Airbus Launches Demonstrator to Test Global 5G Connectivity in Orbit
Airbus UpNext has launched the SpaceRAN demonstrator, a software-defined satellite payload that will test 5G non-terrestrial network capabilities in low-Earth orbit. The system processes data onboard, aiming to reduce latency, increase throughput and enable direct user-to-user connectivity for commercial, defence and governmental applications. Developed under the French Air!5G programme, the project involves partners such as Deutsche Telekom, Eutelsat and ST Engineering iDirect, with first results expected by 2028. Success will lay groundwork for future 6G satellite services and lower orbital data costs.
The First Airbus Pléiades Neo Next Satellite Will Be Launched Early 2028
Airbus Defence and Space will launch the first Pléiades Neo Next satellite in early 2028 from Kourou on a Vega C rocket. The new platform adds 20‑cm native resolution and higher revisit rates to the existing Pléiades Neo constellation. Enhanced ground‑segment tools, including Direct...
Airbus and Hisdesat Sign a Commercialisation Agreement for PAZ-2 Satellite Imagery
Airbus Defence and Space and Hisdesat have signed a commercialisation agreement to market imagery from the upcoming PAZ‑2 radar satellites, extending their partnership that already includes TerraSAR‑X/TanDEM‑X. PAZ‑2 will consist of twin satellites delivering up to 10 cm resolution, 6.7 million km²...
HEO, SatVu, Sierra Nevada Nab First of NRO’s New Commercial Imagery Contracts
The National Reconnaissance Office awarded its first three contracts under the new Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) to Australian start‑up HEO, British start‑up SatVu, and U.S. firm Sierra Nevada Corporation. HEO will deliver close‑up imagery of other satellites, SatVu will provide...
Australia Space Innovation Institute Applies Space Technologies to Address Terrestrial Challenges
The Australasian Space Innovation Institute (ASII) launched in January, inheriting intellectual property from the SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre as its $270 million, six‑year Australian government funding cycle ends in June. ASII will act as a not‑for‑profit backbone for Australia’s sovereign space...
ULA Seeks to Rebuild Launch Cadence After CEO’s Exit
United Launch Alliance announced the departure of longtime CEO Tory Bruno after a 12‑year tenure, appointing former Boeing executive John Elbon as interim chief. Elbon stressed that ULA’s strength lies in its 3,000‑person engineering and production workforce rather than any...
Stoke Space Technologies Nabs $860M Series D
Stoke Space Technologies announced an extension to its Series D round, bringing total capital raised to $860 million, up from the $510 million disclosed in October 2025. The infusion will fund activation of Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral and expand production capacity...
Crew-12 Launch Delayed 24 Hours, Now Set for Feb 13
.@NASA and @SpaceX adjusted the launch of Crew-12 by another 24 hours due to weather along the ascent corridor. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is now targeting Friday, Feb. 13, at 5:15 a.m. EST (1015...
SpaceX Barge Delivers Propellant Tanks to Kennedy Space Center
Happening now, one of SpaceX's newer transport barges is arriving at the turn basin at the Kennedy Space Center with some propellant storage tanks. These are likely for Starship operations at either LC-39A or SLC-37. Watch live: https://t.co/tm2wZQmAVD https://t.co/Yz4tdnn2C5
Rep. Mike Haridopolos On Cutting Red Tape, Passing NASA Bill
Rep. Mike Haridopolos, chair of the House space subcommittee, is pushing for stronger public‑private partnerships as a cornerstone of the 2026 space agenda. He highlighted the recent bipartisan passage of a NASA authorization bill in the House and expressed optimism...
Four New Leaders Join Planetary Science Institute Board
Scott Pace and Dan Dumbacher are 2 of the 4 newest Planetary Science Institute Board members. Others are Stanford's Michael Kuiken (Vice Chair of US-China Economic & Security Review Cmsm) and Lockheed Martin's Lora Koenig (remote sensing for Earth sci)....
Veteran Aerospace Exec Leads NASA
After 23 years with Royal Canadian Air Force, and positions at the Satellite Industry Association and Astroscale, Charity Weeden was appointed associate administrator to lead NASA’s Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy in September 2023. She worked there until OTPS...
