Weekly Recap #36

Main Topics Rockets * Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded in historic fashion during a static fire test at Launchpad 36 in Cape Canaveral on Thursday, May 27th. [source] * Gilmour Space announced an additional $14.2M in further capital investment, debating the pros and cons of breaking that and other investment out from their current oversubscribed Series E round into a separate Series F round. [source] * Voyager Space announced the award of a $16.5M DARPA contract to make post-manufacturing thrust controls for solid rockets. [source] * Zurich based startup Stellar Alpina raised $4.5M for on-orbit Rotating Detonation Rocket Engines. [source] Ground * NASA announced the Management Contract for JPL would be made open to competition after 68 years of exclusivity with CalTech. [source] * A Canadian consortium led by Nordspace, including Miltera Machining, Pegmatis, and Prime Powders was awarded $3.2M for an AI-enabled factory of the future focused on Space Propulsion. [source] * Schaeffler AG announced a partnership with Spire Global for sovereign satellite production at scale, leveraging Spire’s Space expertise and Schaeffler’s manufacturing expertise at scale to achieve a space production capacity to serve the growing ecosystem by the end of the decade. [source] * Observable Space raised a $90M Series A for optical laser ground stations and simultaneously won a $94M USSF contract for in-space optical laser terminals. [source] SpaceX * SpaceX won a $2.29B for the Space Data Network to connect military assets across the globe with low-latency, high quality communications. [source] * SpaceX awarded $4.16B to deploy the Space-Based Moving Target Indicator to track aircraft, vehicles, and vessels from space. [source] * SpaceX’s Starfall project - a massive logistics and transportation play with satellites capable of carrying a full ton of payload - completed FAA environmental screening [source] * Exolaunch and SEOPS acquired multiple dedicated falcon 9 launches to replace transporter missions [source] * Starcloud announced a plan to use over 50 starlink mini laser terminals on 25 orbital data centers [source] Business Moves * NASA awarded 4 lunar contracts: [source] * $219M to Astrolab’s Lunar Rover * $220M to Lunar Outpost’s Lunar Rover * $188+$280M for Blue Origin’s Lunar Lander * A $75M subcontract from JPL for Firefly’s Elytra Dark orbiter swarm of drones deployed from 50km to map the moon. * Futurecorp Space Acquisition 1 announced their intent to raise a $200M SPAC IPO to pursue a defense, manufacturing, or launch company to take public. [source] * Space Markets emerged from stealth with Coinbase Ventures investment to provide commodities future trading focused specifically on the space industry. [source] Tech Advances * Space Solar agreed to host Lonestar’s Starvault data storage solution on their orbital platforms. [source] Get full access to Space Times at spacetimespod.substack.com/subscribe