Strategic Review of Analysys Masons Space Research Programs for 2026
Analysys Mason’s 2026 strategic review maps a space industry moving from experimental silos to integrated, multi‑orbit ecosystems. It highlights LEO mega‑constellations eroding traditional GEO bandwidth pricing, prompting operators to add managed services, cyber‑security and AI‑driven analytics. Sovereign initiatives, backed by roughly $80 billion, are reshaping defense and earth‑observation markets, while new launch vehicles such as Ariane 6 and Vulcan ease capacity constraints. Across all programs, the firm stresses multi‑orbit orchestration as the new baseline for broadband, mobility and government services.
EU Launches Government Satcom Program in Sovereignty Push
The European Union launched GOVSATCOM, a government satellite communications program that aggregates capacity from eight geosynchronous satellites owned by France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Luxembourg. The service, now operational, offers member states a secure, encrypted marketplace of 35 communication programmes...
Novaspace Market Intelligence Reports & Data Products (2026)
Novaspace, formed from the Euroconsult‑SpaceTec Partners merger, now offers a broad portfolio of market‑intelligence reports and data products spanning government space programs, Earth observation, satellite communications, and the wider space industry. Its Government Space Programs benchmark tracks spending for 95...
NASA's Artemis II Crewed Mission to the Moon Shows How US Space Strategy Has Changed Since Apollo
NASA’s Artemis II mission, slated for a February 2026 launch, will send a four‑person crew on a lunar flyby without landing. The flight tests life‑support, navigation and deep‑space operations that are essential for the planned Artemis III landing in 2028. Unlike the Cold‑War...
Scientists Produce New Estimate of the Thickness of Europa’s Icy Crust
Scientists analyzing Juno’s 2022 Europa flyby have refined the moon’s ice‑shell thickness to roughly 29 ± 10 km (about 18 ± 6 miles). The study finds that surface fractures and shallow scatterers are too small and shallow to channel nutrients from the surface to the subsurface...
NSS Space Business Competition Closes on February 15 with $32,000 in Prizes
The National Space Society’s Martine Rothblatt Space Settlement Business Plan Competition closes on February 15, 2026, offering a $32,000 prize pool across three tiers ($16,000, $10,000, $6,000). Open to students, entrepreneurs, academics and anyone worldwide, the contest seeks innovative plans...
Northrop, Raytheon Report 2025 Earnings
Northrop Grumman posted $13 billion in 2025 revenue, a 5 % increase year‑over‑year, highlighted by an 18 % jump in fourth‑quarter sales to $3.9 billion. However, its space systems segment saw mixed results, with Q4 sales up 5 % but full‑year space revenue falling 8 % to...
Astronomers Discover the 'Growing Pains' Of Teenage Exoplanets
Using ALMA, astronomers captured detailed images of 24 debris disks around young stars, revealing the chaotic “teenage” phase of planetary evolution. The observations show multi‑ringed belts, halos, arcs and clumps, indicating frequent collisions and orbital reshuffling. This fills the missing...
Northwood Space Raises $100M in Series B and Works With Space Force on Satellite Control Network
Ground‑tech startup Northwood Space announced a $100 million Series B round, co‑led by Washington Harbour Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, and disclosed a $49.8 million contract from the U.S. Space Force to bolster the Satellite Control Network. The financing follows a $30 million Series A and...
Gilat Secures More Orders for Sidewinder IFC Terminals
Gilat Satellite Networks announced a multimillion‑dollar order for its Sidewinder in‑flight connectivity (IFC) terminals from a major avionics manufacturer. The Sidewinder, an electronically steered antenna originally developed by Stellar Blu, operates on both GEO satellites and the OneWeb LEO constellation...
Second Edition of Space Debris 2026 Conference Kicks Off with Participation From 75 Countries
The Saudi Space Agency launched the second Space Debris 2026 Conference, drawing delegates from 75 countries. Backed by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs and the International Telecommunication Union, the event underscores a global push to curb orbital...
A WB-57 Pilot Just Made a Heroic Landing in Houston After Its Landing Gear Failed
NASA’s three‑engine WB‑57 research aircraft performed a gear‑up emergency landing at Ellington Field in Houston on Tuesday. The pilot kept the plane on the runway, allowing it to decelerate via friction, and the crew emerged unharmed. The WB‑57, a legacy...
