AST SpaceMobile, which has research labs in Israel, successfully launched three next-generation communications satellites, BlueBird 8, 9 and 10, designed to deliver internet from space directly to smartphones. The satellites lifted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and the rocket’s first stage landed on an Atlantic Ocean droneship, SpaceX’s 29th successful booster landing. The second stage placed the satellites into low Earth orbit as planned.
Each BlueBird satellite weighs more than six tons and carries fold-out antennas that span 223 square meters in space. The launch increased AST’s second-generation constellation to four satellites, after BlueBird 6 launched from India late last year and BlueBird 7 was lost in a New Glenn launch failure about two months ago. AST had launched its first satellite fleet about a year and a half ago. President Scott Wisniewski said, “Every BlueBird satellite launch expands our ability to provide continuous broadband connectivity to smartphones directly from space.” The company aims to have at least 45 active BlueBird satellites this year and about 100 by 2028.
On Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover crossed 42.2 kilometers of cumulative driving this week, becoming only the second rover in history to pass a marathon distance. It reached the mark in just over five years after landing in February 2021. The record still belongs to Opportunity, which landed in 2004, reached the marathon threshold after 11 Earth years, and traveled more than 45 kilometers before it stopped operating in 2018. Perseverance’s endurance is helped by its nuclear power system, unlike solar-powered rovers such as Opportunity, and it also benefited from the Ingenuity helicopter, which flew 72 times before being retired in 2024.
The article also notes Saudi Arabia’s first appointment to a senior UN space post, the demolition of the historic SLC-6 launch complex at Vandenberg Space Force Base for a future SpaceX site, and the European Space Agency’s extension of the CHEOPS exoplanet telescope through the end of 2029.
