L3Harris to Supply Imager for Korean Geostationary Weather Satellite
L3Harris Technologies secured a contract to supply the primary 18‑channel GEO‑KOMPSAT Meteorological Imager for the Korean Meteorological Administration’s next‑generation geostationary weather satellite, awarded through LIG Nex1. The sensor will enhance detection of clouds, snow, moisture and fog, improving forecast accuracy across the Korean Peninsula. This follows L3Harris’s recent critical design reviews for NOAA’s GeoXO and Japan’s Himawari‑10 instruments, underscoring its role as a leading provider of long‑life weather imagers. The imager is tailored for tracking tropical cyclones and wildfires, bolstering regional disaster response.
Isar Postpones 2nd Spectrum Rocket Launch Attempt, No New Date Set
Isar Aerospace cancelled its second attempt to launch the Spectrum rocket from Norway’s Andoya spaceport after detecting a pressurization‑valve fault. The company said it will assess a new launch window but gave no specific date, suggesting a delay that could...
Trump-Linked World Liberty Financial Partners with Spacecoin on Satellite-Powered DeFi
World Liberty Financial, the Trump‑family‑linked crypto firm, announced a strategic partnership with Spacecoin that includes a token swap linking their ecosystems. Spacecoin has launched three low‑Earth‑orbit satellites to deliver permissionless internet to remote, underserved communities. The collaboration aims to enable...
NordSpace Receives $335k Grant for Additive Manufacturing Development
Markham‑based NordSpace has secured up to $335,000 from the NRC IRAP to advance additive manufacturing for its rocket engines. The company will work with Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology and engineering firm SWMS to integrate high‑speed laser deposition and...
Webb Telescope Reveals Galaxy Cluster's Gravity Warping Light From Distant Galaxies
The James Webb Space Telescope captured a new image of the massive galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5+2223, located about 5 billion light‑years away in Leo. The picture showcases dramatic gravitational lensing, with background galaxies stretched into arcs and jelly‑like shapes, including a previously...
Rocket Lab Launches Its 1st Mission of 2026, Sending 2 Satellites to Orbit
Rocket Lab successfully launched its 80th mission, an Electron rocket carrying two Open Cosmos satellites, from its New Zealand site on Jan. 22, 2026. The payloads were placed into a 1,050 km circular orbit using the vehicle’s kick stage, marking Open Cosmos’s first...
Rethinking Where Life Could Exist Beyond Earth
A new study by Prof. Amri Wandel expands the classic habitable zone by showing that tidally locked exoplanets around M‑ and K‑dwarf stars can retain liquid water on their permanent night side, even when orbiting closer than traditional models allow....
All Sorts of Interesting Flags and Artifacts Will Fly to the Moon on Artemis II
NASA unveiled the Artemis II Official Flight Kit, a duffel‑bag‑sized collection of more than 2,300 items that will travel aboard the Orion spacecraft on the first crewed lunar flyby in over five decades. The kit blends historic relics—such as the “Legacy...
Astronomers Discover Dense Super-Neptune Exoplanet Orbiting a Sun-Like Star
Astronomers using NASA's TESS have confirmed a dense super‑Neptune, TOI‑3862 b, orbiting a Sun‑like star 800 light‑years away. The planet is half Jupiter's size, weighs 0.169 Jupiter masses and has a density of 1.75 g cm⁻³, placing it deep within the hot‑Neptune desert. It...
Mutations From Space Might Solve an Antibiotic Crisis
A University of Wisconsin‑Madison team sent 1,660 pre‑engineered bacteriophage variants to the International Space Station, letting microgravity and radiation drive co‑evolution with E. coli. In space, bacterial membranes flipped phospholipids outward, prompting surviving phages to acquire hydrophobic receptor‑binding proteins. When...
Wobbling Exoplanet Hints at a Hidden Exomoon so Massive It Could Redefine the Word 'Moon' Altogether
Astronomers using the VLT's GRAVITY instrument detected a nine‑month wobble in the gas‑giant exoplanet HD 206893 B, indicating a massive companion. The candidate exomoon could weigh about 0.4 Jupiter masses—roughly nine Neptune masses—making it thousands of times heavier than any Solar System moon....
