module to NASA last September, its solar arrays had yet to be installed at that time. Each wing measures 7 m long and together the four arrays generate more than 11 kW of electrical power. When deployed, they give Orion a span of around 19 m. With the solar arrays now attached, the module is moving into a new phase of environmental testing. Once all these tests are complete, the Orion crew capsule will be installed on top of SLS ahead of its launch next year. And as we learned earlier, it might also get another antenna this fall. For now, we'll leave the engineers to turn the volume up and we'll listen out for any updates. And if you want to follow along with this and other space news, you know what to do. Like and subscribe to get notified when we post our spaceflight updates so you don't miss out. Astrolabs Flip Rover took its first drive this week here on Earth. The Flex Lunar Innovation Platform or Flip Rover is a small robotic demonstrator designed to test technologies intended for future Artemis missions on the moon. It'll ride aboard Astrobotics Griffin 1 lander when it sets off towards the lunar south pole later this summer at top of Falcon Heavy with the goal of testing flip systems and gathering key data as it conducts its surface operations. Now, impressively, the project has gone from a design idea to completed space ready hardware in just a year and a half. The rover features hyperdeformable wheels and a suite of sensors to help it traverse the moon's challenging terrain.

[00:04:17]A deployable solar array will keep its batteries topped up during the lunar night with two 180° cameras mounted on the top providing a full 360° view of the rover's environment. Flip is the pathfinder for AstroBab's larger crude rover called Flex. It'll validate a number of technologies including the wheels, batteries, avionics, and sensors in real lunar conditions with the intention of later being used on Flex.

[00:04:42]Flip will also carry a tech demo from Axiom Space. Lumen is a digital light processing projector that's being tested as an innovative way to display the control console readouts for astronauts riding in the Flex Rover. Now, that's a bright idea. Blue Origin's Blue Moon Mark1 lander, Endurance, continues through its test campaign in Florida.

[00:05:02]Last week, we covered Endurance being stacked in a flight configuration with the GS2 payload adapter and separation system. This week, testing continued in Lunar Plant 1 to check that the lander's communications and onboard electronic systems can operate together without radio interference. Now, this is important because many modern spacecraft pack transmitters, receivers, and high-speed electronics tightly together.

[00:05:25]Without this RF compatibility testing, one subsystem could unintentionally jam or degrade another, which isn't something that you want to discover once the vehicle is already in flight and impossible to fix. The BE7, which serves as the lander's main engine, was also tested across its throttle range in late April. The engine burns liquid hydrogen and oxygen, propellants that Blue may eventually manufacture in situ from lunar ice deposits. The larger Mark I variant being developed for NASA's Artemis human landing system will use three of these engines. The tests expose the engine to its full range of thrust levels and propellant mixture ratios to verify stable performance across the demanding conditions of a lunar landing.

[00:06:04]Deep throttling capability is critical, allowing the engine to gradually reduce thrust for a controlled touchdown on the lunar surface. One of the future payloads of the Blue Moon Mark1 lander is NASA's Viper rover. Now, you might remember that this moon explorer was cancelled, but then revived a few years ago. It's now set to launch on Mark 1 as soon as late 2027. But one of the challenges with that is the lander's height. It's very tall, and Viper can't just roll off the lander, at least not without a very long ramp. Well, Blue had a different solution in mind, and we got to see it in action this week. Mark 1 will be outfitted with a davit, a crane-like device to lift Viper off the top and lower it down the side with a winch. Blue performed several tests with this mechanism, completing a full deployment sequence under load and also testing slopes up to 10°. Next up, they'll go through a critical design review and into more development testing. Before NASA lets Viper fly, Blue Moon will also need to prove itself with a landing. But if that all goes smoothly, this troubled rover will hopefully get to make its final descent to the lunar surface by being winched down from a tall moonlander.

[00:07:08]Next, we move to Blue Origin's integration facility at launch complex 36. And if you think you're seeing double, that's because there are now two new Glenn first stage boosters there.

