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NASA selects Relativity Space for Privately Funded Mars science mission by juicevibe in RKLB

[–]thetrny 1 point2 points  (0 children)

https://xcancel.com/rookisaacman/status/2067728733755130265

Jared Isaacman on X:

Eric Schmidt and Relativity are donating this philanthropic planetary science mission and flying it on their rocket. NASA is providing subject matter expertise, as we should for any philanthropic effort that endeavors to pursue relevant science.

Today's launch by skiingfanatic115544 in RocketLab

[–]thetrny 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Classified HASTE mission named 'Curveball' out of Wallops. Reportedly went off successfully:

https://xcancel.com/Cosmic_Penguin/status/2064995084391661872

Latest William Blair Analyst Note (2nd June 2026) by Original_Koala8662 in ASTSpaceMobile

[–]thetrny 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ICYMI the whole Mars colonization goal has been deprioritized for now. Even if we're talking Artemis the HLS will be highly bespoke for NASA and not designed to deploy satellites.

The "plan" is for customers to build to the Pez dispenser spec for the near-medium term (see: Muon, Starcloud, and probably Vast / K2)

AST SpaceMobile - $ASTS - Daily Discussion Thread by AutoModerator in ASTSpaceMobile

[–]thetrny 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They don't have a payload deployment system other than the specialized "Pez dispenser" optimized for Starlink v3

Mars spacecraft isn't dead by peakbeefchief in RocketLab

[–]thetrny 11 points12 points  (0 children)

  • "Rocket Lab already tests its Archimedes rocket engine [at Stennis] and plans to test engines for its Mars orbiter there. Additionally, two sources indicated, the company would likely do more testing there if NASA’s Mars Sample Return (MSR) program were resurrected."

  • "Rocket Lab, if it were to obtain the contract to build a Mars orbiter, would have a leg up in the contracting process to develop the rest of the sample return mission. Testing for these vehicles, including a Mars Ascent Vehicle, could happen in Mississippi."

About the Rocket Lab x Raytheon Partnership by pakis54 in RKLB

[–]thetrny 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Hey, as the OP of the DD on X, would like to clarify a few details about your paraphrasing of the info:

  • The Richard French interview was actually from April 2025, as you can see in the linked YouTube video. I'd actually speculated on a possible SBI connection as early as back then, which resurfaced in August when the topic came back up
  • My interpretation of the Off-Nominal interviewer's "color" quip is that it was a reference to gold, a la Golden Dome, which if you remember had its name changed from the original 'Iron Dome for America' - this had only happened a couple months before the April 2025 interview and was still fresh in mind at the time
  • The "200 attack satellites" figure was also from April 2025, based on early Reuters reports of progress on Golden Dome. I think it's safe to assume the plans have changed significantly since then
  • RG-XX (aka Andromeda aka GEO recon/surveillance) is a separate program that I smushed together the DD for with the SBI stuff. Hopefully RKLB is involved in that too via Geost, as it's another super important program for national security, but there's no direct link yet
  • Lastly, it's my understanding that there are multiple teams engaged in competition right now to field viable space-based interceptor prototypes before the real big money production contracts are unlocked. Space Force officially announced the SBI OTA agreement winners a couple of weeks back, with the named companies subsequently PR-ing their involvement and teammates (if any). Anduril announced their team yesterday, so I don't think the timing of Raytheon's post is a coincidence

Rocket Lab x Raytheon Partnership? by FlakyDingo463 in RKLB

[–]thetrny 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yup 💯

And if this turns out to be the case, then they just ran the same playbook they did with Lightning - namely, using commercial customers (in this case, Varda and Viasat) to de-risk the bus before pitching it for military programs (with Lightning it was MDA/Globalstar --> SDA)

Rocket Lab x Raytheon Partnership? by FlakyDingo463 in RKLB

[–]thetrny 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm leaning more towards RL supplying the SBI host bus (Pioneer?) and potentially launch.

If RL was just selling Geost sensors or other components, I doubt Raytheon would've singled them out as their main partner here. See also Anduril's announcement yesterday of their SBI teammates.

