May 3, 2026

America Needs a Space Alliance (Source: Space News)
The United States needs a new approach to building space alliances that last, updating foundational agreements like the Outer Space Policy while adding more binding mechanisms for enforcement than the Artemis Accords. TerraSpace co-founder and CEO Eric Sundby believes a new space treaty should "create common standards for interoperability, clearer rules for technology-sharing among trusted partners and coordinated mechanisms for economic development from low Earth orbit to cislunar space and beyond. It could lower legal and political barriers between allies while giving commercial firms more predictable rules of the road."

He recommends avoiding building "NATO in space," arguing that a security alliance would be counterproductive to commercial activity. Rather, Sundby wrote, "the best framework is narrower: formalize cooperation in exploration and economic development, while keeping security cooperation more informal." Retired astronaut and former Navy captain Scott Kelly joked that this could be the start to a Starfleet, in reference to Star Trek’s central spacefaring institution. It’s an inspiring vision. It’s also, at least for now, improbable in the current geopolitical environment. (4/30)

Isaacman on Climate Change: See No Warming, Speak No Warming (Source: Douglas Messier)
Science did a Q&A with Jared Isaacman in which the NASA administrator was asked about the space agency’s support for Earth science and climate change/global warming. Isaacman said “we should probably do everything we possibly can to understand” the planet. He noted bipartisan support for NASA to perform Earth science missions “because it matters to agriculture and floods and wildfires, real humanitarian issues.”

He said NASA will look at commercial options for obtaining Earth science data in order to save money for missions to the moon and planets. Isaacman made it clear that NASA under the Trump Administration would take a see no warming, hear no warming, speak no warming approach to climate change. (5/2)

Viasat Edges Closer to Starlink (Source: San Diego Union-Tribune)
Viasat announced a successful launch of ViaSat-3 F3 on Wednesday, which will provide better internet service over the Asia-Pacific region. The launch marks the final step in the three-satellite constellation, which aims to compete with Starlink, providing broader internet connection across continents. It’s a consequential launch for the company, as its first satellite mission resulted in a technical failure. (5/1)

ESA Selects Hungarian Firm for Lunar Orbit Mission (Source: Hungarian Conservative)
The European Space Agency has selected REMRED Ltd. to lead a consortium responsible for the MoonRAD research project, a key initiative within Europe’s expanding lunar ambitions. The MoonRAD program aims to develop a satellite of roughly 300 kilograms designed to operate in lunar orbit. As interest in the Moon intensifies, the surrounding space is increasingly viewed as a critical operational and economic zone for the coming decade.

The planned satellite will provide essential services in the lunar environment, including communication, navigation, and space weather monitoring. It will also study the Moon’s surroundings, with a particular focus on radiation conditions—an area considered crucial for the safety and planning of future space missions. (5/2)

SpaceX Settlement Sparks Vandenberg Launch Oversight Fears (Source: KSBY)
A new legal settlement involving SpaceX could reshape how rocket launches move forward on the Central Coast, and residents in Lompoc are already weighing in on what that might mean for their community. The aerospace company sued the California Coastal Commission after the agency opposed a plan to increase the number of launches out of Vandenberg Space Force Base. Court documents also show the commission will no longer require a coastal development permit for SpaceX launches at Vandenberg, a change that could remove a key layer of oversight as launch activity continues to grow.

For some residents, that possibility is raising concerns. Jacquie Tortolani, who has lived in Lompoc since 2020, said launches have already disrupted her daily life. “I still think that there should be regulation,” Tortolani said. “It’s already too much and the risk is already there. They shouldn’t be allowed to just do whatever they want.” Tortolani said nighttime launches often wake her up and frighten her pets. (4/30)

Texas Homeowners Sue Musk’s SpaceX Over Starship Launches (Source: Reuters)
More than 70 Texas residents have sued billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies, alleging that noise and vibrations from its Starship rocket ​launches and landings damaged their homes near the company's Starbase facility.
The lawsuit, opens new tab, filed ‌on Thursday in the federal court in Brownsville, Texas, alleged the homes and other properties were damaged during 11 SpaceX-led test flights conducted between April 2023 and October 2025. (5/1)

JAXA Completes Japan’s 1st Clean Room for Assembling Spacecraft Under Planetary Protection Standards (Source: Japan Times)
A first-of-its-kind clean room in Japan where space probes can be assembled while being sterilized has been completed in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture. Its purpose is planetary protection, the practice of preventing Earth’s microorganisms from contaminating other celestial bodies. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency plans to use the facility to manufacture a probe it hopes to land on Mars around 2030. Operations are scheduled to begin this autumn. (4/28)

San Antonio Contractor Tied to SpaceX Work Files for Bankruptcy (Source: San Antonio Express News)
A San Antonio general contractor embroiled in lawsuits over unpaid work at SpaceX’s Starbase in South Texas has filed for bankruptcy. Alpha Building Corp. filed for Chapter 7 liquidation last month in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Antonio. The petition lists 46 creditors with claims against the company, including some that had done work under Alpha’s contracts to build 18 homes at Starbase as well as a bathroom and break room at the Starship launch site.