[00:07:18]Booster 3, named No, it's Necessary, was seen making its way to the facility on May 4th. Our cameras caught it passing by the VAB on Space Coast Live. Blue Origin is currently leading an investigation into the anomaly with the upper stage during the third New Glenn flight carrying Space Mobile's Bluebird 7 satellite. And until it's concluded, New Glenn is effectively grounded. Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp noted that early data suggests that one of the two of the BE3U engines didn't produce enough thrust to reach the target orbit and that the company will implement the improvements needed to quickly return to flight operations. In the meantime, he also shared this fascinating video showing two very flappy new Glen fairings making their way back from orbit. A reaction control system guided their re-entry for this flight, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.

[00:08:04]Using this data, Blue plans to add parachute recovery for the fairings later this year. Two rocket companies decided to update their investors this week, Rocket Lab and Firefly. Besides the usual financial stuff, that also meant that we got updates on some of the projects that these companies are working on. Let's start with Firefly Aerospace, which used its quarterly financial update to highlight a range of operational milestones, as well as record revenue growth. The company's reporting a year-on-year revenue increase of 45% as it continues to develop its launch, lunar, and defense businesses. The update includes progress on the Blue Ghost mission 2. Spacecraft assembly is now underway and separation testing completed last month for the Elletra vehicle, which will deploy the European Space Ay's Lunar Pathfinder into lunar orbit. Firefly has also completed interoperability testing to show that Elletra can communicate with Blue Ghost and its payloads on the far side of the moon. These payloads include NASA's Lucy Knight radio telescope, which will operate on the moon for up to two years. Electra structures are precision cut on Fireflyy's robotic mill and wound using its automated fiber placement machine, allowing the company to produce three spacecraft structures at once. Hardware for Alphlight 8 has also moved into integration and testing in its upgraded block 2 format, which will debut on the next mission. Firefly is planning three more alpha launches this year and signed an agreement in April with Seagate Space to enable responsive sea-based launches in the future. Fireflyy's larger Eclipse vehicle is co-developed with North of Grumman using heritage from its Antares program. Qualification testing has been completed on key structures and tanks.

[00:09:38]While the Miranda engine reportedly reached 110% power during hot fire testing at their rocket ranch in Briggs, Texas. As the company expands its lunar ambitions, Firefly has also made significant progress on a new clean room, which will be four times larger than its existing facility to support higher rate production of its Blue Ghost landers. Defense and national security work also featured heavily in the update, including their selection to support the US Space Force's Golden Dome Space Base Interceptor program and a contract expansion on the Forge missile warning and tracking system. This update shows a company very much on the rise as Fireflyy's revenues as well as ambitions continued to climb. As previously mentioned, Firefly wasn't the only company to update its investors this week. Rocket Lab also gave a presentation. As always, CEO Peter Beck called in to provide an update on Neutron. But before talking about the forthcoming reusable medium lift rocket, he focused on their current offering.

[00:10:34]Rocket Lab appears to be doing very well. They're on track to launch the 100th Electron rocket this year. And according to Beck, that makes them the fastest in the industry to reach 100 launches, and the manifest is quickly filling up. In the first quarter alone, they booked more launches than in all of last year, which means that they also wrapped up the strongest quarter in company history. Beck also announced that they recently signed their biggest launch contract ever. A confidential customer has booked three launches on Electron and more importantly, five dedicated missions on Neutron. So, that begs the question, how's Neutron coming along? Well, they're still recovering from a setback earlier this year. If you remember, they lost the first stage tank meant for Neutron's first flight during a pressure test, one that was not supposed to be tested to failure. They traced it back to a one-off manufacturing issue resulting from a manual process that won't be used for future tanks. But regardless of the cause, they lost a tank and had to delay Neutron's first launch again, this time to the fourth quarter of 2026. This week, the update is that they are still on track for that launch date. The new tank is coming along nicely and is built with the new process, no longer manual, but with an automated fiber placement machine, just like Firefly uses for Elletra. The first tank parts built with this process have made it to the factory floor, and Rocket Lab is confident in their structural performance. Meanwhile, they're working on stage separation tests. Neutron's design is a bit unconventional as the payload fairings stay attached to the first stage throughout flight for better reusability. As a result, stage separation is much more challenging. So, they built a special rig to test it, which we covered last week. They've now completed testing separation events at full flight loads and are pivoting to testing off nominal situations. These tests are intended to find the limits of the separation mechanism. So, Beck told us to not be concerned if things break on the test stand.

