Faced with mounting financial pressure and dwindling international partnerships, Russia’s space program is charting a new course—one driven by commercial advertising in low Earth orbit. The Russian government has officially greenlit a plan to sell advertising space on spacecraft and launch vehicles, transforming parts of its orbital assets into moving billboards. (12/4)
Uranus and Neptune Might Be Rock Giants (Source: Phys.org)
A team of researchers from the University of Zurich and the NCCR PlanetS is challenging our understanding of the solar system planets' interior. The composition of Uranus and Neptune, the two outermost planets, might be more rocky and less icy than previously thought. The new study does not claim the two blue planets to be one or the other type, water- or rock- rich, rather it challenges that ice-rich is the only possibility. (12/10)
Blue Origin Might Make Starship Obsolete (Source: Medium)
After the roaring success of Blue Origin’s second New Glenn flight, which not only reached orbit and recovered its booster but also launched two probes to Mars (take note, SpaceX, this is how you design a rocket!), they are taking things up a notch with the New Glenn 9x4. This is a recently announced “super heavy” variant of the New Glenn, and its silly name comes from its engine configuration, as its booster has nine rocket engines, and its upper stage has four.
This is a sizeable upgrade over the standard New Glenn, whose booster has seven engines, and its upper stage has two. However, this upgrade is a much bigger deal than you might think, as it is set to make SpaceX’s infamous Starship completely obsolete. (12/7)
Canada Awards Multibillion-Dollar Military Satellite Deal to MDA Space, Telesat (Source: Wall Street Journal)
MDA Space and Telesat have won a potentially lucrative multibillion-dollar contract from Canada to deliver military satellite communications capabilities as part of Ottawa’s renewed effort to ramp up defense spending and deter threats from Russia and China in the Arctic. Shares in both MDA and Telesat rose sharply on the news, which marks one of the first big military procurements under Prime Minister Mark Carney after he pledged to accelerate military outlays to help protect the continent and placate longstanding concerns from U.S. officials and lawmakers about Canada’s defense capability. (12/9)
Golden Dome Moves Forward as Questions Mount Over Feasibility (Source: Asia Times)
This month, Air & Space Forces Magazine reported that at the Reagan National Defense Forum, US Space Force General Michael Guetlein, head of the Golden Dome program, revealed that the ambitious air and missile defense shield ordered by US President Donald Trump in January will achieve initial operational capability by summer 2028.
Designed to expand existing defenses against a limited North Korean missile attack into a nationwide system capable of countering advanced ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons, cruise missiles, drones and even fractional orbital bombardment systems (FOBS), Golden Dome will integrate a network of sensors, interceptors and command-and-control systems, including space-based interceptors and data-transfer satellites. (12/10)
SpaceX's Starship V2 Vs. V1: What's The Difference? (Source: BGR)
Some of the changes are immediately obvious, such as the height increase. The V2 comes in at 171 feet (52.1m), a 6-foot increase from the V1's 165 feet (50.3m). The extra height creates room for more propellant; approximately 300 additional metric tons of it. More importantly, the V2 cut its empty mass from 100 metric tons to 85 metric tons while expanding its fuel capacity from 1,200 metric tons to 1,500 metric tons. (12/8)
Rocket Lab Awarded R&D Funding from Canadian Space Agency to Develop New Reaction Wheel for Medium-Class Satellites (Source: Rocket Lab)
Rocket Lab has been awarded funding by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to develop a new medium-class reaction wheel, with targeted minimum angular momentum capacity of 25 Nms, designed to support 500kg – 1,000kg satellites with larger payloads operating in low Earth orbit and beyond. Rocket Lab will receive $999,951 CAD toward the development of the new reaction wheel which will be developed and qualified at Rocket Lab’s Toronto facility, which has been a cornerstone of Canada’s satellite hardware ecosystem for more than two decades. (12/9)
Strange Pillar of Light Linked to Chinese Rocket (Source: BBC)
A glowing streak spotted in the sky on Thursday morning was most likely caused by a Chinese rocket, experts say. Witnesses reported a bright, linear trail visible around dawn and dusk from several locations. Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in the US, said: "It was definitely the Chinese Zhuque-3 rocket making its first test flight. (12/5)
Space Force and SPACECOM Need Cross-Domain Support to Gain Superiority (Source: Air and Space Forces)
For decades, the Pentagon has viewed space as a “supporting” domain to enable operations in the land, sea, and air. But a new report from AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies argues the time has come to consider how ops in those domains can now support space. While the Space Force and U.S. Space Command still have the fundamental responsibility to gain and maintain superiority in orbit, they need support from across the entire U.S. military to achieve the level of control they need to operate freely in the domain, Jennifer Reeves, senior resident fellow for space studies, argues in the report. (12/5)
Webb Identifies Earliest Supernova to Date, Shows Host Galaxy (Source: ESA)
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has confirmed the source of a super-bright flash of light known as a gamma-ray burst, generated by an exploding massive star when the Universe was only 730 million years old. For the first time for such a remote event, the telescope provided a detection of the supernova’s host galaxy. Webb’s quick-turnaround observations verified data taken by telescopes around the world that had been following the gamma-ray burst since its onset, which occurred in mid-March. (12/9)
Scientists Unveil the Most Realistic Black Hole Accretion Model Ever Created (Source: SciTech Daily)
Building on decades of research, a group of computational astrophysicists has reached an important breakthrough: they have created the most detailed model so far of how luminous black holes pull in surrounding matter. Using some of the world’s most advanced supercomputers, the team has, for the first time, simulated the flow of material into black holes under full general relativity and in a radiation-dominated environment, all without relying on the simplifying shortcuts that earlier studies required. (12/8)
NRO’s Proliferated Satellite Constellation Outperforming Expectations (Source: Air and Space Forces)
The National Reconnaissance Office is seeing “great output” from its constellation of proliferated low-Earth orbit satellites and is working with the Space Force and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to operationalize the capability, according to Deputy Director Maj. Gen. Chris Povak.