Blue Origin Pauses New Shepard, Shoots for the Moon
Blue Origin announced it will pause New Shepard suborbital flights for at least two years to reallocate resources toward its lunar ambitions. The company is advancing the New Glenn heavy‑lift rocket and the $3.4 billion Blue Moon lander, slated for NASA’s...
Rep. Meng Applauds Isaacman's Workforce Initiative
Stmt from Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY), top Democrat on the House Approps CJS subcommittee, praising Isaacman's workforce initiative: https://t.co/ZnvQrOzfUo
Non-Venture Space Startup Investment Hits Post-SPAC High
Non‑venture investment in space startups surged to a record $10 billion in 2025, the highest level since the 2021 SPAC boom, driven primarily by traditional IPOs and expanding debt financing. Venture capital also rose to $8.6 billion, up from $7.3 billion the prior...
CubeSats’ Missions Begin
NASA astronaut Chris Williams deployed two student‑built CubeSats from the ISS Kibo laboratory, showcasing a multinational effort involving Mexico, Italy, Thailand, Malaysia and Japan. The 3U nanosatellites, each weighing 1‑10 kg, will conduct Earth‑observation imaging and test new communication hardware. CubeSats have...
Spaceium Tests Robot Gas Attendant Piece in Orbit
Spaceium demonstrated a space‑qualified actuator on SpaceX’s Transporter‑15 mission, achieving 0.003‑degree rotation accuracy in orbit. The precision translates to less than a millimeter of movement at the tip of a full‑size robotic arm, a key requirement for in‑space fuel transfers....
Grants
NASA’s National Space Science Center (NSSC) has moved to a consolidated model for awarding and managing all agency grants and cooperative agreements, aiming to streamline processes, improve data quality, and achieve economies of scale. The agency released updated Terms and...
KSAT Launches Hyperion Demonstration for In-Orbit Data Relay
At the SmallSat Symposium, KSAT unveiled Hyperion, a demonstration mission to transition its HYPER in‑orbit relay concept into operation. The 300 kg LEO satellites will act as “orbiting ground stations,” using S‑band TT&C and Ka‑band high‑throughput links to provide near‑real‑time data...
Senate Commerce to Re‑mark up SAT Streamlining Act Feb 11
Senate Commerce confirms that tmrw (Feb 11) it will try again to mark up the SAT Streamlining Act and other bills under consideration on Feb 3 (see our What's Happening Feb 8-14 https://t.co/ZGgCRqAXcJ). The markup is in the...
Naval Group, Astrolight to Test POLARIS Laser on Lithuanian Ships
Naval Group and Lithuanian space‑tech firm Astrolight have signed an MoU to trial Astrolight’s POLARIS laser communication terminal on Naval Group’s new offshore patrol vessel for Lithuania. The partnership was announced at the Lithuanian Maritime Defence Industry Days and follows...
NASA Chief: Artemis Moon Landing Is Litmus Test for ‘American Exceptionalism’
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman warned that the Artemis III moon landing is a litmus test for American exceptionalism, stressing that a U.S. miss before China’s 2030 landing would raise questions about national competence. The White House pushed the Artemis III...
Chang'e-6 Samples Constrain Lunar Impact Flux and Illuminate Early Impact History
Scientists using Chang'e-6 far‑side samples have revised the lunar crater chronology, demonstrating that impact fluxes on the Moon’s near and far sides are statistically indistinguishable. Radiometric ages of 2.8 billion‑year basalts and 4.247 billion‑year norites from the South Pole–Aitken basin provide an independent...
Discovery of a Possible Pulsar in the Milky Way's Center Could Enable Unprecedented Tests of General Relativity
Researchers from Columbia University and the Breakthrough Listen program have identified an 8.19‑millisecond pulsar candidate orbiting close to the Milky Way’s central black hole, Sagittarius A*. The discovery emerged from the deepest radio survey ever conducted of the Galactic Center, published...
EP37: Interview with Christopher Fedele, Business Development Director, L3 Harris
In this episode, Bill Woolf talks with Christopher Fedele, Business Development Director at L3 Harris, about the rapid evolution of propulsion technologies needed for contested space operations. Fedele explains how electric, high‑performance, and nuclear propulsion enable agile, survivable satellites that can...