Those deals went sour sometime in 2024 with Alpha and its subcontractors filing at least 27 liens worth more than $2 million against SpaceX related to unpaid work and materials on the projects. They’ve also led to a flurry of lawsuits targeting SpaceX, Alpha and its president, Jonathan Rogero. At least nine civil cases against Alpha remain pending, according to bankruptcy documents. (5/1)

May 2, 2026

Space Force Wants Space-Based Missile Interceptors for Golden Dome Ready by 2028 (Source: Space.com)
The United States Space Force has created a new program to develop space-based missile interceptors, with the goal of being able to demonstrate their capability within two years. The U.S. Space Force established the Space-Based Interceptor (SBI) program in order to develop a constellation of spacecraft that can defend the United States against "a new generation of threats" such as hypersonic weapons, neutralizing them while in flight. The program is part of the planned Golden Dome for America defense system announced by President Trump last year. Estimates of the system's price tag range wildly, from the White House's projected $175 billion to as high as $3.6 trillion. (4/30)

Starfighters Space Announces Availability of Airborne Aerodynamic Test Platform (Source: Starfighters)
Starfighters Space announced the availability of its F-104 Starfighter platform as an airborne aerodynamic test environment for the U.S. defense and aerospace community, capable of replicating aerodynamic conditions that fixed facilities cannot fully reproduce. The F-104’s flight profile allows it to simulate the aerodynamic conditions of the first 30 seconds of a vertical rocket launch, a phase of flight that has historically been among the most difficult to test accurately in a static environment. (4/30)

First Female Space Mission Commander Greets Brevard to Promote ‘Spacewoman’ (Source: Viera Voice)
Retired Air Force Col. Eileen Collins returned to the Space Coast last month to greet hundreds of Brevard residents who viewed “Spacewoman,” a documentary based on her memoir about becoming the first woman to command and pilot a space shuttle mission. Collins’ 2021 memoir “Through the Glass Ceiling for the Stars” led to the 90-minute movie premiered in Brevard County in Melbourne. (5/1)

Artemis II Crew Gives 5-Year-Old Aspiring Astronaut Commander Jack a New Spacesuit: "It Says NASA!" (Source: CBS)
The Artemis II team gained a new member Friday, and the crew made sure their youngest teammate had the right stuff for space. Jack, a 5-year-old aspiring astronaut from Atlanta, told CBS News he's "so obsessed with space" and wore his own spacesuit for the launch. The suit bore the rank of commander, so CBS News' Rob Marciano gave Jack a nickname: Commander Jack.

Commander Jack, dressed in his white spacesuit, joined "CBS Mornings" Friday for a town hall event with the Artemis crew, and the astronauts had a surprise for him. Mission specialist Christina Koch presented Jack with an orange spacesuit matching the ones the astronauts wore during the mission. "It says commander just like yours, so you can still keep your title," Koch said. (5/1)

Janet Petro Is Retiring (Source: NASA Watch)
Janet Petro announced her retirement from NASA after almost two decades of service. From the outset of Janet’s distinguished tenure at NASA, she has served as a profoundly influential leader, guiding both the agency and Kennedy Space Center through some of the most significant transitions in our shared history. In addition to guiding the center through the critical early phases of the Artemis campaign, she played a central part in reshaping KSC entirely from a Shuttle‑era launch complex into the nation’s premier multi‑user spaceport, fundamentally expanding America’s ability to access space.

Her leadership in establishing partnerships with commercial industry and strengthening coordination with federal agencies laid the groundwork for the dynamic launch environment that we are so proud of today. In addition to her work at KSC she served as NASA’s Deputy Associate Administrator and Acting Administrator, further demonstrating her unwavering commitment to this agency and the mission. (5/1)

World’s Slowest Rocket Company Suddenly Wants to Churn Out 60 Rockets a Year (Source: Gizmodo)
Blue Origin apparently has big plans for its heavy-lift launch vehicle, hoping to significantly ramp up its production rate within the next few years. The plans were revealed in a job opening posted on the company’s website, detailing the responsibilities of a prospective senior manager to oversee the production of New Glenn’s upper stage. The job posting includes a rather ambitious timeline of increasing production from the current rate of 12 second stages per year to 60 by the third quarter of 2028. By 2029, Blue Origin wants to be able to produce 100 New Glenn upper stages a year. (5/1)

NASA to Increase Value of CLPS Contract to Support Surge of Lunar Lander Missions (Source: Space Daily)
NASA has moved to raise the ceiling on its Commercial Lunar Payload Services contract from $2.6 billion to $4.2 billion, a 61% jump that signals the agency intends to buy far more robotic Moon landings than its current cadence supports. The increase, disclosed in a procurement filing on SAM.gov, is the contractual scaffolding for an ambitious new flight rate: nine landings in 2027 and ten in 2028, in service of NASA’s Moon Base initiative.

That target is not primarily a budget story or a policy story. It is an industrial story. Going from two lunar landings a year to ten in thirty-six months is a manufacturing problem, and the contract ceiling raise is meaningful only to the extent that CLPS providers can transform themselves from bespoke spacecraft shops into build-to-print production lines. Everything else — the funding, the politics, the science manifest — is downstream of whether that industrial transition actually happens. (5/2)

Scientists Uncover “Astonishing” Hidden Property of Light (Source: SciTech Daily)
A newly uncovered property of light suggests it may be far more self-sufficient than previously believed. Researchers have identified a previously unknown property of light that allows it to twist, spin, and behave in unusual ways – without the need for mirrors, materials, or specialized lenses. They demonstrated that light can be “programmed” by taking advantage of its inherent geometry. This result challenges long-standing assumptions, showing that light can develop chiral behavior – meaning it can act like a left or right hand – while moving freely through space. (5/1)

Cape Canaveral Snaps Record by Launching 5 Different Rockets in One Month (Source: USSF)
Space Launch Delta 45 (SLD 45) and the Eastern Range set a new record in April by supporting five different types of launch vehicles with orbital missions. This achievement surpasses the previous mark of four unique space launch vehicles established more than 60 years ago. The feat underscores the rapid evolution of space operations at America’s busiest spaceport and the diversity of the defense industrial base supporting space launch operations.

Teams at SLD 45 managed an intense schedule throughout the month. They coordinated range safety, weather support and mission assurance for launches involving five distinct vehicles. Historical records from the SLD 45 Historical Services Office confirm the prior high-water mark stood at four unique orbital launch vehicles in a single calendar month. That record occurred twice: February 1965 and July 1966.