James Webb Space Telescope Offers The Clearest View Of The Helix Nebula
The James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam has produced the sharpest infrared image yet of the Helix Nebula, one of Earth’s nearest planetary nebulae. The picture reveals distinct temperature layers—blue hot gas near the central white dwarf, yellow intermediate gas, and...
KSAT Introduces New Maritime Detection Platform
KSAT announced the launch of Vake Powered By KSAT, a maritime vessel detection service that integrates satellite data with AI analytics. The platform combines KSAT’s extensive satellite antenna network and maritime expertise with VAKE’s AI‑driven analytics and visualization tools acquired...
Capture-the-Flag in Space: D-Orbit Shares Lessons From Cyber Competition
D‑Orbit hosted the first in‑orbit capture‑the‑flag (CTF) cybersecurity competition on its ION Satellite Carrier, partnering with ESA and Mhackeroni. Five finalist teams tackled live telemetry, command sequencing and onboard software exploits in a controlled environment. The event exposed the distinct...
Milky Way Is Embedded in a 'Large-Scale Sheet' Of Dark Matter, Which Explains Motions of Nearby Galaxies
Researchers from the University of Groningen and European partners have used constrained cosmological simulations to reveal that the Milky Way and Andromeda reside within a large‑scale, flat sheet of dark matter extending tens of millions of light‑years. This planar mass...
NASA Gets New F-15 Fighter Jet to Chase Its X-59 'Quiet' Supersonic Aircraft
NASA has added two retired U.S. Air Force F‑15 fighter jets to its Armstrong Flight Research Center fleet to support the Low Boom Flight Demonstrator program. The aircraft will serve as chase planes for the X‑59 "quiet" supersonic demonstrator, flying...
Massive Star WOH G64 Is Still a Red Supergiant—For Now
WOH G64, one of the Large Magellanic Cloud's most luminous red supergiants, has been confirmed to remain in the red‑supergiant phase despite recent dimming and spectral changes. High‑resolution SALT spectra revealed titanium‑oxide absorption bands, a definitive sign of a cool photosphere,...
Magnetic Superhighways Discovered in a Starburst Galaxy's Winds
Using ALMA’s full‑polarization capabilities, astronomers mapped the magnetic fields of the merging ultraluminous infrared galaxy Arp 220 and uncovered a magnetized, high‑speed molecular outflow that functions as a “magnetic superhighway.” The study reports the first polarized CO(3‑2) detection, revealing field strengths...
EBAD PRM Payload Release Module Family Demonstrates Scalable, Low-Shock Separation Capability on Falcon 9 Twilight Rideshare Mission
Ensign‑Bickford Aerospace and Defense (EBAD) confirmed the successful actuation of its PRM9103 payload release module during SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Twilight rideshare on Jan. 11, deploying ten Kepler Communications satellites. The flight validates the low‑shock, precision‑separation capability of EBAD’s PRM family, which scales...
This Rapidly Growing Black Hole Is Challenging Super-Eddington Accretion
Astronomers have identified quasar eFEDS J084222.9+001000 (ID830) at redshift 3.435, only 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. The object shines as the most X‑ray luminous radio‑loud quasar in the eFEDS field, accreting at roughly 15 times the Eddington limit. Its extreme X‑ray...
Streaks on Mercury Show that It Is Not a 'Dead Planet'
A team led by Dr. Valentin Bickel used deep‑learning to catalog roughly 400 bright slope streaks—known as lineae—across Mercury’s surface, creating the first systematic inventory of these features. Geostatistical analysis shows the streaks concentrate on sun‑facing crater walls and are...
First Radio Signals From Rare Supernova Reveal Star's Final Years
Astronomers have recorded the first radio emission from a Type Ibn supernova (SN 2023fyq) using the VLA, revealing the star's mass‑loss history in the decade before its explosion. The radio waves, observed over 18 months, show interaction with helium‑rich gas shed shortly before...
NASA, GE Aerospace Hybrid Engine System Marks Successful Test
NASA and GE Aerospace successfully completed the first integrated hybrid‑electric jet engine test in December at GE’s Peebles Test Operation in Ohio. The demonstration used a modified GE Passport engine that extracts energy and feeds it back through electric motors,...
