Short Takes – 2-27-25 – Space Geek Edition

Space industry hunts for ways to adapt to Trump’s trade policies. SpaceNews.com article. Pull quote: “Space business leaders said during a Feb. 25 Space Tech Expo webinar that tariffs — and threats of additional import taxes — will drive up near-term costs for satellite systems and launch vehicles. Among the concerns are higher duties on imported raw materials and electronic components critical for space hardware.”

Falcon 9 launches second Intuitive Machines lunar lander. SpaceNews.com article. Pull quote: “The lander is carrying several commercial payloads, including the company’s own Micro Nova Hopper, a vehicle designed to hop across the lunar surface using its own propulsion system. Also on board are lunar rovers from Lunar Outpost and Japanese company Dymon Co. Ltd., a communications payload by Nokia that will test 4G/LTE communications with both the hopper and Lunar Outpost rover, a data center payload from Lonestar Data Holdings and thermal protection technologies from Columbia Sportwear.”

House hearing debates ways to improve Artemis. SpaceNews.com article. Pull quote: “Dumbacher and Pace were the only witnesses at the hearing. Foushee noted in her opening statement that NASA was invited to participate but declined. “Full transparency with Congress and the American public on an effort as important as Artemis is of the upmost importance,” she said.”

Upcoming Launch Starship's Eighth Flight Test. SpaceX.com article. Pull quote: “After completing the investigation into the loss of Starship early on its seventh flight test, several hardware and operational changes have been made to increase reliability of the upper stage. You can read the full summary of the mishap investigation here.”

Virgin Galactic to start assembly of first new spaceplane in March. SpaceNews.com article. Pull quote: “He said the company is “moving towards solid preliminary design” of a variant of the aircraft design for high-altitude, long-endurance applications, such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. “I think that’s a super smart opportunity for us and one that we are actively paying attention to because we think this is a real potential for the government.””

Lumen Orbit changes its name to Starcloud and raises $10M for space data centers. GeekWire.com article. Pull quote: “Space-based data centers could play a key role in processing the massive amounts of imagery and other data provided by Earth observation satellites. Doing the computational heavy lifting in space would reduce the bandwidth requirements for Earth-to-ground data transmission.”