The Eastern Range already attracts more partners than ever before. SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin, Stoke, Relativity, and NASA continue to expand operations. Additional companies are working to establish future pads. Projections show launch demand could reach hundreds per year by the mid-2030s. (4/29)

Space Is Critical Infrastructure—It Needs an Alliance To Guard It (Source: Newsweek)
Picture this. A rescue team moves through whiteout conditions in the mountains, racing to reach a stranded hiker before nightfall. Somewhere ahead, a distress beacon is transmitting a set of coordinates to satellites overhead. Those coordinates guide rescuers through the storm. The same invisible, space-based infrastructure supports emergency calls, financial systems, global logistics and more.

That invisibility is a paradox of space: it underpins modern life so completely that we rarely notice it at all until it is disrupted. But space systems are increasingly vulnerable to collisions and interference that can shut down critical systems such as navigation and communications in an instant. Robust policy and international coordination should support the advancement of space infrastructure and protection of the capabilities that already exist. What is needed is a military-backed alliance in space: an Artemis Alliance. (5/1)

L3Harris Lands Classified Space Program (Source: Aviation Week)
L3Harris Technologies has secured a sole-source classified space program that CEO Chris Kubasik indicated could grow into a multi-billion-dollar business, with a baseline contract value around $600 million. This contract strengthens the firm's position in classified space, with more specialized mission aircraft deals expected to follow. (4/30)

Parts of First Rocket Launched from Unst Expected to Splash Down East of Iceland (Source: ShetNews)
Parts of the first rocket due to launch from SaxaVord Spaceport later this year are expected to splash down into waters to the east of Iceland. However maritime activity in the launch warning zone is said to be “extremely low” compared to its size. Launch operator Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) is hoping to take off from the spaceport in Unst some time after 1 July. It would be the first vertical rocket launch in the UK.

Marine license documents submitted by RFA give an insight into what impact there could be in the seas north of Shetland. Two sections of the rocket are expected to fall back to earth into the sea – the “first stage” and the “fairing”. The first stage is a part of the rocket that will be discarded to shed weight once its fuel has been used up. (4/29)

ISRO Acquires Russian 3D Printer (Source: NDTV)
India's all-weather friend Russia has won a global competitive bid and has supplied a high-end 3D printer that can print everything except currency notes, but India hopes to use it to make quality parts for its upcoming human space flights and moon missions. India's ambitious human spaceflight and lunar exploration programs could soon fly with critical components made using advanced Russian 3D printing technology.

Russian state-owned nuclear and technology giant Rosatom has successfully supplied and commissioned a heavy-duty industrial 3D printer in India, a machine that ISRO says will significantly enhance its ability to rapidly manufacture large and complex metal components for missions such as Gaganyaan, Chandrayaan, and the proposed Bharatiya Antariksh Space Station. (4/30)

SpaceX Aims for Mid-May Starship Flight 12 Launch with Revised Trajectory (Source: NSF)
The return of Starship launches may be just weeks away, with notices for the upcoming Flight 12 launch attempt publishing notification for windows opening as early as May 12. The move signals accelerating preparations for the first orbital test flight of the upgraded Version 3 Starship and Super Heavy vehicles, although engineers will have several milestones to complete with the new vehicle and pad.

According to the notices, launch windows run from May 12 through May 18, with daily opportunities in the afternoon. Each window opens at approximately 5:30 p.m. Central Time and extends for about two hours, including margin. The target vehicle stack—Booster 19 and Ship 39—will lift off from Orbital Launch Pad 2 at Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas. (5/1)

Drone Radar Could Help Spacecraft Pinpoint Where to Drill for Water on Mars (Source: Space.com)
A new study suggests the search for usable water on Mars may soon rely on an unexpected tool: drones equipped with radar, flying just above the surface to peer underground in ways orbiters cannot. Researchers led by the University of Arizona have shown that drone-mounted ground-penetrating radar can map buried glaciers on Earth in remarkable detail, offering a blueprint for how similar techniques could be used on Mars. The work focuses on glaciers in Alaska and Wyoming that closely resemble debris-covered ice deposits identified on the Red Planet, according to a statement from the university. (5/1)

The Opportunity Beyond Orbital Data Centers (Source: Space News)
Investor attention is starting to shift toward ventures that could be enabled by orbital data centers, even as the massive computing networks proposed by SpaceX and others remain years from reality. (5/1)

As EU Raises its Military Space Profile, EU Satellite Center Prepares to Move to Center Stage (Source: Space Intel Report)
The European Union Satellite Center (SatCen), which for more than two decades has been producing satellite imagery-based security and military reports for EU nations, is on the threshold of a major increase in responsibility as the EU prepares to manage a constellation of high-revisit, high-resolution spacecraft. The exact form of the future European Observation Governmental Service (EOGS) remains to be decided. The key marker will be the 2028-2034 EU space budget and whether it will fund a full EU government-owned constellation. (5/1)

Loft to Build 10 EO Satellites for French Constellation With Magellium Artal Group (Source: Via Satellite)
Loft is to play a key role in an ambitious next-generation Earth Observation (EO) constellation project in France. It is to partner with Magellium Artal Group after winning a multi-year contract worth up to tens of millions of euros from the French Space Agency (CNES) for the deployment of this constellation. Loft announced the contract award, April 30.

The program’s aim is to deploy a constellation of 10 satellites built around a multi-sensor architecture. Each satellite integrates a range of complementary sensors, including optical, thermal infrared, hyperspectral, and radio frequency for simultaneous observation across multiple data layers. The system will also be designed for advanced onboard computing capabilities with powerful processors and software applications to process data directly in orbit. (5/1)

Thinner Than a Hair and Stretchy Like Rubber: New Material Could Shield Against Radiation in Next-Gen Space Tech (Source: Space.com)
Scientists have developed a new material that could shield humans and critical technology from harmful radiation, and it's thinner than a human hair and stretches like rubber. Researchers have developed a new, stretchy and lightweight material that could shield spacebound tech from electromagnetic and neutron radiation. The researchers aim for this material to be a lighter weight option for protecting equipment and humans involved in spaceflight.

