September 17, 2025

Russia Developing Starlink Rival at 'Rapid Pace' (Source: Reuters)
Russia will soon have a rival to Elon Musk's satellite internet service Starlink, as it tries to shift away from outdated thinking that has allowed SpaceX to win the crown of satellite dominance, Russia's space chief said on Wednesday. Starlink says it operates the world’s largest satellite constellation with more than 8,000 satellites, and Musk is credited by Russian officials with revolutionizing the launch of space vehicles - to Russia's cost. (9/17)

NASA Analysis Shows Sun’s Activity Ramping Up (Source: NASA)
It looked like the Sun was heading toward a historic lull in activity. That trend flipped in 2008, according to new research. The Sun has become increasingly active since 2008, a new NASA study shows. Solar activity is known to fluctuate in cycles of 11 years, but there are longer-term variations that can last decades. Case in point: Since the 1980s, the amount of solar activity had been steadily decreasing all the way up to 2008, when solar activity was the weakest on record. At that point, scientists expected the Sun to be entering a period of historically low activity. (9/15)

How Will SpaceX’s Massive Starship Affect You When it Comes to Florida? (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
The most dire predictions in two federal reports on the proposal could mean nearly 12,000 delayed commercial flights each year with more than 60 days of denied access to Playalinda Beach on Canaveral National Seashore and half of the launches and landings taking place while residents are asleep.

“Where does the space center program end and the access to the public rights start?” wrote area resident William Gee as part of the public comment period for the proposal. “You’ve constantly taken more and more … We want our kids to be able to enjoy the piece of land we all grew up on before corruption and greed takes over. Shame on all of you in favor.”

Starship's west-to-east landing trajectory could shut down southbound U.S. as well as international air traffic headed for airports in Orlando, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Miami. It could also affect airspace over Mexico, Central America and Cuba. Landing approaches would prompt a minimum of 40 minutes and up to one hour of airspace closure, impacting 400 to 600 commercial aircraft during peak daily travel periods, which is from 8,800 to 13,200 per year. That’s not great news for Orlando International, which already has its hands full juggling delays. (9/17)

Cygnus Engine Trouble Forces Northrop Grumman to Delay Supply Delivery to ISS (Source: AP)
A newly launched supply ship has run into engine trouble that is preventing it from reaching the International Space Station. Northrop Grumman’s capsule rocketed into orbit Sunday from Florida aboard SpaceX. But less than two days later, the capsule’s main engine shut down prematurely while trying to boost its orbit. This marked the debut of Northrop Grumman’s newest, extra large model, known as Cygnus XL, capable of ferrying a much bigger load. (9/17)

Finland's ReOrbit Raises $53 Million for Satellite Production (Source: Space News)
Finnish satellite manufacturer ReOrbit has raised 45 million euros ($53 million). This will allow it to expand production of LEO and small GEO satellites.  ReOrbit is seeing strong demand for those satellites from governments. The company is moving into a new Helsinki facility that will allow it to work on eight small GEO satellites in parallel. The firm is differentiating itself by bucking the trend for vertical integration, instead taking on more of a systems integration and design role to provide more flexibility in the suppliers it works with. (9/17)

GHGSat Raises $34 Million for Constellation (Source: Space News)
GHGSat raised $34 million in debt and equity to expand its constellation of satellites monitoring greenhouse gases. Yaletown Partners joined previous GHGSat investors Fonds de solidarite FTQ and BDC Capital in the equity portion of the funding round. National Bank of Canada, with support from Export Development Canada, provided debt financing. The company will use the funds to grow its constellation of 13 satellites that track methane and other greenhouse gas emissions. It will also use the funding for developing advanced analytics capabilities. (9/17)

Impulse Space and Anduril to Demo Autonomous Rendezvous (Source: Space News)
Impulse Space announced an agreement with Anduril to demonstrate autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations in GEO. The companies said Tuesday they will partner on a mission in 2026 using Impulse’s Mira spacecraft and Anduril’s software-defined payloads. Impulse Space will send Mira to GEO on its Helios tug, and once there Mira will conduct tests such as capturing images of designated objects, analyzing them onboard and autonomously executing maneuvers to observe the targets from different angles. The companies are funding the mission internally, demonstrating capabilities that could be offered to military customers. (9/17)