The agency, which develops and fields spy satellites, launched the constellation’s first spacecraft in 2024 and has nearly 200 in orbit today, making it the largest government-operated satellite fleet. The spacecraft carry a variety of payloads for several mission sets, including communications and imaging, and will provide a foundation for the space-based ground-moving target indicator system NRO is developing with the Space Force, Povak said. (12/3)
China launched six missions in five days this past week, rapidly accelerating the deployment of its Guowang LEO megaconstellation and Yaogan Earth observation satellites — and leaving its previous record for annual launches in the dust. The frequency of launches, which is expected to continue through December, encapsulates how China is now able to reap the benefits of its concerted effort to develop launch capabilities and develop a national space ecosystem that rivals that of the United States and its commercial firms. (12/9)
Where Should Space Data Centers Live? The Solar, Radiation, and Capacity Benchmarking (Source: Mach 33)
With artificial intelligence (AI) driving an exponential increase in global energy demand, and terrestrial grids struggling to keep pace, the seemingly infinite solar energy of space presents a compelling arbitrage opportunity. For investors and enterprise leaders, the question is no longer if data centers will orbit the Earth, but where they should reside to maximize return on investment (ROI). Dawn-dusk SSO is the near-term “solar sweet spot.” It delivers 9× Earth sunlight, requires only ~100 μm of coverglass, and keeps degradation below 1%/yr; a stark contrast to MEO/HEO, where continuous Van Allen belt exposure drives shielding to ~700 μm and degradation to ~3%/yr. Click here. (12/10)
Starfighters Space Begins Initial Public Offering, Plans to List on NYSE (Source: Starfighters)
Starfighters Space, a company operating the world’s largest commercial supersonic aircraft fleet out of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, announced that the Securities and Exchange Commission qualified the Company’s Post-Qualification Amendment to the Offering Statement. The company is now seeking to raise up to $40 million with an anticipated December 18, 2025 listing on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “FJET”, subject to NYSE American approval. (12/10)
EU Governments’ Critical Assessment to Force a Thorough Remake of the EU Space Act (Source: Space Intel Report)
European Union governments told the European Commission to make a thorough rewrite of its proposed EU Space Act to make it less complicated, with clearer lines of authority between the Commission and individual governments’ own space laws, and to remove what look like unnecessarily costly requirements on builders and operators of space systems. Sensing the drift of opinion among the EU’s 27 governments, the Danish government, whose six-month EU presidency ends Dec. 31, furnished a 166-page “compromise text” that attempted to address some of the issues. (12/10)
Nvidia-Backed Starcloud Trains First AI Model in Space as Orbital Data Center Race Heats Up (Source: CNBC)
Washington-based Starcloud launched a satellite with an Nvidia H100 graphics processing unit in early November, sending a chip into outer space that’s 100 times more powerful than any GPU compute that has been in space before. Now, the company’s Starcloud-1 satellite is running and querying responses from Gemma, an open large language model from Google, in orbit. (12/10)
After Key Russian Launch Site is Damaged, NASA Accelerates Dragon Supply Missions (Source: Ars Technica)
With a key Russian launch pad out of service, NASA is accelerating the launch of two Cargo Dragon spaceships in order to ensure that astronauts on board the International Space Station have all the supplies they need next year. According to the space agency’s internal schedule, the next Dragon supply mission, CRS-34, is moving forward one month from June 2026 to May. And the next Dragon supply mission after this, CRS-35, has been advanced three months from November to August. (12/10)
Colliding Space Debris Produces Radio Bursts, Raising Prospect of ‘Debris Weather’ Alerts (Source: Space News)
A university team has found that small orbital debris could emit radio bursts as they collide or approach each other in space. The signal can be detected with large radio dishes on Earth, as well as satellites in orbit. (12/10)
Odin Space Raises $3 Million in Seed Funding (Source: Space News)
British startup Odin Space raised $3 million in a seed round to begin commercializing tiny sensors to map and analyze sub-centimeter orbital debris. (12/10)
Benchmark Demonstrates High-Throughput ASCENT Thruster (Source: Space News)
Benchmark Space Systems’ ASCENT-fueled Macaw thruster performed a 10-minute continuous burn, clearing the way for an on-orbit application of the propulsion technology, the company announced Dec. 10. (12/10)
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