"This material represents a completely new concept in shielding technology — it is as thin as tape and as flexible as rubber, yet simultaneously blocks both electromagnetic waves and radiation," lead author Joo yong-ho at the Extreme Environment Shielding Materials Research Center of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology said. (5/1)

May 1, 2026

Blue Origin Certainly Has Ambitious Launch Targets for New Glenn (Source: Ars Technica)
Earlier this week, Blue Origin posted a job opportunity for a “senior manager” to oversee tank fabrication for “Quattro,” and the description contained some intriguing information. “As part of a hardworking team of specialists, technicians, and engineers you will be the Senior Manager of Gen 2.0 Tank Fabrication, and will own the production execution of the most structurally complex and schedule-critical subsystem on the vehicle—the propellant tank,” the job posting states.

Quattro is the company’s nickname for a more powerful upper stage for the New Glenn rocket, which will feature four BE-3U engines instead of the two currently powering the booster. Blue Origin revealed plans for this more powerful variant of New Glenn, 9×4 (nine first stage engines, and four upper stage engines), last November. It is possible this rocket, significantly larger than the 7×2 variant currently flying and necessary for the company’s lunar ambitions as part of NASA’s Artemis program, could make its debut next year. (4/30)

SpaceComputer to Conduct On-Orbit Test of Secure Computing Infrastructure (Source: Space News)
SpaceComputer, a Singapore-based startup developing distributed computing infrastructure, is preparing to test its hardware and software in orbit later this year. The startup’s first product, Space Fabric, is a hardware and software architecture with secure and physically isolated computing elements to link ground stations with satellites and enable satellites to share computing resources. Space Fabric is being integrated with printed circuit boards (PCBs) in preparation for launch in October on an unidentified satellite. (4/30)

France and Spain Want Space Reserved for EU Firms in Satellite Frequencies (Source: Politico)
France and Spain have teamed up in a bid to reserve space for European companies in an upcoming spectrum auction for mobile satellite communications, effectively pushing out U.S. players. The move comes as Brussels and EU capitals are mulling restrictions on non-EU players in a vast array of technologies from cloud computing to software, and grappling with the bloc’s reliance on U.S. and China-made tools. (4/30)

DARPA Selects Three Companies for Lunar Orbiter Studies (Source: Space News)
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded contracts to three companies to study concepts for a lunar mission to search for water ice in very low orbits. DARPA announced last year the Lunar Assay via Small Satellite Orbiter (LASSO) program. LASSO would demonstrate the ability to operate in a very low orbit around the moon while searching for locations on the moon that contain water ice at concentrations greater than 5%.

The mission, the agency stated, would test “sustained and advanced maneuverability” needed to maintain that low orbit, with applications elsewhere in cislunar space. The scientific data from the mission would support both NASA and commercial efforts to use lunar resources. While there had been no formal announcements of awards, a DARPA spokesperson said April 30 that the agency selected three companies for Phase 1: Benchmark Space Systems, Quantum Space and Revolution Space. (5/1)

NASA, Boeing Advance Truss-Braced Wing Research in Test (Source: NASA)
NASA and Boeing have completed wind tunnel testing to study an innovative advanced aircraft design intended to improve aerodynamic efficiency. A truss-braced wing configuration, involving a long, thin wing with aerodynamically shaped structural supports, has the potential to reduce fuel and operational costs for future airliners, which is why NASA has collaborated with Boeing to advance the design.

But this kind of wing would be much more than a simple tweak to existing designs – for an aircraft the size of a passenger jet, it would be a revolutionary redesign, requiring extensive study from NASA and Boeing. (4/29)

New FCC Rules Could Mean 'Sevenfold' Capacity Increase for Starlink (Source: PC Mag)
SpaceX's Starlink could see a "sevenfold" increase in capacity under new rules approved by the Federal Communications Commission this week to improve satellite internet services. “Americans are now about to see a big upgrade,” said FCC Chair Brendan Carr. The commission introduced the new rules earlier this month before approving them at a Thursday meeting. The revamp targets the Equivalent Power Flux Density (EPFD) rules, which were developed in the late 1990s and limited the amount of energy satellite systems could transmit to and from ground equipment. (4/30)

US–Indian space mission maps extreme subsidence in Mexico City (Source: Phys.org)
One of the most powerful radar systems ever launched into space has mapped the ground moving beneath one of the fastest subsiding capitals in the world: Mexico City. The findings show how quickly and reliably the NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite can track real-time changes across Earth's surface from orbit, unhindered by clouds or vegetation that impede optical sensors and higher-frequency radars.

Home to some 20 million people, the Mexico City area is built atop an aquifer. Extensive groundwater pumping, combined with the weight of urban development, has resulted in the compaction of the ancient lakebed beneath the city for more than a century. An engineer first documented the issue in 1925, and by the 1990s and 2000s, parts of the metropolitan area were sinking by around 14 inches per year, damaging infrastructure including the Metro, one of the largest rapid transit systems in the Americas.

Several generations of space-based radar have tracked Mexico City on the move. The NISAR mission, launched in July 2025, is now advancing these efforts, analyzing fast-changing areas that are challenging to survey from space. (4/30)

Trump Nominates Schiess as Next Space Force Chief (Source: Space News)
President Trump nominated Lt. Gen. Douglas Schiess to be the next commanding general of the Space Force. The White House announced Friday that it nominated Schiess for promotion to general and to be chief of space operations, a position that requires Senate confirmation. Schiess has served as the Space Force's deputy chief of operations since November. His nomination signals continuity in the service's emphasis on operational readiness and integration with joint forces, as the Pentagon looks to strengthen space capabilities in the face of growing threats from China and Russia. Schiess would succeed Gen. Chance Saltzman, who has led the Space Force since 2022 and is expected to retire later this year.  (5/1)

