🛰️ MANUFACTURING AND OPERATIONS

🇺🇸 AI in the International Space Station
Booz Allen Hamilton deployed a generative AI large language model on the International Space Station using a Hewlett Packard Enterprise advanced edge computer designed for in-orbit experiments.
The generative AI large language model (LLM) has been in operation since mid-July as part of an experiment, Booz Allen announced Aug. 1.
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🇺🇸 Northrop Grumman completes PDR for SDA’s Tranche 2
Northrop Grumman completed the preliminary design review for the 74 satellites it is building for the Space Development Agency’s Tranche 2 Beta and Tranche 2 Alpha configurations. 
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🇦🇺 Inovor Technologies and LeoLabs sign MoU for space situational awareness
Inovor Technologies and LeoLabs have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the 17th Australian Space Forum in Adelaide, South Australia, signifying their intent to enhance space situational awareness and co-develop initiatives that support a safe and sustainable space ecosystem.
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💰️ FINANCE, FUNDING AND M&A

🇺🇸 Boeing declares $125 million loss on Starliner
Boeing took another loss on its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew program as the company works to prepare the spacecraft for its delayed return from the International Space Station.
In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission July 31 about the company’s second quarter financial results, Boeing said it was taking an additional $125 million charge on Starliner, citing delays in completing the ongoing Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission.
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🇮🇳 Indian EO company GalaxEye raising funding for first satellite
GalaxEye Space has secured USD 6.5 million in a new funding round led by Mela Ventures and Speciale Invest. The round also saw contributions from ideaForge, along with additional support from Rainmatter, Navam Capital, Faad Capital, and Anicut Capital.
The capital raised will primarily be used to launch the company's first satellite, known as the "Drishti Mission," and to advance their multi-sensor payload technology.
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🛰️ CORE SERVICES

🇺🇸 Space Tango to launch new lab platform to the ISS on commercial resupply mission
Space Tango is launching a new middeck locker facility on Northrop Grumman’s 21st Commercial Resupply Services Mission (NG-21). The Microgravity-based Automated Manufacturing and Bioprocessing Outpost (Mambo) provides a high throughput solution to enable in-space manufacturing capability.
Mambo is the next generation of Space Tango’s TangoLab architecture providing power, data, heat rejection, and mechanical interfaces with the International Space Station (ISS) ExPRESS Rack. 
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🇮🇪 Ubotica achieves additional breakthroughs in live Earth intelligence with Cognisat-6
Ubotica has revealed a new milestone in Live Earth Intelligence with the firm’s CogniSAT-6 satellite mission: successful onboard AI detection of objects on Earth and immediate relay of insights to users on the ground — this marks the world’s first commercial deployment of Live Earth Intelligence, setting a new standard for real-time space-based insights.
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🛰️ PRODUCT, PARTNERSHIPS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

🇳🇱 Dawn Aerospace announces port for future in-space refueling
Dawn Aerospace unveiled a docking and refueling port for the company’s SatDrive propulsion systems.
The Docking and Fluid Transfer port will help Dawn customers gain access to future in-space refueling services. The port replaces standard manual fill and drain valves used for propellant loading on the ground.
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🇺🇸 Vast partners with Redwire and Yuri for its commercial space station operations
Commercial space station developer Vast is partnering with two companies to offer microgravity lab facilities on its upcoming Haven-1 station.
Vast announced Aug. 1 plans for its Haven-1 Lab, a research facility that will be part of its Haven-1 commercial station. That single-module station is scheduled to launch no earlier than August 2025 on a Falcon 9, to be visited by up to four crews on later Crew Dragon missions there.
Vast announced with two companies that have experience operating experiments on the ISS. Redwire Space will provide its Advanced Space Experiment Processor (ADSEP) and PIL-BOX pharmaceutical experiment platforms it has flown on the ISS. Yuri, a European space biotech company, will provide its ScienceTaxi experiment package for Haven-1 Lab.
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🇮🇱 🇺🇸 Orbit Communication Systems and Viasat partner up for satcom terminals
Orbit Communication Systems is working with Viasat on multi-purpose satcom terminals for airborne platforms, the companies announced Wednesday. The terminals will be designed for a range of satellites, mission aircraft, rotary wing and uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs).
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🇺🇸 Umbra announces SAR satellite platform line
Satellite data provider Umbra is expanding its business from selling imagery collected by its synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites, to selling the satellites to customers. Umbra announced its new Mission Solutions line on Wednesday. 
The company said it is now offering governments and large multinational corporations the ability to purchase their own satellites, individual components (including the bus, payload, and antenna), full constellations, and custom and advanced mission capabilities. Umbra is vertically integrated. 
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🚀 LAUNCH CONTRACTS AND MISSIONS

🇨🇳 China launches classified GEO satellites with Long March 3B
China launched the second of a new series of geostationary communications satellites Thursday, though its purposes remain unclear.
A Long March 3B rocket lifted off at 9:14 a.m. Eastern Aug. 1 (1314 UTC) from Xichang Satellite Launch Center, southwest China. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) declared the launch was a complete success.
CASC’s statement revealed the earlier undisclosed payload for the launch to be High orbit internet satellite-02 (Weixing Hulianwan Gaogui-02). It follows the first such satellite, which was launched Feb. 29.
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🌎️ CUSTOMERS OF THE SPACE INDUSTRY

🇺🇸 Universities to study self propelled particles on the ISS
Researchers from Florida International University (FIU) and Colorado Mesa University will leverage the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory to explore the potential of tiny particles engineered to extract and use energy from their surroundings for self-propulsion.
This U.S. National Science Foundation-funded project will delve into the behavior of active colloids within liquid and gel mediums. Scientists engineered these microscopic powerhouses to give them self-propulsion capabilities.
The experiment will take place within a Space Tango CubeLab onboard the space station.
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🇸🇬 Resort World Cruises signs up with SES for satellite connectivity
Resort World Cruises has announced an agreement with SES to install its fully-integrated Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) and Low Earth Orbit (LEO) service on the cruise lines’ flagship Genting Dream with similar future plans for the Resorts World One cruise ship. The installation of the MEO and LEO service will provide reliable high-speed connectivity, offering the next-level of guest experience at sea.
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📜 REGULATORY & GOVERNMENT

🇺🇸Space Development Agency to mull over business case for satellite servicing and de-orbiting
The Space Development Agency is preparing to award contracts to companies focused on satellite servicing.
Through the contracts, SDA, which is part of the U.S. Space Force, will not hire companies to conduct demonstration or to deorbit satellites. Instead, the agency will pay companies to share technical designs and business-case analysis.
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🇨🇳 China proposes phased cislunar space infrastructure
Chinese scientists are proposing cislunar space infrastructure that includes a comprehensive system providing data communication, positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT), as well as space situational monitoring services for ground-based, near-Earth, cislunar, lunar surface, and deep space users.
A first phase would establish satellites in elliptical frozen orbits around the moon. A second phase would see further ELFO satellites and spacecraft at Earth-moon Lagrange points 1, 2, 4 and 5, a near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO), and a spacecraft in geostationary orbit, termed a cislunar space station. 
A third and final phase would add satellites in existing and new distant retrograde orbits (DRO), forming a near-moon space and extended space constellations. The system also includes comprehensive ground-based facilities. 
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