[00:12:24]>> So, if you see something broken on the test stand from here on, know that that's completely intentional.

[00:12:28]>> Other parts of the rocket for the first flight are coming along nicely, too. For instance, they're still testing the methane powered Archimedes engines for both stages. After the presentation, they even shared some footage of the engines being tested at NASA's Stennis Space Center, and it looks amazing. Just imagine nine of those lighting up to power Neutron into space. Over in the factory, they're outfitting the first stage thrust structure and integrating the upper stage. They've also fully qualified the payload support structure, which connects the payload to the second stage and covered the hungry hippo fairings with the thermal protection system. Meanwhile, Rocket Lab continues to make progress with Neutron's landing barge return on investment. It should be ready for sea trials later this year, and we might even see it being used for a landing attempt on flight 2. All in all, it seems that they're full steam ahead towards that first neutron launch later this year, and Beck promised even more updates to come. We're looking forward to them, and we hope that there'll be no more oopsies and no more delays. NASA's making good progress with the construction of a future space telescope, the Neo Surveyor. Now, if you've tuned into recent episodes, you've probably heard me talking about other upcoming space telescopes. So, what's the deal with this one? Well, the NEO part of Neo Surveyor's name stands for near-earth objects, which are asteroids orbiting the sun near our home planet's orbit. If one of them gets a bit too close, that could mean a very bad day for us here on Earth. So agencies around the world are studying these objects, trying to discover them all and precisely pinpoint their orbits to determine whether they might pose a threat sometime in the foreseeable future. If they do, humanity's best bet is to respond with some kind of mission to push the asteroid into a different trajectory so as to avoid our planet.

[00:14:08]NASA already tested this a few years ago with the Dart mission, successfully demonstrating the concept at a smaller scale. But astronomers believe that we haven't found the majority of these asteroids yet. After all, they're very hard to see. They're tiny. Some of them are very dark, and they're generally very hard to spot with groundbased telescopes. Thus, NASA has decided to put a telescope in space that is specifically designed for spotting these asteroids, Neo Surveyor. The telescope will position itself 1.5 million km away between Earth and the Sun at Lrange.1.

[00:14:40]From there, it will scan the solar system looking for unknown asteroids that glow in infrared as they're heated by the sun. The telescope is set to launch in September of next year, and its constituent parts are slowly coming together and undergoing testing. NASA reports that the telescope itself and its instrument enclosure are currently being integrated and tested at Utah State University's Space Dynamics Laboratory. Once testing is done, these parts will move to BAE Systems in Colorado to be mated with the spacecraft bus and sunshade, which are also currently being tested. Neoerveyor is kind of a spiritual successor to NASA's Neoise mission. This little telescope scoured the night sky for years looking for objects in the solar system. Prior to its decommissioning and subsequent re-entry in 2024, it found nearly 400 near-Earth asteroids and 34 comets.