House Subcommittee Keeps NASA Budget at 2026 Levels (Source: Space News)
A House appropriations subcommittee advanced a spending bill that would keep NASA funded at 2026 levels, rejecting a proposed 23% cut. The House Appropriations Committee's commerce, justice and science (CJS) subcommittee approved a fiscal year 2027 spending bill on an 8-6 party-line vote Thursday, sending it to the full committee. The bill would provide NASA with $24.4 billion in 2027, the same overall funding as in 2026. The administration had proposed $18.8 billion for NASA. The House bill does shift funding among NASA's accounts, putting more money into exploration and less into science than the 2026 bill. The full committee is scheduled to mark up the bill May 13. (5/1)

Northrop Develops Missile Warning Satellite System Despite Pentagon Moves to Cancel It (Source: Space News)
Northrop Grumman says its development of a missile warning-satellite system is on track despite efforts by the Pentagon to cancel it. Northrop said Thursday it accepted delivery of a sensor designed for the polar component of the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared program, known as Next-Gen OPIR Polar. The program, started in 2018, planned to place two satellites in highly elliptical orbits to monitor missile threats over the Northern Hemisphere.

The company said that delivery keeps the program on schedule, but the Pentagon announced in its fiscal year 2027 budget proposal it intended to cancel Next-Gen OPIR Polar, focusing instead on constellations in low and medium Earth orbit. The program's projected cost is $3.4 billion, including $2.1 billion already spent. The budget allocates $436 million in 2026 primarily to close out development activities. (5/1)

Space Force Picks K2 Satellites for Optical Comms Test (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Space Force plans to use satellites built by K2 Space to test optical communications. The company has been selected for the Pentagon's "OPIR Space Modernization Initiative," a research-and-development program aimed at advancing technologies that could eventually underpin operational missile-detection systems. The program will test laser links between satellites in low and medium Earth orbits, as well as with ground stations. Missile-warning systems depend on rapidly moving data from sensors to decision-makers and interceptors, but existing architectures weren't built for large, distributed constellations. The program has a $180 million budget for fiscal 2027, including $7.3 million earmarked for crosslink demonstrations. (5/1)

European Startups Relying on US Investors (Source: Space News)
European space startups are relying heavily on American investors. The amount of venture capital invested in European space ventures in 2025 jumped 13% year-over-year to 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion) according to a report by the European Space Policy Institute. Five of nine "scale-up" rounds included in the report were led by European or national governments, but the four remaining deals anchored by private investors were all led by U.S. firms. The report indicates a gap in Europe's ability to finance late-stage space companies without relying on public institutions or foreign capital. (5/1)

Starcloud Seeks $200 Million for Orbital Data Centers (Source: Space News)
Starcloud seeks more orbital data center funding shortly after unicorn status. Starcloud is looking to raise at least $200 million in a deal that would double the two-year-old orbital data center startup’s valuation to about $2.2 billion, a source close to the situation confirmed. The funding talks come roughly a month after the Redmond, Washington-based venture announced a $170 million Series A round that made it the fastest company in accelerator Y Combinator’s history to reach unicorn status. Starcloud has raised about $200 million to date for a proposed constellation of 88,000 satellites to move data center computing beyond terrestrial infrastructure constraints. (5/1)

Singapore's SpaceComputer Developing Shared System to Link Satellites and Ground Stations (Source: Space News)
A distributed computing startup is planning to test its hardware and software in space this year. Singapore-based SpaceComputer is developing Space Fabric, a hardware and software architecture with secure and physically isolated computing elements to link ground stations with satellites, and enable satellites to share computing resources. Space Fabric will be tested on an unidentified satellite scheduled to launch in October. Use cases for Space Fabric range from secure computing and communications to provenance verification for geospatial data. (5/1)

Russia Concerned About Ukraine Attacks at Plesetsk Spaceport (Source: Ars Technica)
Russia is restricting information about launches from a spaceport because of Ukrainian drone attacks. Airspace notices for launches from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome are spanning much longer periods than usual, lasting up to 10 hours a day for 14 days. The move appears to be an effort to hide when a planned launch from there is actually scheduled to protect against drone attacks. Ukrainian drones reportedly attempted attacks at the spaceport during launch attempts in December and again in March. The head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Bakanov, told Vladimir Putin in April that the March launch took place despite "serious inbound attempts," an apparent reference to the drone attacks. (5/1)
 
BlackSky Touts Record $30M Defense Imagery Subscription (Source: Space)
BlackSky Technology has secured its largest annual contract for the Assured intelligence service, a $30 million deal with an international defense client for Gen-3 satellite imagery. The one-year, Assured contract follows the commissioning of BlackSky's fourth next-generation satellite and the client expanded the contract from an Early Access program within six months. (4/30)
 
Space Force to End $3B Missile Warning Program for Arctic (Source: Defense Daily)
The US Space Force has indicated in its fiscal year 2027 budget request that it plans to terminate the Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared Polar satellite program, which covers the Arctic region, in favor of other programs for the same mission in lower orbits. The space-based missile warning program, developed by Northrop Grumman, has cost more than $3 billion and was to include two satellites with planned launches in 2028 and 2030. (4/30)
 
Africa - Europe Partnership Aims to Build Space Collaboration (Source: Spacehubs Africa)
The Africa–EU Space Partnership Program, backed by the European Commission’s Global Gateway strategy, is actively building bridges between the two continents on the basis of true co-ownership. This was emphasized in discussions hosted by the Digital for Development (D4D) Hub, which brought together leading voices from the African Space Agency and ESA, as well as from EARSC and Centre National d'Études Spatiales to discuss the best way to maximize the partnership and ensure its efficacy and relevance. (4/25)

US Space Force Wants Space-Based Missile Interceptors for Golden Dome Ready by 2028 (Source: Space.com)
The US Space Force has created a new program to develop space-based missile interceptors, with the goal of being able to demonstrate their capability within two years. The U.S. Space Force established the Space-Based Interceptor (SBI) program in order to develop a constellation of spacecraft that can defend the United States against "a new generation of threats" such as hypersonic weapons, neutralizing them while in flight. The program is part of the planned Golden Dome. (4/30)

SpaceX Spending on Starship Tops $15 Billion in Rush for Airline-Like Rocketry (Source: Reuters)
SpaceX has spent more than $15 billion developing its next-generation Starship rocket, according to the company’s IPO registration reviewed by Reuters, a sum that dwarfs the cost of its workhorse Falcon rocket as Elon Musk’s space company nears a ​decade trying to perfect a fully reusable launch system.