Axiom and Spacebilt to Send Data Center to ISS (Source: Space News)
Axiom Space and Spacebilt will send a data center to the ISS. The Axiom Orbital Data Center Node on ISS, called AxODC Node ISS, is being developed in collaboration with Spacebilt and will feature an optical communications terminal from Skyloom plus hardware from Phison Electronics and Microchip Technology. The device will provide high-performance computing services for research and other activities on the station, working with two other data storage and processing devices there. (9/17)

Astro Digital to Use Star Catcher's Orbital Energy Grid (Source: Space News)
Satellite manufacturer Astro Digital will purchase and distribute power from Star Catcher’s future space-based energy grid. The goal is to enable ESPA-class satellites like Astro Digital’s Corvus XL to obtain more power than they could generate on their own. Star Catcher announced plans last year to develop a network of satellites that can beam sunlight to other spacecraft, boosting the amount of power their solar panels can generate. It conducted a terrestrial test of the technology earlier this year with an on-orbit demonstration planned for next year. (9/17)

Viasat and Space42 to Pool Spectrum for D2D Service (Source: Space News)
Viasat and Space42 will pool their spectrum for their own direct-to-device (D2D) services. The GEO operators said this week their Equatys joint venture involves well over 100 megahertz of L- and S-band spectrum already allocated across more than 160 countries. Equatys will leverage their existing GEO fleets in addition to new LEO satellites. The companies said Equatys will adopt an investment model similar to the one used by cell tower companies, pooling spectrum and satellite assets under a neutral entity to lower unit costs. Equatys is positioning itself as a sovereignty-friendly D2D alternative, committing to work within existing national spectrum allocations and closely with countries to give them access to a coordinated global system. (9/17)

Kuiper to Start Broadband Service in Five Countries by March 2026 (Source: Space News)
Amazon expects to begin providing broadband services through Project Kuiper in five countries by next March. Ricky Freeman, president of the constellation’s Kuiper Government Solutions division, said at World Space Business Week that the company expected to have enough satellites in orbit to provide service in Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States in the first quarter of next year.

Amazon expects to have Kuiper services in 26 countries by the end of 2026. There are about 100 Kuiper satellites in orbit now, but that total will double by the end of the year with three upcoming launches. Amazon, though, is far short of meeting a July 2026 FCC deadline of having half its 3,200-satellite constellation in orbit, and Freeman said access to launch was the project’s biggest issue. (9/17)

SES and K2 Space Plan MEO Satellites (Source: Space News)
SES announced plans Tuesday to work with startup satellite manufacturer K2 Space on medium Earth orbit satellites. SES CEO Adel Al-Saleh said his company’s new meoSphere concept will use an iterative design approach that evolves in shorter innovation cycles rather than large, one-off deployments. The plan is to develop and deploy new MEO satellites each year, linking investments and scaling of the network directly to market demand and customer needs. That will start with a satellite co-developed with K2 Space launching next year to test the concept. (9/17)

BlackSky Wins Another NGA Contract (Source: Space News)
BlackSky said Tuesday it won a second contract from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) under the Luno A program. Under the new contract, BlackSky will fuse data from its Gen-3 and Gen-2 imaging satellites with other commercial sources to detect areas of the Earth undergoing human-caused change. That includes shifts in natural resources, climate effects, infrastructure growth, and both economic and military activity. The award, confirmed by NGA to be worth $24.4 million, brings BlackSky’s total orders under Luno A to nearly $50 million in three months. Luno A is specifically focused on commercial analytic services powered by machine learning and computer vision, while a companion Luno B program examines directly integrating commercial AI tools into NGA’s own analytic processes. (9/17)

Mynaric Delivers Laser Terminals for SDA Transport Layer Satellites (Source: Space News)
Mynaric has made key deliveries of laser terminals to satellite manufacturers as it recovers from business setbacks. Mynaric provided 84 of its terminals to Northrop Grumman and York Space Systems for use on spacecraft those companies are building for the Space Development Agency. That includes 42 satellites on satellites built by York and launched last week for the SDA’s Transport Layer Tranche 1. The shipments reflect momentum for Mynaric after a difficult 2024, when supplier shortages of critical components stalled production and required the company to slash its financial guidance. Mynaric was forced to restructure and is now in the process of being acquired by Rocket Lab. (9/17)

Does Europe Need a Spaceplane? (Source: Space News)
Europe should be investing in disruptive capabilities like spaceplanes, a French military official said Sep. 17 at the Space Defense & Security Summit. “A spaceplane is maneuverable, reusable and flexible, so it can deliver payload in orbit, recover critical assets, conduct reconnaissance and intervene against threats in orbit,” said Maj. Gen. Philippe Koffi, the strategic lead for air, land and naval combat at the French armament agency DGA.