[00:15:29]Interestingly though, the Neoise mission was actually a clever reuse of an existing telescope that had run out of coolant and was no longer able to execute its primary mission. The spacecraft originally launched as WISE or the wide field infrared survey explorer which needed to be cooled down so that its own heat didn't interfere with the signal from distant objects far beyond the solar system. After it was no longer able to do that in 2010, NASA decided to reuse the otherwise perfectly fine space telescope for science much closer to home. And we just got a whole bunch of new discoveries from that original WISE mission. Nearly 16 years after the spacecraft lost its ability to look far beyond the solar system, it casually doubled the number of known brown dwarfs with the help of thousands of volunteers. Now, what's a brown dwarf? Well, they're balls of gas like the gas giants of our own solar system, but bigger. They're not massive enough to fuse hydrogen and become a star, but they're also not exactly like planets either. And as far as we can tell, there are many of them. The problem is they're hard to spot because they're so much fainter than actual stars. But it's not impossible. Through a project called Backyard Worlds Planet 9, roughly 200,000 volunteers combed through the observations from WISE and Neoise and found over 3,000 of them, doubling the number of known brown dwarfs. The cool thing about all this is that anyone can help with projects like these. Yes, that means you too can help to make these discoveries. NASA and other agencies like the European Space Agency run so-called citizen science projects that anyone can volunteer a bit of their time for. You don't need to be an expert to help increase our understanding of the universe. And it also doesn't need to take very long either. But it does go a long way to help astronomers make sense of all the data from your favorite space telescopes. From old ones like WISE to today's headliners like web and Uklid.

[00:17:16]Now we'll take a look at some other stories across space. Starting with Spanish launch provider PLLD Space, which shared first images of actual flight hardware for its Mura 5 vehicle.

[00:17:26]We first saw images of a qualification model of the launcher last November.

[00:17:30]This first model enabled the company to perform full subsystem testing at the company's facilities in Terruell, including engine testing and structural validation of the tanks and interstage.

[00:17:40]PLLD space intended to complete three Mora 5 units within the following 5 months. And this week shared images of hardware that will take to the skies on its maiden flight. Here we see liquid oxygen tanks for Mura 5's first and second stages in their flight ready configuration. With a test like you fly approach baked into its DNA, PLLD scaled up its testing facilities in Spain at the end of last year, which now has eight integrated test benches and plans for even more. These enabled the company's propulsion team to put the TPL C engine through its paces, five of which will power the vehicle's first stage to orbit. More recently, in March, the company tested its Mura 5 Strongback using a full-scale mockup of the launcher. These tests validated the clamping mechanism that secures the launcher to the Strongback, as well as the hydraulic systems and mechanical interfaces used to support the rocket on the pad. With these tests successfully completed, the Strongback is now ready to ship to the launch site at the Gana Space Center in French Gana ahead of Miora 5's maiden launch later this year.

[00:18:40]The company signed its first commercial launch agreement in February with Satellot. Miora is set to launch a pair of the company's Trito 5G internet of things satellites in 2027.

[00:18:51]Staying in Europe, the exploration company wrapped up a test campaign with its Huracan engine, which runs on liquid methane and liquid oxygen and is specifically designed for lunar missions. The company plans to use it on the lunar versions of its Nyx cargo spacecraft, which also has a lunar lander version. During the seven-week test campaign, they first performed 21 cold flow tests with the cryogenic propellants and liquid nitrogen before firing the engine 26 times for a total of 375 seconds. The longest burn lasted 53 seconds at full throttle. During other firings, Huracan also performed throttle sweeps from 50 to 100%. When running in a vacuum, the engine will produce 15 kons of thrust at full throttle. Huracan uses electric pumps to feed its propellant, much like Rocket Lab's Rutherford engine. Rutherford is more powerful though at 26 kontons in vacuum and uses kerosene as fuel instead of methane like Huracan. In addition to the test firings, the exploration company ran tests with the electric oxygen pump specifically operating the pump for a total of 371 seconds. The company was trying to find the pump's limits and found them after more than 100 tests totaling 20 minutes in cryogenic conditions. And when they say that the pump quote reached its operational limit, they of course mean that it broke. Though that seems to have been intentional. Engineers are now investigating the failure so that they can improve future designs. The exploration company partnered with UK company Airborne Engineering to perform these tests. They tested two engine configurations with different injector head and thrust chamber designs.

