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FAA to complete orbital debris upper stage regulations in 2025

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A Centaur upper stage being prepared for launch. Credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann

WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration is moving ahead with efforts to develop rules for the disposal of upper stages as another Centaur upper stage breaks apart in orbit.

Slingshot Aerospace, which operates a network of telescopes to track objects in orbit, said Sept. 6 that a Centaur upper stage left in a geostationary transfer orbit from the March 2018 Atlas 5 launch of the GOES 18 weather satellite had broken up. The company noted that the stage appeared intact in one image taken at 1:16 a.m. Eastern that day but another taken 16 minutes later showed a debris cloud.

🚨 Slingshot Orbital Alert 🚨 (Post 2/2)

The Slingshot Global Sensor Network is currently tracking 40+ objects related to the breakup of an ATLAS 5 CENTAUR Rocket Body (NORAD ID: 43227) at ~05:21 UTC this morning (September 6th, 2024). pic.twitter.com/I5wfHrsUqI— Slingshot Aerospace (@sling_shot_aero) September 6, 2024

Slingshot said it was tracking more than 40 pieces of debris from the Centaur, which had been in an orbit with a perigee of 7,634 kilometers and apogee of 34,953 kilometers. In that orbit, the company concluded, the debris posed “no immediate risk to active satellites.”

The incident is the fourth time a Centaur upper stage has broken up since 2018. In the earlier three cases, the breakups created hundreds of pieces of debris, but no known collisions. That has raised questions about a potential design flaw with the stage or a failure to “passivate” the stage by venting propellant tanks and draining batteries, removing energy that could cause a breakup.

Tory Bruno, chief executive of Centaur manufacturer United Launch Alliance, said on social media Sept. 7 that the company was passivating the stages. “All Centaurs have been thoroughly passivated after placement in the designated junkyard or reentry orbit,” he wrote. “They are incapable of coming apart on their own.”

That incident, as well as the breakup of a Chinese Long March 6A upper stage in low Earth orbit shortly after the launch of 18 broadband satellites Aug. 6, serve as reminders of the threat upper stages pose to space sustainability. The objects, with both large masses and large cross-sections, pose risks of breakups and collisions that can generate large amounts of debris.

It was with these concerns in mind that that Federal Aviation Administration released draft regulations nearly one year ago regarding disposal of upper stages on launches licensed by the agency. The rules would direct launch operators to dispose of upper stages in one of five ways, from controlled reentries to placement in graveyard or “disposal” orbits not commonly used by operational satellites.

The FAA is reviewing public comments it received on the draft regulations to refine the final rule. “It’s a high priority for our organization,” said Kelvin Coleman, FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation, at the Commercial Developments in Low Earth Orbit symposium Sept. 6 organized by George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute and The Aerospace Corporation. “We expect to have our orbital debris rule published some time in 2025.”

He suggested that the final rule would retain the requirement to dispose of upper stages in one of five ways. One potential change is in the timeframe for an uncontrolled reentry of an upper stage, which in the draft rule was no more than 25 years. “We got a lot of comments that said it should be a lot less,” he said. “We’re taking that into consideration.”

One challenge those rules could face is a Supreme Court ruling in June that struck down the concept of “Chevron deference” that had given agencies greater latitude, or deference, to interpret ambiguities in laws enforced by them. Critics have noted that neither the FAA nor the Federal Communications Commission, which has its own orbital debris regulations, is explicitly authorized in federal law to regulate on the topic.

That question of authority for regulating orbital debris did not come up during the panel discussion at the meeting. “We think this is really important when we talk about LEO commercialization,” he said, citing the need for companies to have a safe environment in low Earth orbit. “Our role is to try and do what we can to help make LEO a sustainable and safe environment.”

Jeff Foust writes about space policy, commercial space, and related topics for SpaceNews.He earned a Ph.D. in planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree with honors in geophysics and planetary science…More by Jeff Foust

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Terran Orbital removes Rivada constellation from revenue backlog

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TAMPA, Fla. — Terran Orbital has removed the broadband constellation it is developing for Rivada Space Networks from the backlog of revenues in its accounts, even though the manufacturer still expects to get $2.4 billion from their contract.

The Boca Raton, Florida-based company’s backlog now stands at $312.7 million, according to earnings results disclosed in a regulatory filing Aug. 12 without a press release or call with investors.

About 91% of these future revenues are associated with Lockheed Martin, which owns a third of Terran Orbital’s equity and dropped plans earlier this year to buy a larger stake.

Terran Orbital’s work for Lockheed Martin includes a contract for 36 satellite buses to join the U.S. Space Development Agency’s mesh network of low Earth orbit (LEO) military satellites.

Marc Bell, Terran Orbital’s CEO, said Rivada Space was stripped from the company’s backlog of future revenues amid a general move to a cash-basis method of accounting for all commercial accounts.

“Since commercial accounts pay in advance, we felt it made more sense to change,” Bell said in an Aug. 13 email exchange with SpaceNews.

He declined to discuss payments Terran Orbital has received from Rivada Space, as requested by the proposed satellite operator.

The regulatory filing shows Rivada Space paid Terran Orbital $4.6 million in the three months to June 30, which B. Riley analyst Mike Crawford said brings revenue earned under the contract to $13.2 million since the award was announced 18 months ago.

At one point, Terran Orbital had expected $180 million in 2023 for early work on the 500-kilogram satellites under Rivada Space’s proposed Outernet constellation.

Rivada Space remains highly guarded about how it plans to fund the 300 satellites under contract with Terran Orbital, contributing to doubts among analysts and investors that have helped the small satellite maker’s shares fall more than 50% this year.

In March, Rivada Space CEO Declan Ganley said the constellation’s investors include at least one sovereign wealth fund amid plans to secure export credit agency backing.

Announcing an expanded U.S. leadership team July 31, Ganley pointed to more than $10 billion worth of business for the constellation from potential customers amid plans to start a SpaceX launch campaign for the satellites next year.

Rivada Space current on all invoices

According to Bell, Rivada Space is all paid up to complete the constellation’s ongoing preliminary design review (PDR), which Terran Orbital had previously expected to wrap up by the end of June.

“As you can imagine, it’s a very complex process,” Bell added, “it has been over 1,000 pages and growing.”

He referred further questions about the PDR to Rivada Space, which is a German subsidiary of U.S.-based wireless technology firm Rivada Networks.

Brian Carney, Rivada Networks head of corporate communications, said the PDR is on track to complete “soon,” but declined to elaborate.

“We’re working through it with Terran and our other partners, making sure we get it right,” he added.

Rivada Space has plans for 576 LEO satellites in total and must deploy 288 of them by mid-2026 to comply with its regulatory license.

Financial pressure

Terran Orbital disclosed roughly $30 million in total revenue for the second quarter of 2024, down from $32 million for the corresponding period last year.

The company’s adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) loss improved to $17 million from $21 million.

However, net debt grew $11 million to $182 million. The cash on Terran Orbital’s balance sheet also fell $13 million to $31 million, which Crawford noted is only $11 million above the $20 million minimum required to comply with the company’s debt obligations.

“Meanwhile, pressure increases to raise additional equity to maintain covenant compliance in an environment fraught with persistent competition from traditional primes, established players like Rocket Lab, York Space, and Maxar,” Crawford added, “plus a host of other startups vying to carve out viable niches in the growing merchant satellite manufacturing market.”

Terran Orbital said in the Aug. 12 regulatory filing that it continues to consider a range of strategic options to address near-term capital needs, including taking on more debt, a sale of the company or some other strategic transaction.