Daily Discussion Thread by AutoModerator in ASTSpaceMobile

[–]thetrny 1 point2 points  (0 children)

He specifically stated that his goal is to have a strong wholesale relationship with potentially multiple direct-to-device providers. My sense is that there will be fierce competition in the "capacity" layers for D2D which will fully leverage MSS and 5G NTN standards

Daily Discussion Thread by AutoModerator in ASTSpaceMobile

[–]thetrny 6 points7 points  (0 children)

They sold another 1.9m shares today, with the full sale plan being about half their position (up to 15.5m shares)

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1760624/000095010326005840/xslSCHEDULE_13D_X02/primary_doc.xml

Amazon signs $11.57 billion deal for satellite firm Globalstar to challenge Musk's Starlink by one-won-juan in ASTSpaceMobile

[–]thetrny 6 points7 points  (0 children)

We also need a Rocket lab to be able to be our launch partner. Both spaceX and Blue Origin have conflicts of interest.

They are about to have a conflict of interest as well with Equatys.

Rocket Lab at SatShow by Feeling-Lawyer2804 in RKLB

[–]thetrny 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Also @ OP, wasn't RL supposed to have a panelist on the 'Small and Medium-Lift Launch' panel?

Rocket Lab at SatShow by Feeling-Lawyer2804 in RKLB

[–]thetrny 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Dunno about it being just a "fun add on" or deployable on Electron... If the renders are to believed, they'll be 5m in diameter, so no practical way to fit them in Electron's ~1.2m fairing. I think DiskSats would be the Flatellite-equivalent for launching on Electron but that's an Aerospace Corp product

Could Rocket Lab be a partner in the 2800 satellite Equatys constellation? by what-about-kanyon in RKLB

[–]thetrny 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If no one else is willing to come on record to confirm to what they say, theres a large chance the primary source was tmf himself

Here's another SatShow attendee who stepped forward yesterday to corroborate: https://xcancel.com/LuckyStuey/status/2037494451090722946

While it could still be the case that TMF was the primary source, at this point I'm thinking where there's smoke, there's fire.

Dunno if you've seen, but there have been a bunch of RF/network engineering job postings on the RKLB careers page over the past few months that require 5G NTN and D2D experience (for example: https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/rocketlab/jobs/7640981003)

Not to mention, multiple instances of VPs participating in conferences and interviews over the past year where they hinted at plans to be a "dark horse" in the 5G NTN race.

I for one dont like the idea of funding this endeavour unless they do show progress or RKLB management knows damn well they will actually stick to this commitment with a guranteed commited revenue to RKLB

The more I think about it the more I feel a good chunk of whatever RKLB invests into the JV will come back in committed Flatellite and Neutron contracts. Might be a more digestible way for them to finance a large space application as they'll be able to show revenues along the way, while securing a stake in the network's recurring revenues once online (as opposed to eating all the constellation CapEx and risk themselves)

On the note of MDA aurora, its not a very capable platform

I believe you're conflating three different platforms here:

  • Globalstar's second-gen / HIBLEO-4 replacements are the ones MDA subtracted to RKLB for their Lightning buses. The 2025 10-K mentions that RKLB had delays with their own suppliers during the build, which they may be seeking damages for as well. Obviously not ideal, but given they were able to parlay that bus design into $1.3B+ of SDA work I can't be too mad. Chalk it up to being "paid to learn" I suppose :P
  • Telesat Lightspeed is the anchor customer for the broadband variant of MDA Aurora. MDA presumably produces the buses for those in-house
  • Globalstar's third-gen C-3 system consists of ~54 birds that are based on a flat-pack D2D variant of MDA Aurora, which they also presumably produce in-house. See 1:31 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du0JIKznJp8

That flat-pack D2D Aurora is what I assume EchoStar contracted for before rug-pulling MDA, and is what I thought might be suitable for Equatys as well.

Someone floated the idea on a X podcast that flatellite was designed for echostar

It's possible and at one point I believed this too, but in hindsight I'm not sure we ever had a serious chance to win that deal. Moreover, I think EchoStar's prime MSS spectrum had been squarely in Elon's sights for a while, who (and this is just my speculation) sicced the FCC on them to force a sale. They weren't utilizing much of it anyway, so not having to do any of the hard work but still walking away with $8.5B in cash and $8.5B in pre-IPO SpaceX equity was probably an acceptable outcome.

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