IDirect Government Validates Live Over-the-Air (OTA) Point-to-Point Test on DVB-S2X Standard
iDirect Government demonstrated a live over‑the‑air point‑to‑point test that validates the DVB‑S2X standard on its 450 Software‑Defined Modem (SDM). The test used the company’s Virtualized Waveform Core (WCore) to run a 200 Mbps × 200 Mbps Ka‑band link, confirming stability across GEO, MEO, LEO...
A Possible First-Ever Einstein Probe Observation of a Black Hole Tearing Apart a White Dwarf
On July 2 2025 the China‑led Einstein Probe detected a transient X‑ray source, EP250702a, whose brightness surged to ~3 × 10⁴⁹ erg s⁻¹ and displayed a rapid hard‑to‑soft spectral shift. Coordinated follow‑up across the globe confirmed the event’s location in a galaxy’s outskirts and revealed a...
Has Roscosmos Gotten Its Baikonur Soyuz-2 Launchpad Fixed Already?
Roscosmos is said to have finished repairs on Baikonur Site 31, the Soyuz‑2 launchpad, by February 10, 2026. The pad was rendered inoperable after a service platform fell into the flame trench during the November launch, an incident attributed to improper attachment. Earlier...
If Scientists Ever Find Strong Evidence of Alien Life, Communicating It Will Pose Serious Issues
Scientists warn that announcing definitive evidence of extraterrestrial life will be fraught with communication challenges. While missions like NASA’s Pandora telescope and the Confidence of Life Detection scale aim to provide rigorous evidence, public perception will be shaped by cultural...
Apolink and Galaxia Team up to Improve Planned Data Relay Capability
Apolink and Canadian startup Galaxia have announced a collaborative study for a 2027 nanosatellite aimed at enhancing Apolink's in‑orbit data relay services. The partnership will explore mission definition, system design, and RF link development to push downlink speeds from kilobits...
ESA Awards Contracts for Ramses Mission to Apophis
The European Space Agency has signed an €81.2 million contract with OHB Italia to build the Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety (Ramses), slated for launch in 2028. The spacecraft will rendezvous with near‑Earth asteroid Apophis ahead of its close Earth...
Starcloud to Launch AWS Outposts Hardware in Space, Aims to Deploy Fleet of 88,000 Satellites
Starcloud announced it will be the first to launch Amazon Web Services Outposts hardware on a satellite scheduled for October 2026. The company also filed an FCC proposal for an ambitious 88,000‑satellite constellation designed to train and run AI models...
Untrusted Satcom: Dangers for Indian Tele-Education
The Observer Research Foundation warned that India’s push to use foreign low‑Earth‑orbit constellations such as Starlink for tele‑education creates strategic and cyber vulnerabilities. Untrusted satellite devices could be denied, jammed, or used to inject false content, especially in remote border...
ELCOME Brings Amazon LEO Satellite Connectivity to Maritime Operations
Maritime technology firm ELCOME has signed an authorized reseller agreement with Amazon’s LEO satellite network, formerly Project Kuiper. The deal adds two Amazon‑Leo terminals – the 400 Mbps Leo Pro and the gigabit‑class Leo Ultra – to ELCOME’s portfolio serving over...
UK to Invest Nearly £1M In In-Orbit Manufacturing
The UK Space Agency (UKSA) is allocating nearly £1 million to three start‑ups to develop in‑orbit manufacturing capabilities. Space Forge will receive £300,000 to grow semiconductor crystals, OrbiSky £295,000 for ZBLAN optical‑fiber production, and BioOrbit £250,000 to test space‑grown pharmaceuticals. The...
Abundant Element Alloy Enables Rare Earth Free Cryogenic Cooling
Researchers from Japan's National Institute for Materials Science and KOSEN Oshima College have created a copper‑iron‑aluminum oxide regenerator (CuFe0.98Al0.02O2) that cools to 4 K without rare‑earth metals or liquid helium. The material exploits magnetic frustration to deliver specific‑heat performance comparable to...
Climate Change Speeds up Destruction of Key Greenhouse Gas
Scientists at UC Irvine have found that climate change is speeding up the atmospheric destruction of nitrous oxide (N₂O), a potent greenhouse gas and ozone‑depleting substance. Satellite data from NASA’s Microwave Limb Sounder show the gas’s mean lifetime has fallen...
