Lockheed Martin contracted with Firefly Aerospace for as many as 25 launches through 2029, Lockheed said. The launch agreement covers a variety of future Lockheed spacecraft, Lockheed added.

The FAA signed off on the fourth test flight of SpaceX's Starship heavy rocket, with the company having met safety and other licensing requirements, the agency said Tuesday. Approval follows November's failed Starship test launch (see 2402270008). SpaceX said the launch could come as soon as Thursday.

Intelsat is pressing its case across the FCC's 10th floor for phasing in the Space Bureau's FY 2024 regulatory fees over five years. In a docket 24-85 filing Tuesday, Intelsat recapped meetings with the offices of Commissioners Anna Gomez and Nathan Simington at which it urged a phase-in "to avoid causing serious economic hardship to payors." Intelsat previously met with the offices of the other commissioners to make the same case.

The FCC should focus on the collective risk that satellite constellations pose instead of looking at the issue on a per-satellite basis, the Outer Space Institute said Monday in docket 18-313. It said the approaches of the European Space Agency or France "would be a considerable improvement" in regulatory clarity and system safety over the U.S. method. The FCC should treat operator claims that satellites will burn up entirely on re-entry skeptically. Instead, the FCC should require evidence of this. Pointing to vaporized metals entering the upper atmosphere by those satellite re-entries, the institute urged the FCC to study the issue "and be prepared to impose suitable mitigations." Any satellite operator exceeding the 100 object-years threshold -- the number of years each failed satellite remains in orbit, added across all the satellites -- should be barred from further deployments until the causes have been addressed, the institute said. It said operators should remove large debris coming from 100 object-years violations.

IoT constellation operator Sateliot will begin offering commercial service with four satellites scheduled for a July launch, it said last week. Sateliot said it secured $217 million in recurring revenue contracts from more than 400 clients in 50 countries.

As part of SES' proposed $3.1 billion purchase of Intelsat (see 2404300048), the two are asking the FCC Space Bureau to transfer all of Intelsat's FCC authorizations to SES. In a series of applications posted Friday, the two said the proposed deal would result in "a more dynamic multi-orbit satellite operator with the ability to offer innovative and enhanced services to commercial and U.S. Government customers," and greater competition as New SES "will be better positioned to vigorously compete" with legacy geostationary orbit operators and emerging low earth orbit players.

SpaceX's Falcon rockets are 80% reusable today, and the company hopes its Starship heavy rocket will reach 100% reusability, though that will take "extreme effort," CEO Elon Musk posted Thursday on X. He said the biggest reusability hurdle is the orbital return heat shield. The Space Shuttle's heat shield needed six months of refurbishment, "so was not reusable by any reasonable definition of the word," Musk said. "This will take a few kicks at the can to solve and requires building an entirely new supply chain for low-cost, high-volume and yet high-reliability heat shield tiles, but it can be done." SpaceX said this week the next Starship test launch could come June 5.

The FCC is proposing that it cap the probability that a satellite applicant suffers a debris-generating accidental explosion at less than 1 in 1,000 per satellite. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said Wednesday that an orbital debris probability draft order had been circulated among the regular commissioners. "We can no longer afford to launch new satellites into our skies without being thoughtful about space sustainability," she said. The FCC said the 0.001 probability metric lines up with the federal government's orbital debris mitigation standard practices. It said the requirement would be phased in a year after Federal Register publication. The agency also is considering adoption of a 100 object-years metric -- the number of years each failed satellite remains in orbit, added across all the satellites -- for assessing the risk of derelict satellites in orbit from a constellation (see 2405240005).

Intuitive Machines hopes it can send its second lunar lander to the moon's surface sometime in Q4. In an FCC Space Bureau application posted Tuesday, it sought approval for that NOVA-C Lunar Lander mission. It would land at the moon's South Pole and carry out a variety of missions, including testing an LTE communications system on the moon. The company's first lunar lander mission, part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, was carried out in February.

Comments are due June 27, replies July 12, as the FCC Space Bureau seeks a refresh of the record on proposed orbital debris mitigation rules, said a notice for Tuesday's Federal Register. The bureau said it was seeking a refresh on such issues as whether to measure collision risks in the aggregate for a non-geostationary orbit constellation or on a per satellite basis and what factors would be relevant in conducting an aggregate risk analysis. It also seeks input on using a 100 object-years metric -- the number of years each failed satellite remains in orbit, added across all the satellites -- for assessing the risk of derelict satellites in orbit from a constellation. The rules came from a Further NPRM that was adopted in 2020 alongside the FCC's orbital debris order (see 2004230040). Comments are due in docket 22-271.