At the Paris Air Show in June, Dassault Aviation announced an agreement with DGA to develop VORTEX, a four-meter-long spaceplane demonstrator with a mass of less than one metric ton. A first flight is expected in 2028. (9/17)

Barbie Honors Ellen Ochoa, First Hispanic Woman in Space, With Doll (Source: CollectSpace)
As the first Hispanic woman to fly into space, Ellen Ochoa has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. Now, she is joining an even more elite group of honorees: space travelers with their own Barbie doll.

Mattel on Monday (Sep. 15) revealed the "Barbie Inspiring Women Ellen Ochoa" set modeled after the former NASA astronaut. It is only the fifth time that the iconic fashion doll has honored a real-life space explorer and only the third such doll to be offered for sale to the public. (9/15)

Columbia Learning Center to Expand Access to Shuttle Tragedy Debris at KSC (Source: CollectSpace)
NASA is changing the way that its employees come in contact with and remember one of its worst tragedies. In the wake of the 2003 loss of the space shuttle Columbia and its STS-107 crew, NASA created a program to use the orbiter's debris for research and education. Agency employees were invited to see what remained of the space shuttle as a powerful reminder as to why they had to be diligent in their work.

Access to the Columbia Research and Preservation Office, though, was limited as a result of its location and related logistics. To address that and open up the experience to more of the workforce at Kennedy, the agency has quietly begun work to establish a new facility. After the investigation into what caused the disaster was complete, NASA established the Preservation Office on the 16th floor of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), the voluminous facility that was used to assemble the space shuttles for launch. (9/16)

NASA Supporters Fight Giant Leap Back Budget Cuts (Source: DC Media Group)
Current and former NASA employees, contractors, and supporters founded the group ‘NASA Needs Help’ to expose the planned budget cuts to the agency. Although NASA Needs Help includes many NASA employees, they stressed that it wasn’t an “employee group trying to save jobs, it’s a NASA fan group trying to save NASA.” They rallied outside of the agency’s headquarters for roughly five hours to highlight the critical work at risk. All those in attendance did so on their own personal time, and spoke in their capacity as private citizens, not on behalf of NASA. (9/15)

Fire Damages American Space Museum in Titusville (Source: American Space Museum)
On September 11 the nonprofit American Space Museum in Titusville, Florida, experienced an unexpected kitchen fire that forced a temporary closure of the facility. No injuries occurred, but fire and smoke damage will require investment for repairs while no visitor revenues will be available. The museum seeks donations to cover the insurance deductible and to fund restoration expenses not covered by insurance. Click here. (9/16)

Sidus Space Raises ~$10 Million in Stock Sale (Source: Sidus Space)
Sidus Space has closed its public offering of 9,800,000 shares of stock. Each share was sold at a price of $1.00 for gross proceeds of approximately $9.8 million, before deducting the placement agent’s fees and offering expenses. The company intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for working capital and general corporate purposes. (9/16)

Starlink Hits Capacity in Nigeria’s Largest Cities, Raising Questions About Musk’s Africa Ambitions (Source: Business Insider)
Starlink has stopped accepting new orders in some of Nigeria’s busiest urban hubs after its satellite internet network hit capacity, putting a spotlight on the challenges of scaling in Africa’s largest market. In some locations in Nigeria's commercial nerve center such as Victoria Island, Ikoyi, Ikeja and Surulere, as well as the nation's capital Abuja, Starlink’s website now displays “Sold Out” notices. Prospective customers are pushed onto a waitlist and asked to pay a deposit before they can be notified when slots reopen. (9/16)

Colorado Springs Looks to Rebound After Trump Pulls Space Command (Source: Washington Examiner)
The mayor of Colorado Springs, the current but not long-term base for U.S. Space Command, is already looking for more aerospace opportunities just weeks after President Donald Trump announced the military would be moving the command’s headquarters to Huntsville, Alabama.

Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade traveled to Washington D.C. this week for an annual trip that includes private sector, nonprofit, and government officials from his city. “We are advocating for new opportunities for Colorado Springs,” Mobolade said. “We want to understand what’s available, the opportunity in front of us, perhaps opportunities that we’re not taking advantage of, but ultimately, we want to position Colorado Springs and make noise that we’re here.” (9/16)

Colorado’s Republican U.S. Representatives Risk Voter Fallout After Declining to Fight Trump on Space Command (Source: Colorado Sun)
When U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank, R-Colorado Springs, took office in January, he promised to battle the Trump administration if it decided to move the headquarters of U.S. Space Command to Alabama from his 5th Congressional District. “The fight is going to be on if that happens,” he said as he began his first term in Congress. But after President Donald Trump announced earlier this month that the relocation was happening — saying a big factor was Colorado’s broad use of mail ballots — Crank appears to be choosing flight over fight.

That’s in contrast to Democrats, like Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who is planning a lawsuit to stop the move. Crank’s reaction underscores the highly charged political dynamics at play. If they’re too critical of Trump, Colorado’s Republican members of Congress risk political fallout — lost endorsements, primary challenges, fewer campaign donations — but they also could put future federal projects in jeopardy. (9/16)

Spaceport America Marks 20 Years, Renews Economic Development Partnership (Source: Albuquerque Journal)
Leadership and business allies of New Mexico’s publicly owned commercial spaceport gathered Monday to mark 20 years since Sir Richard Branson and then-Gov. Bill Richardson announced that Virgin Galactic would establish launch operations at the Sierra County facility.

The announcement came in December 2005, after the state Legislature created the Spaceport America Regional District to collect and distribute a 0.25% local gross receipts tax supporting the design, engineering and construction of the spaceport. Voters in Doña Ana County approved the tax in 2007 by a margin of 270 votes, followed by Sierra County in 2008. Otero County voters rejected the spaceport GRT in 2008. (9/15)

NASA Awards $400 Million Safety, Mission Assurance Contract (Source: Aviation Week)
Houston-based Bastion Technologies Inc. has been awarded a $400 million contract by NASA to provide safety and mission assurance services for Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. (9/16)

GHGSat Secures $47M in New Financing (Source: SpaceQ)
GHGSat followed up a flurry of business activity in recent weeks with an announcement of $47 million in new financing on Monday. The Montreal-based company, which searches for emissions of methane and other forms of greenhouse gas using satellites, said the money would be used to “fuel its rapid global expansion. (9/15)

Northrop Grumman’s New ISS Cargo Spacecraft is a Real Chonker (Source: Ars Technica)
Northrop's upgraded Cygnus spacecraft, called Cygnus XL, is the heaviest cargo load transported to the ISS by a commercial resupply mission. It carries 10,827 pounds (4,911 kilograms) of cargo to sustain the lab and its seven-person crew.

Cargo modules for Northrop's Cygnus spacecraft are built by Thales Alenia Space in Italy, employing a similar design to the one Thales used for several of the space station's permanent modules. Officials moved forward with the first Cygnus XL mission after the preceding cargo module was damaged during shipment from Italy to the United States earlier this year. (9/15)

UK-Based Hyperspectral Data Analytics Startup Messium Raises £3.3M (Source: European Spaceflight)
UK-based startup Messium has raised £3.3 million in seed funding to accelerate the rollout of its agricultural analytics platform, which uses AI to analyze hyperspectral satellite data to track nitrogen levels in crops. The analysis can then be used by farmers to more efficiently fertilize crops, minimizing waste and maximizing yield. (9/15)

DoD Envisions Prize Competition for Boost-Phase SBI Prototypes (Source: Breaking Defense)
The Pentagon has proposed an unusual plan to develop boost-phase space-based interceptors (SBIs) that would require firms to build and launch prototypes to compete for relatively small prize awards — in the hopes that winning the trials will lead to big production contracts post-2028. (9/15)