EUMETSAT Extends Role in DestinE Digital Twin Infrastructure
The EUMETSAT Council confirmed the agency will stay a core partner in the European Commission’s Destination Earth (DestinE) programme as it moves into Phase Three later this year. EUMETSAT delivered the fully operational DestinE Data Lake at the end of Phase Two,...
Fermi Data Help Refine Orbital Parameters of a Gamma-Ray Binary
Using 16 years of Fermi LAT data, Chinese astronomers precisely measured the orbit of the gamma‑ray binary PSR J2032+4127. The orbital period is 19,111.5 days (≈52.3 years) with an extreme eccentricity of 0.98 and a separation of about 25.3 AU. Two small spin‑glitches were identified,...
New Platform Restores Soyuz Launch Pad at Baikonur
Replacement to the collapsed service platform, that disabled the only launch pad for piloted Soyuz rockets, was now installed at Site 31, according to rumors from Baikonur, marking a major milestone in the repairs of the facility: https://t.co/Gej3DU7zrd https://t.co/2jiuluTuxl
UK Space Agency Launches Programme to Boost Industry Skills
The UK Space Agency has unveiled the Skills for Space internship programme, offering 50 paid eight‑week placements for undergraduates and further‑education students across the country. The scheme aims to address a widening talent gap, as a recent Space Skills Survey...
Did the Viking Missions Discover Life on Mars 50 Years Ago? These Scientists Think So
In 1976 NASA’s Viking landers returned positive signals from three life‑detection experiments, but the onboard GC‑MS failed to find organic molecules, leading the team to declare Mars lifeless. Recent analysis by Ben Benner and colleagues argues that the GC‑MS actually detected...
Astronomers Celebrate Cancellation of $10bn Chile Project that Threatened Clearest Skies in the World
Chile’s environmental regulator has formally withdrawn the $10 bn INNA green‑hydrogen and ammonia project, averting a major threat to the Atacama Desert’s pristine night skies. The proposed 3,000‑hectare facility, only 11.6 km from the Paranal Observatory, raised concerns about light pollution, seismic...
Intense Rainfall Brings Floods Across Iberian Peninsula
Intense winter storms Kristin, Leonardo and Marta drenched the Iberian Peninsula in early February 2026, delivering over 500 mm of rain in 24 hours in parts of Spain and more than 250 mm across the region in a week. The deluge triggered severe...
Hunting for the Lunar Debris Hiding Near Earth
A new study from Tsinghua University predicts roughly 500,000 lunar‑origin asteroids about 5 m across orbiting near Earth, yet only a handful have been identified. These objects travel at about 12.8 km s⁻¹ and approach from sunward or anti‑sunward directions, distinguishing them from...
Earth Observation Data Provider Constellr Closes €37 Million Series A
Munich‑based Constellr closed a €37 million Series A round, bringing total capital to €75 million. The funding, led by Alpine Space Ventures and Lakestar, will accelerate its HiVE microsatellite constellation toward defence‑grade thermal imaging. Constellr plans to upgrade resolution from 30 m to sub‑5 m...
Motiv Space Systems and PickNik Robotics Collaborate on Software for NASA’s Fly Foundational Robotics Mission
Motiv Space Systems has signed a contract with PickNik Robotics to develop software for NASA’s Fly Foundational Robotics (FFR) mission, which aims to demonstrate on‑orbit robotic manipulation for the agency’s In‑space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM) goals. PickNik will deliver...
A “Low-Level” Space Storm Created High-Risk Conditions for European Satellites
On 4 November 2023 a weak geomagnetic storm sparked a rare super plasma bubble that expanded far beyond its usual equatorial zone, reaching latitudes up to 46°N across Europe. The disturbance persisted for several hours, producing pronounced irregularities in total electron content...
FCC Seeks Comment on SpaceX's Million Orbital Data Center Plan
The Federal Communications Commission has opened a public comment period on SpaceX’s proposal to launch a constellation of one million data‑center satellites. SpaceX argues that, once its reusable Starship is operational, the fleet could deliver 100 gigawatts of AI compute power...
China Rolls Out BeiDou Satellite Messaging for Emergency Use
China has launched a BeiDou satellite short‑messaging service that lets users send and receive SMS without cellular coverage. The offering, developed by China Space‑Time Information and integrated by China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, works on compatible smartphones without...