Ancient Martian Beach Discovered, Providing New Clues to Red Planet's Habitability
NASA's Perseverance rover has identified wave‑formed beach deposits and carbonate‑altered rocks in the Margin unit of Jezero crater, confirming an ancient shoreline dating back roughly 3.5 billion years. The study shows that igneous rocks were later transformed by subsurface, CO₂‑rich water,...
Lunar Outpost Will Be A Part Of The New In-Orbit Demonstration Mission
Lunar Outpost has been chosen by the European Commission and ESA for a new In‑Orbit Demonstration (IOD) mission. The project will launch, integrate, and operate its TACOS (Thermal Architecture ComponentS) technology in space. TACOS is designed to safeguard spacecraft against...
Calian to Kick-Start $100M Sovereign C5ISRT Strategic Initiative
Calian has launched a $100 million sovereign C5ISRT strategic initiative to accelerate Canada’s command, control, computing, communications, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting capabilities. The funding will flow through Calian VENTURES, a platform that partners with Canadian SMEs and draws on...
The Rubin Observatory Will Rapidly Detect More Supernovae
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, beginning its ten‑year Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), is poised to dramatically increase the detection of core‑collapse supernovae in the Milky Way. Simulations of 100,000 synthetic events indicate the telescope can localize nearly...
Musk: Next Starship/Superheavy Test Launch in Mid-March
Elon Musk announced that SpaceX plans a Starship/Superheavy test launch in roughly six weeks, targeting mid‑March. The statement implies that engineers have fixed the tank‑rupture problems that plagued recent Superheavy tests and that a new version‑3 booster is ready. Launch‑pad...
From Stellar Engines to Dyson Bubbles, Alien Megastructures Could Hold Themselves Together Under the Right Conditions
New theoretical work by Colin McInnes at the University of Glasgow shows that both stellar engines and Dyson bubbles—hypothetical alien megastructures designed to harvest a star’s energy—can achieve passive gravitational stability under specific conditions. The study, published in Monthly Notices of...
NASA, Partners Advance LISA Prototype Hardware
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center completed tests on a second early‑version frequency reference system, a core component of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission. The hardware, built by BAE Systems, stabilizes the infrared lasers that must measure distances to...
1400 Quirky Objects Found in Hubble's Archive
Astronomers at ESA deployed an AI‑driven neural network called AnomalyMatch to comb through roughly 100 million Hubble Legacy Archive cutouts in just 2.5 days. The system flagged about 1,400 anomalous objects, of which more than 800 have never been recorded in the...
The “Stealth” Strategy Pays Off: UARX Space Emerges as Europe’s High-Reliability Powerhouse
UARX Space spent five years in stealth, delivering a full TRL 9 product line before announcing publicly. Its flagship OSSIE platform offers a modular, high‑performance in‑orbit validation bus, now partnered with Dawn Aerospace for a docking‑and‑refueling port slated for a 2026...
Watch NASA's Artemis 2 Moon Rocket on the Launch Pad with This 24-Hour Livestream
NASA has placed the Artemis 2 Space Launch System on Launch Complex‑39B and is streaming the rocket’s status 24/7 on YouTube. After a 12‑hour rollout on Jan 17, the vehicle will undergo a wet‑dress‑rehearsal fueling test on Feb 2, just days before the...
NASA Evaluation Lauds Quality of PlanetiQ Radio Occultation Data
An independent NASA evaluation has validated the quality of PlanetiQ’s GNSS radio occultation data, finding it comparable to benchmark missions like COSMIC‑2. The review highlighted PlanetiQ’s total electron content measurements as best‑in‑class, with high signal‑to‑noise and deep lower‑troposphere penetration. NASA...
Jan. 27, 1967: The Apollo 1 Fire
On Jan. 27, 1967, a pre‑flight test of Apollo 1 ended in a catastrophic fire that killed astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. The Block 1 capsule used a pure‑oxygen atmosphere and contained flammable materials, causing the blaze to spread in seconds. The inward‑opening hatch...
The HWO Must Be Picometer Perfect To Observe Earth 2.0
NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) has advanced to Concept Maturity Level 3, entering the trade‑space phase that evaluates telescope architectures and technology gaps. The flagship mission aims to directly image at least 25 Earth‑like exoplanets, requiring picometer‑scale stability—about 1,000 times...