The future of SpaceX’s most lucrative businesses as it sprints toward public markets at a $1.75 trillion valuation rests largely on Starship, a towering two-stage rocket system central to ‌Musk’s ambitions to launch larger batches of Starlink satellites, carry humans to the moon and Mars, and eventually deploy thousands of artificial intelligence computing satellites as an alternative to power-hungry data centers on Earth. (5/1)

Blue Owl Sold About Half its SpaceX Holding at $1.25 Trillion Valuation (Source: Reuters)
Blue Owl sold about half its investment in SpaceX at a $1.25 trillion valuation, the alternative asset manager's co-CEO Marc Lipschultz said. "Specifically at ​SpaceX ... we made about 10 (times) our money on that investment," Lipschultz said. SpaceX is expected to go public this ​year at a possible valuation of $1.75 trillion, raising about $75 billion in what would be the ​largest public listing on record. The deal could put founder and CEO Elon Musk on track to become the world's first trillionaire. (4/30)

NASA Demonstrates New Prescribed Burn Capability for Spaceport (Source: NASA)
Anyone who has seen a launch at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida knows the agency’s pursuit of the stars involves some smoke and fire. Sometimes, however, the smoke doesn’t come from the rockets that propel astronauts beyond Earth’s bounds. That was the case during the second weekend of January 2026, when NASA teamed up with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and commercial space partners to intentionally ignite around 2,600 acres of scrub habitat at NASA Kennedy during an active launch countdown, a first for the busiest spaceport in the world.

Staff from NASA Kennedy’s Spaceport Integration Directorate oversaw two prescribed burns conducted by the Service. The larger burn affected around 1,400 acres on the northeast corner of the center, known as Happy Creek — a key habitat for the federally protected Florida scrub-jay and other wildlife that rely on periodic wildfires to thrive. (4/29)

Virgin Galactic Reveals New Ship, but it’s Running Out of Time and Cash (Source: Ars Technica)
On Thursday, the publicly traded spaceflight company Virgin Galactic shared on social media a new photo of its next-generation spaceship being towed outside of its factory in Mesa, Arizona. The space tourism company was founded 22 years ago by Sir Richard Branson to bring spaceflight to the masses. Hundreds of people began buying tickets to space nearly two decades ago. And after a long, and at times deadly, development campaign, the company reached outer space (defined, somewhat controversially, as an altitude of 80 km and above) in December 2018.

Since then, the company has been largely quiet, making this week’s revelation of new hardware notable. So Virgin Galactic is still pressing ahead, but the question is where it’s going, and along with it, the entire suborbital space tourism industry. There was a time, about five years ago, when the market appeared poised to break through. During the summer of 2021, both Virgin Galactic and its US-based competitor, Blue Origin, began commercial flights. Famously, Branson and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos both went to space within weeks of one another.

Two years ago, Virgin Galactic’s “cash position” was reported as strong, with $982 million in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities. A year later, this cash position had declined to $567 million, as the company has very low revenues while it’s not flying. To that end, Virgin Galactic said a first spaceflight with the new spaceship carrying research payloads was coming in summer 2026, with private astronaut flights in “fall 2026.” At the end of March, the company reported its most recent quarterly results, with its cash position declining to $338 million. The company was now projecting that its new spaceship would “enter service” between “late Q4 2026 and early Q1 2027.” (5/1)

Space Nuclear Execs Cheer the FY27 Budget Proposal (Source: Payload)
There’s been a lot of criticism of the FY27 NASA budget proposal, but not everyone is unhappy with the proposal as written, and that faint sound of cheering is coming from the budding space nuclear industry, which sees the bill as potentially kick-starting their wildest dreams. It advances many high-level goals that will necessarily require space nuclear power for lunar spacecraft to survive the lunar night, and eventually, to support human efforts on Mars.

Three line items in the FY27 proposal specifically set aside funds for space nuclear efforts: $438.8M for Mars technology, which includes the development of fission reactors as a “major focus;” $135.3M for radioisotope power systems; and $100.9M for space infrastructure and exploration, which includes funding for the Harmonia Radioisotope Power System Tipping Point team to demonstrate a Stirling generator and lander integration system, with the eventual plan to build into a flight-ready system for future missions. (5/1)

New EU-Switzerland Bilateral Agreement to Open up Swiss Participation in EU Space Program Activities (Source: Spacewatch Global)
The EU and Switzerland have signed agreements, including a specific EUSPA activities accessible under new EU–Switzerland agreement pact announced in 2026, enabling full Swiss participation in Galileo and EGNOS. This allows Switzerland to participate in procurement, contribute financially to EU satellite navigation systems, and gain observer status in EUSPA’s Administrative and Security Accreditation Boards. (5/1)

Why the Moon May Matter Before it Pays (Source: Aerospace America)
Market creation beyond Earth-facing space remains deeply challenging. Business cases are fragile, and the most plausible near-term path is still hybrid public-private rather than purely private. That is why lunar gateways should not be framed as engineering projects alone. Infrastructure in space does not endure simply because engineers make it possible. It endures when technical systems and their corresponding superstructures — the social contracts embedded in governance, regulatory and organizational arrangements — are aligned well enough to survive uncertainty, cost, delay and competing interests.

We have seen this before. Early space development was never just about rockets and spacecraft. It was also a story of governments creating institutions, regulations, funding capacities and organizing forms that could absorb uncertainty. The first era laid the foundation, the second matured orbital operations and the current era remains fundamentally hybrid.