Arctic Weather Satellite Paves Way for Constellation
The European Space Agency’s Arctic Weather Satellite, launched in August 2024, proved that a small, low‑cost prototype can deliver operational weather data. Its cross‑track microwave radiometer supplied high‑quality humidity and temperature measurements that ECMWF now assimilates into forecasts. The mission cleared...
The Hidden Microbial Communities that Shape Health in Space
A new perspective article in npj Biofilms and Microbiomes outlines a roadmap for studying biofilms during long‑duration spaceflight, emphasizing their dual role in human and plant health. Researchers from the University of Glasgow, Maynooth University and UCD, working within NASA’s...
Forecasting Technology Group Tomorrow.io Announce AI-Enabled Constellation DeepSky
Tomorrow.io unveiled DeepSky, an AI‑enabled satellite constellation that delivers high‑revisit, radar‑based weather observations to close a long‑standing observation gap. The system feeds a proprietary AI engine trained solely on real sensor data, producing decision‑grade intelligence for clients such as Ford,...
Arizona Aurora
A G4‑level geomagnetic storm on the night of Jan. 19/20 produced a rare aurora borealis visible across the southern United States, including Arizona. The display peaked around 4:30 a.m. MST at Westwood Ranch, where photographer Greg Meyer captured the scene with a...
NOAA Will Use Data From A Space Force Weather Satellite
The U.S. Space Force announced that data from its Weather Satellite Follow‑on Microwave (WSF‑M) platform will be shared with NOAA. The first WSF‑M launched in 2024, with a second unit slated for 2028, and both are part of a broader...
The Evolution of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles
The article traces the evolution of intercontinental ballistic missiles from early liquid‑fuel rockets like the V‑2 and Soviet R‑7 to modern solid‑fuel, MIRV‑capable systems. It highlights how storable propellants and hardened silos enabled rapid, ready‑to‑fire launch, while advances in guidance...
Teledyne Detector Arrays Power NASAs BlackCAT CubeSat X-Ray Mission
Teledyne Technologies’ Space Imaging division has deployed its Speedster HyViSI hybrid visible silicon imager focal‑plane arrays on NASA’s BlackCAT CubeSat, which launched on Jan. 11, 2026 via a SpaceX Twilight rideshare. The 6U satellite, led by Pennsylvania State University, will use...
AST SpaceMobile Secures Role on MDA SHIELD Defense Architecture
AST SpaceMobile has been awarded a prime contract under the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s SHIELD IDIQ, positioning its low‑Earth‑orbit cellular broadband architecture within the nation’s missile‑defense modernization effort. The indefinite‑delivery, indefinite‑quantity contract allows AST to compete for research, development, prototyping...
Comtech Wins Multi-Million Dollar Follow-On Contract for Civil Space Components
Comtech Telecommunications secured a follow‑on contract exceeding $5 million to supply advanced electronic components for a U.S. civil‑space lunar exploration program. The award reinforces its long‑standing partnership with a major aerospace and defense prime contractor, delivering microelectronics and engineering services. Executives...
Perovskite Betavoltaic Cell Sets Record Efficiency Using Carbon 14 Source
A research team at DGIST has unveiled a perovskite‑based betavoltaic cell that reaches a record 10.79% energy‑conversion efficiency using carbon‑14 nanoparticles as the beta source. The device demonstrates stable power output for over 15 hours, a six‑fold gain versus the...
Keysight Joins Airbus UpNext SpaceRAN Project to Advance 5G Satellite NTN
Keysight Technologies has joined Airbus UpNext’s SpaceRAN demonstrator to test 5G non‑terrestrial network (NTN) capabilities on a low‑Earth‑orbit (LEO) satellite. The project uses software‑defined satellite payloads to evaluate how next‑generation satellite hardware can deliver 5G services from space. Keysight will...
10 Startling Findings About Gamma-Ray Bursts
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) were first detected accidentally by US Vela satellites monitoring nuclear tests in the 1960s, revealing powerful cosmic explosions beyond the solar system. A single burst can release more energy in seconds than the Sun will emit over...
A Review of Hypothetical Military Spacecraft and Weapon Systems
Recent analysis outlines how military space operations adapt terrestrial war principles to the orbital environment, emphasizing the constraints of orbital mechanics, debris risk, and the shift toward non‑kinetic weapons. It details hypothetical spacecraft classes—from ISR‑focused Sentinel to strike‑oriented Lancer—and categorizes...