[00:20:23]Meanwhile, they're also working on their own test facilities in Bordeaux, France, where the company wants to start testing a flight representative Huracan engine early next year. So, there's more testing to look forward to, and one day, hopefully even a moon landing with these engines.

[00:20:39]The parachute for the European Space Ay's Roselyn Franklin rover is fresh out of the oven and ready for integration.

[00:20:45]Wait, what was it doing in the oven?

[00:20:47]Well, the process is designed to kill any Earth microbes that might contaminate Mars and compromise the rover's search for signs of ancient life. The giant 74 kg parachute will steady the AY's ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover as it descends to the red planet, hopefully giving Europe its first soft landing on the Martian surface. The parachute spent more than 79 hours in a specialized sterilization oven in the AY's laboratory in the Netherlands, undergoing a process known as dry heat microbial reduction.

[00:21:15]Engineers first refined the procedure using identical copies of the parachute before heating the flight hardware to 125° C, that's 257° F for 36 hours. The parachute design has been tested since as far back as 2019, and will measure 35 m wide, the largest parachute ever to fly anywhere in the solar system besides Earth. ExoMars is the AY's flagship astrobiology mission which will drill up to 2 meters beneath the Martian surface in search of preserved bio signatures and signs of past life. Now that the parachute has cooled down, it's been returned to Talisolenia in Turin, where it's ready for integration. The mission's currently targeting a launch in late 2028 aboard a Falcon Heavy. The first of Virgin Galactic's new spaceships has left the factory. You may remember that the company halted its suborbital missions to the edge of space in June of 2024 after flying several operational passenger flights. The reason for the stop was to fully focus on the development of their next generation spaceships. That process has now reached an important milestone. The structure of the first of these ships is now complete, and considering that the design is optimized for production, there should be more to come. The spacecraft isn't quite finished yet.

[00:22:28]Looking at the footage, it's still missing windows, an interior, and a whole lot more. But Virgin plans to add all of these things in their test and launch hanger where the spaceship will undergo final integration, followed by ground testing. It might still take a while before we see this vehicle in flight, but at least they've got something to show us. Again, this is your weekly space report provided by Next Space Flight. This week was a very quiet one with only three launches and one of them technically launched before our last episode went up, a Starlink mission launching from Florida. Then later in the week, SpaceX launched another batch of Starlinks from Vandenberg. The California pad was also the start of the only customer mission to launch this week. This time, Falcon 9 carried an Earth observation satellite for the Korea Aerospace Administration alongside 44 ride share payloads. Falcon booster B1071 returned to its launch site for a successful landing, becoming the second booster to complete 33 flights. Going into next week, we'll have two space station resupply missions. On May 11th, China will launch its Tanjo 10 mission a top of Chong Jang 7 from W Chong. Tanjo will deliver a load of supplies to the Tiangong space station. Nearly 2 days after that, SpaceX plans to launch a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral carrying a cargo dragon to the International Space Station. As is usual for these missions, the booster will perform a return to launch site landing, so expect sonic booms if you're in the area. The space freighter will autonomously dock to the station's Harmony module on May 14th. SpaceX is scheduled to launch two more Falcon 9 next week, both from Vandenberg. One will carry another set of Starlink satellites, while the other will loft a batch of Star Shield satellites for the US National Reconnaissance Office. We may also get two more launches from China. It looks like we can expect the Chongjang 6A to launch from Taiwan and a Juucha 2E from Joe. This will be the Guchet 2E's return to flight after its failure in August of last year. That mission didn't make orbit as an electrical fault cut the second stage flight short. Let's hope we don't get a repeat of that. Of course, the schedule may change as the week progresses, so keep an eye on next spaceflight.com or download the app for all of the latest updates. And that's your weekly update of spaceflight news. I'm Alicia Seagull for NSF and we'll see you all again next week to recap this week in spaceflight.