The absence of strong lunar business models today is not an argument for delay. It is an argument for pragmatic collective action. Markets emerge when infrastructure, superstructural arrangements, operational experience and strategic commitment reduce uncertainty. If we wait for mature markets to justify lunar presence, we may wait forever. If we invest, build, experiment, fail, learn and coordinate, we improve the odds that real markets eventually follow. (4/30)

Why We Cannot Leave Public Private Partnerships Behind (Source: CASIS)
Space-enabled research is the new alchemy, a risky business with noble intentions to change our world. It may not deliver immediate, dramatic breakthroughs, but like alchemy, it offers something more valuable: transformative knowledge and innovation fueled by public-private partnerships. For nearly 15 years, the ISS National Laboratory, managed by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), has forged the path for public-private partnerships as the primary drivers of commercial research and technology development (R&D) in space.

Through these partnerships, the ISS National Lab is transforming space into a powerful engine of scientific discovery, economic growth, and human benefit. Under a Cooperative Agreement with NASA, CASIS manages the ISS National Lab’s half of the U.S. research allocation on the ISS. This allocation is reserved for non-NASA entities, including commercial companies, academic institutions, and other U.S. government agencies. But most importantly, the ISS National Lab’s allocation seeks to improve the lives of people back on Earth.

Without the alchemy of public-private partnerships creating a new space ecosystem, none of these successes would have been realized. NASA built the launchpad for these accomplishments by seeking new approaches to fulfill its mission “to explore the unknown in air and space, innovate for the benefit of humanity, and inspire the world through discovery.” NASA’s Commercial Cargo and Crew programs revolutionized space access by partnering with American private industry to deliver supplies and astronauts to the ISS. (4/30)

A Lost Galaxy Called 'Loki' May Be Hiding Inside the Milky Way (Source: Phys.org)
A group of astronomers recently studied a sample of 20 stars they believe formed together in a dwarf galaxy they call "Loki" that merged with the Milky Way during its early evolution. These stars are metal-poor, but distinct from other metal-poor stars found in the halo of the Milky Way. Surveys of stars in the Milky Way have found very metal-poor stars, but most are in the halo, not the galactic plane. Some evidence suggests that retrograde planar stars can only originate from early Milky Way assembly, while prograde orbiting stars were added by later accreted systems. (4/30)

SpaceX’s Starlink Revenue Per User Fell 18% As Customers Quadrupled (Source: The Information)
According to draft IPO documents, SpaceX’s Starlink quadrupled its subscriber base to 8.9 million between 2023 and 2025. However, the average revenue per user (ARPU) dropped 18% to roughly $81 per month, driven by lower-priced plans and global expansion. While the user base grew significantly (quadrupled), the decline in revenue per user indicates a shift toward a volume-driven model. (4/29)

Vast is Building the First Commercial Space Stations (Source: NBC)
Vast hopes to be the first U.S. company to put a commercial space station into orbit, eventually replacing the ISS with it's own, smaller stations. NBC News' Gadi Schwartz gets a tour of their factory in Long Beach, California, where the bulk of their stations are manufactured. Click here. (4/28)

Artemis Astronauts Make Uncomfortable Visit to Trump's Oval Office (Source: TNR)
The crew of NASA’s Artemis II visited the White House Wednesday to celebrate their successful mission around the moon, but they ended up roped into one of the president’s diatribes against NATO. The astronauts were visibly uncomfortable flanking Donald Trump behind the Resolute Desk as he tossed questions their way regarding the country’s participation in the strategic alliance. The astronauts appeared visibly tense and pained,, with some turning away.

During the same event, Trump made a remark about NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman's "beautiful ears," and boasted he would have been qualified to be an astronaut. The visit followed a previous viral, 63-second silent video call between the crew and Trump on April 6, 2026, during their mission, which he attributed to communication delays. (4/30)

California Company Plans to Protect Us From Dangerous Asteroids (Source: Space.com)
Southern California-based startup Exploration Labs' (ExLabs) has proposed what it bills as the first commercial deep space ride share mission, known as Apophis EX. ExLabs says the mission aims to rendezvous with asteroid Apophis before and after its 2029 Earth flyby and deliver unparalleled scientific data for planetary defense, resource prospecting and future deep-space exploration. (4/30)

U.S. Air Force, Space Force Make ‘Explicit Shift’ in RDT&E Funding (Source: Aerospace America)
The U.S. Air Force and Space Force would shift their research and development funding away from early-stage work and toward the end of the development pipeline under the fiscal 2027 budget request released this month. The Pentagon groups its research, development, test and evaluation funding into categories based on the type of work involved. New technologies generally move through six stages: basic research, applied research, advanced technology development, advanced component development and prototypes, system development and demonstration and, finally, operational system development. (4/30)

With Dragonfly Mission, NASA Faces Challenges Great and Small (Source: Aerospace America)
The $3.35 billion Dragonfly mission faces a tough set of challenges, as NASA is aiming for the craft to traverse Titan for at least three years, surveying the surface via a series of short flights resembling leapfrog hops. The agency’s interplanetary rotorcraft experience is limited to the Ingenuity helicopter, which completed 72 flights during its nearly three years on Mars, and Dragonfly will experience vastly different conditions. Titan is about eight times farther away than the red planet, and at their lowest, temperatures drop to about minus 180 Celsius — 100 degrees colder than Mars.