Blue Origin Readies New Shepard For Jan. 22 Space Tourism Launch
Blue Origin is set to launch its New Shepard NS-38 mission on Jan. 22, carrying six passengers on a suborbital flight from West Texas. The 10‑12‑minute ride will provide a few minutes of weightlessness before the capsule lands under parachutes. The...
Es’hailSat Secures New Deal With Qatar Armed Forces
Es’hailSat and the Qatar Armed Forces have signed a memorandum of understanding to deliver satellite communications, ground infrastructure, and secure network solutions for Qatar’s sovereign defense needs. The agreement, announced on Jan. 21, 2026, aims to bolster command‑and‑control capabilities and ensure...
Q&A: How AI Changes NASA's Search for Life in Outer Space
Alicja Ostrowska’s doctoral thesis examines how artificial intelligence is reshaping NASA’s search for extraterrestrial life. The research reveals that AI tools are trained on Earth‑based analog data, often from charismatic or industrially relevant sites, which can embed bias into planetary...
NASA Invites Media to Crew-10 Visit at Marshall
NASA will host astronauts Nichole Ayers and Takuya Onishi at Marshall Space Flight Center on Jan. 23 for a media briefing on their recent SpaceX Crew‑10 mission. The Crew‑10 flight, launched March 14 2025 and returned Aug. 9 2025, completed dozens of ISS experiments under...
A Global Guide to Emerging National Space Programs
The global space arena has shifted from a Cold‑War bipolar rivalry to a multipolar frontier where dozens of nations now operate satellites and launch services. Emerging programs are adopting an "à la carte" model, buying commercial launches, partnering with universities,...
Blue Origin’s Satellite Internet Network TeraWave Will Move Data at 6Tbps
Blue Origin unveiled TeraWave, a satellite internet network that promises up to 6 Tbps data rates using a hybrid constellation of 5,280 low‑Earth‑orbit (LEO) and 128 medium‑Earth‑orbit (MEO) satellites. The LEO nodes will deliver up to 144 Gbps via RF, while the...
The Essential Reading Series: Learning to Communicate with Extraterrestrial Intelligence
The Essential Reading Series spotlights ten seminal science‑fiction works that examine how humanity might communicate with extraterrestrial intelligence, from Carl Sagan’s *Contact* to Octavia Butler’s *Dawn*. Each novel presents a distinct obstacle—linguistic puzzles, alien cognition, cultural misunderstanding—showing that language, biology and...
Massive Black Hole Mystery Unlocked by Researchers
Irish researchers at Maynooth University have solved a long‑standing puzzle about how super‑massive black holes formed in the early universe. Using cutting‑edge computer simulations, they showed that light‑seed black holes—born only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang—can...
Radio Telescopes on the Moon Could Let Us Observe Dozens of Black Hole Shadows
A new arXiv study proposes deploying radio dishes on the Moon to create an Earth‑Moon interferometer capable of sub‑microarcsecond resolution. By leveraging the lunar radius as a baseline, the array could resolve black‑hole shadows as small as one‑tenth of a...
UK Unveils £20m Westcott Space Hub for Industry and Startups
The UK government has launched the £20 million Westcott Space Hub in Buckinghamshire, a 62,000‑sq‑ft facility designed to accelerate space‑technology development. Backed by the UK Space Agency and a mix of public and private partners, the hub offers testing infrastructure, collaborative...
JAXA Releases Preliminary Results of Investigation Into December 2025 H3 Rocket Launch Failure
JAXA released preliminary findings on the December 2025 H3 launch failure, pinpointing premature fairing separation that damaged the satellite mounting section and ruptured the second‑stage fuel tubing. The damage halted engine combustion and caused the Michibiki‑5 satellite to detach when...
Starfish Wins SDA Deorbit-As-A-Service Contract
Starfish Space secured a $52.5 million contract from the U.S. Space Force to provide deorbit‑as‑a‑service for the SDA’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) constellation. The award marks the first operational, paid mission for end‑of‑life satellite disposal, moving beyond earlier demonstration studies....
Loft Orbital Wins €50M Contract to Build French SAR Sat
Loft Orbital has secured a €50 million contract from the French Ministry of Defence to deliver the nation’s first sovereign synthetic‑aperture radar (SAR) satellite under the DESIR programme. The satellite will be built on Loft’s Longbow platform, with a payload co‑designed...