Are Mysterious 'Little Red Dots' Discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope Actually Nurseries for Direct-Collapse Black Holes?
Astronomers using JWST have identified enigmatic "Little Red Dots"—compact, red sources seen when the universe was under a billion years old—and propose they are nurseries for direct‑collapse black holes. Simulations by Elia Cenci’s team show that these heavy‑seed black holes...
Low Frequency Lasers Modeled to Greatly Boost Nuclear Fusion Rates
A new theoretical study shows that intense low‑frequency laser fields can dramatically increase nuclear fusion rates by reshaping the collision‑energy distribution of reacting nuclei. The model predicts that a 1.55 eV laser at 10²⁰ W cm⁻² boosts deuterium‑tritium fusion probability by three orders...
Geoscientists Use Satellite to Determine Not the Shape of Water, but How Water Shapes Land
Virginia Tech geoscientists have repurposed NASA’s Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite—originally designed to map water surface height—to study how water reshapes land. By applying SWOT data to fluvial geomorphology, the team demonstrated global-scale monitoring of river dynamics, sediment...
Stratoship Alliance Charts Staged Path for Smallsat Payloads
Stratoship has signed an MoU with Queensland firms Orbit2Orbit and Sunburnt Space Co to create a staged "lab‑to‑space" pathway for small‑satellite payloads. The framework links laboratory development, stratospheric testing, very low Earth orbit (VLEO) and full orbital missions, with Orbit2Orbit...
How Will the Artemis 2 Crew Pilot the Orion Spacecraft
Artemis 2 will be the first crewed flight of NASA's Orion spacecraft, which is built to operate both autonomously and under manual control. Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen explains that each astronaut will have a dedicated hand controller, allowing translation and rotation...
Space Force Set to Choose Contractors for Next-Gen GEO Spy Satellites
The U.S. Space Force is nearing contractor selections for the Geosynchronous Reconnaissance & Surveillance (RG‑XX) program, its first large‑scale commercial‑first satellite acquisition. RG‑XX will replace the bespoke Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program with a proliferated GEO constellation built from commercial...
Vega C to Launch Brazilian Satellite
Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) will launch the 700‑kilogram Amazonia‑1B Earth‑observation satellite on a Vega C rocket in 2027. The mission is being arranged through Texas‑based launch broker SpaceLaunch, which secured a contract worth about 188.2 million Brazilian reais (~$35.6 million)....
Northwood Closes $100M Series B
Northwood Space announced a $100 million Series B round led by a16z and Washington Harbour Partners, following a $30 million Series A less than a year earlier. The funding will accelerate production of its Portal phased‑array ground systems, now capable of building eight units...
Northwood Space Secures a $100M Series B and a $50M Space Force Contract
Northwood Space announced a $100 million Series B funding round led by Washington Harbour Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, following a $30 million Series A less than a year earlier. The startup also secured a $49.8 million contract with the U.S. Space Force to modernize the...
Northwood Space Raises $100 Million Series B, Lands $49 Million Space Force Deal
Northwood Space announced a $100 million Series B round led by Washington Harbour Partners and co‑led by a16z, following a $30 million Series A nine months earlier. The funding supports the rollout of its multi‑beam phased‑array ground station, Portal, which can handle eight to...
AI-Powered Video Processing Payload Moves Toward Flight on LizzieSat-4
Maris-Tech Ltd. and Sidus Space announced that Maris-Tech’s AI‑powered video processing payload will be integrated onto Sidus’s LizzieSat‑4 satellite, with a launch targeted for later this year. Joint hardware testing begins next week, marking a key integration milestone toward flight...
NASA Seeks Partners for Earth Science Extended Missions
NASA’s Earth Science Division announced a call for external partners to sustain extended missions such as the Orbiting Carbon Observatory‑2 (OCO‑2) and the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS). The agency seeks proposals that could assume part or all of...
China’s Xuntian Telescope Clears Major Systems Test Ahead of Planned 2027 Launch
China’s Xuntian space telescope has passed a comprehensive systems-level simulation, confirming that its optical, imaging and data subsystems work together under realistic orbital conditions. The test moves the program from component-only verification to integrated flight readiness, clearing the way for...
