December 29, 2025

Japanese Companies to Provide Satellite Imagery to Military (Source: Space News)
A group of Japanese companies has won a contract from the Japanese military to provide imagery. Japan’s defense ministry selected a group of seven companies last week to develop and operate a constellation under a framework known as a Private Finance Initiative, under which firms finance, build and operate infrastructure while the government commits to buying services over a multiyear contract. Under the arrangement, Mitsubishi Electric will work with trading house Mitsui & Co. and satellite operator SKY Perfect JSAT to establish a joint venture. Among the companies are iQPS and Synspective, which will provide radar imagery, and Axelspace, which will provide optical imagery. (12/29)

ESA Plans 520 Hires in 2026 (Source: Space News)
The European Space Agency plans to hire several hundred additional employees next year. At a briefing earlier this month, ESA said it would hire 520 people next year, 120 of whom would replace departing staff. The other 400 represent an expansion of the agency’s staff, bringing its workforce to 3,400 employees plus contractors. The agency said it will be hiring data scientists, IT specialists, project officers, business analysts and others alongside traditional positions in science and engineering. (12/29)

China Achieves 90 Launches in 2025 (Source: Space News)
China reached 90 orbital launches in 2025 with a pair of launches last week. A Long March 8A lifted off at 6:26 p.m. Eastern Thursday from the Hainan Commercial Space Launch Center on Hainan Island, putting a group of Guowang broadband constellation satellites into orbit. A Long March 3B lifted off  from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center and put into geosynchronous transfer orbit the Fengyun-4C weather satellite. With those two missions, China has now conducted 90 launches so far this year, a record for the country. Two more launches are expected before the end of the year. (12/29)

South Korea's Innospace Plans Second Launch in 2026 After Alcantara Launch Failure (Source: Space News)
South Korean launch startup Innospace said it will make a second launch of its Hanbit-Nano vehicle next year after the vehicle failed on its inaugural launch. In a letter to shareholders last week, the CEO of Innospace said that the company was still investigating the failed launch last Monday from the Alcântara Space Center in Brazil. The company said the vehicle suffered an unspecified anomaly 30 seconds after liftoff that caused the vehicle to crash in a safety zone around the launch pad. The company said it will attempt a second launch of Hanbit-Nano in the first half of 2026 after implementing “necessary technical improvements” in the rocket. (12/29)

Hague Retires From NASA (Source: Space News)
NASA Astronaut Nick Hague has left the agency. NASA announced last week that Hague had retired from the agency’s astronaut corps. Hague flew two long-duration missions to the International Space Station, one on a Soyuz in 2019 and another on a Crew Dragon in 2024-2025. He also launched on a Soyuz in 2018 that suffered an in-flight abort when its booster malfunctioned, with the Soyuz capsule landing safely downrange from the launch site. Hague remains in the U.S. Space Force as a brigadier general, and since September has been the assistant deputy chief of space operations for operations for the Space Force. (12/29)

Competing Efforts Race to Become Africa's Next Orbital Spaceport (Source: SPACErePORT)
Equatorial Africa's eastern coast is seeing a surge in plans for spaceport development. Djibouti in 2023 began working with a Chinese company to build a spaceport that would be completed by 2028. Somalia in 2025 entered an agreement with Turkey to build a spaceport, also by 2028. And Kenya is planning a feasibility study for a new spaceport that would be built as a public-private partnership with international collaborators. Kenya previously hosted the San Marco offshore launch platform under a partnership with Italy and NASA. San Marco was the site of nine launches of US-made Scout small orbital rockets between 1967 and 1988. South Africa is also planning to upgrade a suborbital launch site for future orbital launches. (12/29)

Auriga Space Raises Additional $6 Million to Shoot Rockets Off an Electromagnetic Launch Track (Source: TechCrunch)
Auriga’s launch platforms use electricity, and not propellants, to accelerate payloads and projectiles to hypersonic speeds. Our scalable, reusable, and controllable technology powers next-generation defense and space applications. We deliver flight-like test data on the ground by accelerating test articles through still air at pressures and temperatures representative of real-flight environments. With minimal turnaround time, we support multiple tests per day.

We replace the first stage of a rocket with electromagnetic LAUNCH, enabling frequent, dedicated access to Low Earth Orbit for defense and commercial missions. Zeus is our responsive platform that provides space access for deploying satellites and payloads at the time and cadence the mission demands. (5/10)

Turkey Building Somalia Spaceport (Source: Space4Peace)
Turkey has begun construction of a satellite and rocket launch site on Somalia’s Indian Ocean coast, a project officials say will advance Ankara’s space ambitions and that analysts say is already attracting heightened scrutiny from major world powers. The spaceport, backed by Baykar chairman Selçuk Bayraktar, is being developed under Turkish state authority on a coastal area measuring about 30 by 30 kilometers. Turkish officials say the facility will give the country its first platform for orbital launches and strengthen its ability to conduct independent space missions. (12/13)