Jan. 21, 1960: Miss Sam Launches
On January 21, 1960, a rhesus monkey named Miss Sam was launched aboard a Little Joe rocket to test the Mercury spacecraft's Launch Escape System (LES). The flight reached roughly nine miles altitude before the capsule separated and splashed down in the Atlantic, where...
Accelerating Digital Transformation Is the Keystone to Deterring Space War
The article argues that the United States must accelerate digital transformation in its national‑security space architecture to maintain deterrence against a rapidly modernizing China. It highlights current shortcomings such as legacy single‑prime contracts, stovepiped systems, and slow acquisition cycles that...
US Space Force Awards 1st-of-Its-Kind $52 Million Contract to Deorbit Its Satellites
Starfish Space secured a $52.5 million contract from the U.S. Space Force to provide end‑of‑life deorbit services for its upcoming PWSA low‑Earth‑orbit constellation. The deal marks the first ever procurement for commercial satellite disposal at constellation scale. Starfish’s Otter vehicle, still...
Starfish Space Wins SDA Contract to Deorbit Satellites
Starfish Space secured a $52.5 million contract from the U.S. Space Development Agency to provide deorbit‑as‑a‑service for a satellite in its Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture. The award calls for launching the company’s Otter space tug in 2027 to dock with a...
U.S. Vulnerable to Russian Escalation in Space, New Report Warns
The Atlantic Council’s new report warns that the United States remains “unacceptably vulnerable” to Russian escalation in space, including the prospect of a nuclear detonation in low‑Earth orbit. It outlines three high‑risk scenarios—nuclear anti‑satellite blasts, debris‑generating attacks, and systematic interference...
Quantum Collapse Models Point to Subtle Limits in Timekeeping Accuracy
An international team examined the Diósi‑Penrose and Continuous Spontaneous Localization (CSL) quantum collapse models and demonstrated that, if these models are correct, time itself carries a tiny intrinsic uncertainty. This fuzziness imposes a fundamental, though extraordinarily small, limit on the...
ExLabs and ChibaTech Team up to Land Student CubeLanders on Asteroid Apophis
ExLabs has partnered with Japan’s Chiba Institute of Technology to send student‑designed CubeLanders to asteroid Apophis during its 2029 close approach. The ApophisExL mission, supported by NASA’s JPL, is billed as the world’s first commercial deep‑space rideshare, offering co‑manifested payload...
Lunar Impacts Limit Late Delivery of Earth Ocean Water
A new study using high‑precision triple‑oxygen‑isotope measurements on Apollo lunar regolith shows that only about 1% of the Moon’s soil is impactor‑derived material, limiting the amount of water late‑arriving meteorites could have delivered. Even assuming Earth received roughly twenty times...
ClearSpace and ESA Will Launch PRELUDE Mission to Test In-Orbit Services
ClearSpace and the European Space Agency are developing the PRELUDE mission, slated for a 2027 launch, to demonstrate autonomous, close‑range satellite servicing in orbit. The program will fly two small spacecraft that use sensors and cameras to track each other...
ESA at the European Space Conference 2026
The 18th European Space Conference convenes in Brussels on 27‑28 January 2026, spotlighting European autonomy, resilience, competitiveness, security and defence. ESA’s participation follows the Ministerial Council’s approval of a historic €22.3 billion budget, reinforcing its mandate in security‑related activities. Sessions will highlight strengthened...
Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing Rocket Parts
Artificial intelligence is being integrated into ESA‑backed manufacturing projects to modernize rocket component production. MT Aerospace is applying machine‑learning models to shot‑peen forming, friction‑stir welding, and automated carbon‑fibre placement, achieving tighter tolerances and faster setup. Predictive AI now forecasts metal...
Magnetic Avalanches Power Solar Flares, Finds Solar Orbiter
ESA’s Solar Orbiter observed a large solar flare on 30 September 2024 with unprecedented detail, revealing that the eruption is driven by a cascade of small magnetic reconnection events—a magnetic avalanche. High‑resolution EUV imagery captured the precursor filament and rapid formation of twisted...
Legs Made for a Mars Landing
European engineers have completed a series of full‑scale drop tests on the four‑legged ExoMars descent module at ALTEC’s Turin facility. The lightweight, shock‑absorbing legs and their touchdown sensors were evaluated on hard, soft and angled surfaces to ensure stability and...
