Space News for Friday, December 15, 2023

In this episode, we aggregate and summarize today's top space news stories. Enjoy!(00:10) Podcast Introduction(00:24) Scientists praise performance of first global survey of surface water(00:51) House and Senate pass 2024 defense policy bill by overwhelming majority(01:20) Space Force eyes new breed of satellites that adjust their orbit and respond to threats(01:50) Playback | SpaceNews 2023 Icon Awards panel discussion(02:22) Final Vega launch delayed because of upper stage tank problem(02:47) China launches mystery reusable spaceplane for third time(03:16) Project Kuiper prototypes successfully test inter-satellite optical links(03:44) Month: (04:19) Rocket Lab successfully completes return-to-flight Electron launch(04:49) UPDATE: SpaceX delays launch of 21 Starlink smallsats to include first six direct-to-cell capabilities – SatNews(05:31) UPDATE 2: Rocket Lab’s The Moon God Awakens launch goes extremely well… – SatNews(05:55) EUMETSAT’s multi-million euro contract to Spire for satellite weather data – SatNews(06:31) Rogers + Lynk complete Satellite-to-Mobile call in Canada – SatNews(07:14) RTX to track UK space assets with LEO observation system – SatNews(07:44) Insitu’s successful Shryke demo with the Integrator UAS – SatNews(08:05) NASA Study Finds Life-Sparking Energy Source and Molecule at Enceladus(08:31) NASA’s NEOWISE Celebrates 10 Years, Plans End of Mission(09:03) SpaceX Pushes Ahead to Flight 3 with the Rollout of Ship 28(09:38) Launch Roundup: Rocket Lab returns to flight; SpaceX set to launch Falcon 9 three times