After years of testing rotors, instruments and materials for survival in these harsh conditions, NASA and lead contractor Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory are now building Dragonfly, in preparation for a launch in 2028. Integration tests began in early February, the first time all of the spacecraft’s components will be tested as a complete system. It’s impossible to replicate Titan’s atmosphere for testing on Earth, but the Dragonfly team has high confidence in its models, says Michael Wright, NASA’s Dragonfly entry descent and landing lead. Also, past tests have incorporated real data gained from Huygens. (4/30)

Arianespace Launches Another 32 Amazon LEO Satellites Aboard Ariane 6 (Source: European Spaceflight)
European launch services provider Arianespace has successfully launched a second mission for Amazon, deploying 32 satellites for the company’s Amazon LEO constellation aboard an Ariane 6 rocket. The rocket, launched in its Ariane 64 configuration that features four solid-fuel boosters, lifted off from the ELA-4 Launch Complex. The first of the 32 satellites was separated from the rocket’s upper stage just under an hour and a half after liftoff. All 32 satellites were deployed over 12 separation events lasting roughly 25 minutes in total. (4/27)

USSF 2027 Budget Forecasts Two New GPS III Sats Annually (Source: Aviation Week)
The U.S. Space Force’s fiscal 2027 budget request shows intent to award the next two GPS III Follow-On satellites—and to procure two more systems—over the next two years, with dual-satellite procurements forecast through 2031. The service has procured and awarded 12 satellites under the next-generation satellite program, with the latest two systems—known as space vehicles 21 and 22—awarded to longtime contractor Lockheed Martin in May 2025. (4/30)

Mining the Solar System to Build a New World (Source: Phys.org)
Building a colony on Mars is not just an engineering problem, it's a logistics one too. The logistics, unglamorous as it sound, may ultimately determine whether humanity becomes a multi-planetary species or stays firmly rooted on Earth. Think about what a Mars colony actually needs. Not just food and oxygen, but metal. Structural steel for habitats, aluminum for equipment, iron for tools and many of the components will wear out, break, and need replacing. Shipping all of that from Earth every time is not a serious long-term strategy.

A new study from researchers in Switzerland posted to the arXiv preprint server has now done the hard math on mining asteroids and delivering the metals directly to Mars. The solar system contains millions of asteroids, and the metallic ones, known as M-type asteroids, are essentially giant lumps of iron, nickel, and other valuable materials floating through space. The question is whether we can actually reach them, extract what we need, and get it to Mars efficiently enough to make it worthwhile. The answer, it turns out, is a careful yes but with conditions.

The results identify specific asteroids that sit within reach of current spacecraft technology, where the energy cost of getting there and back is low enough to make the mission viable. The team soon learned that selecting the right targets is everything. A poorly chosen asteroid could consume more fuel than the value of the metals it delivers. What makes this study significant is not that it solves the problem, because we are still a long way from the first asteroid mining operation. Instead it's that it demonstrates the problem is 100% solvable. (4/27)

Rocket Lab Infrastructure Set to Power Next-Gen Orbital Projects (Source: Simply Wall Street)
Rocket Lab is drawing fresh attention as it moves deeper into commercial orbital infrastructure, with its share price recently trading at $78.59. While Meta Platforms has recently signaled a major move into space-based solar power to fuel its data centers, the development highlights a growing market where Rocket Lab is strategically positioned to provide critical hardware and launch services. These moves into components and power applications broaden the story for Rocket Lab beyond pure launch services, reflecting its massive gains over the past year.

Rocket Lab has introduced a new High-Performance Star Tracker specifically aimed at long-duration missions in high-radiation orbits - the exact environments required for orbital power and data-center-focused satellites. This development points to broader vertical integration for the company, moving into key satellite subsystems that are essential for the ambitious orbital projects currently being explored by Big Tech. (4/29)

Astrobotic's RDRE Makes Big Thrust (Source: The Drive)
The Astrobotic Chakram Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE) achieved more than 4,000 pounds of thrust in multiple tests at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. That’s remarkable considering how compact the engine is. And these tests focused largely on duration, to see how well everything operates for extended periods. Astrobotic says the Chakram could be introduced to its existing product lineup, which includes the Xogdor VTOL reusable rocket and two lunar landers. The company insists that the more efficient combustion could be a boon for taking more payload up higher or faster. (4/29)

Strange Little Red Dots May Really Be 'Black Hole Stars', X-Ray Data Suggests (Source: Space.com)
The discovery of an X-ray signal coinciding with the location of one of the mysterious 'little red dots' found by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has strengthened the theory that the dots are 'black hole stars' — huge, dense clumps of gas energized by the presence of a growing supermassive black hole within them. (4/29)

The Challenge of Celebrating Artemis II as NASA Cuts Loom (Source: Big Think)
With the successful Artemis II mission now complete, humanity has returned to the Moon, breaking the all-time distance record and adding four new astronauts, including the first black man and the first woman, to the list of people who’ve left low-Earth orbit. But contemporaneously with that remarkable achievement, the United States has just released their proposed FY2027 budget, and it’s a bloodbath for NASA science and the NSF: cutting the science budget by 50% in the country. For many astronomers, it’s hard to celebrate success even within your own field when it’s your own neck, and the necks of your projects, students, and collaborators, on the chopping block. (4/28)

Fee Approach Suggested by Trump Administration for FAA Air Traffic (Source: Bloomberg)
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy floated the idea of charging a fee to help the US Federal Aviation Administration modernize its air traffic control system on a more regular basis. “I would welcome an opportunity to think through, how could we have a small fee that went into allowing us to continually upgrade our systems,” Duffy said Wednesday at an event hosted by American Airlines Group Inc. (4/29)

Canada Proposes POET Mission to Hunt Earth-Sized Planets (Source: Universe Today)
Canada proposes a novel micro-satellite mission called POET (Photometric Observations of Exoplanet Transits), which is currently in development and will search for and identify Earth-sized and super-Earth exoplanets orbiting stars smaller and cooler than our Sun, which the researchers refer to as “ultracool dwarfs”. These consist of K-type, M-type, and brown dwarf stars, the last of which are designated as “failed stars” whose sizes range between gas giant planets and M-type stars. (4/29)

Space Force Proposes Canceling Polar Missile Warning Program (Source: Air and Space Forces)
The Space Force is proposing to cancel a $3.4 billion program intended to provide missile warning and tracking coverage of the northern polar region as part of its 2027 budget request.

Northrop Grumman is under contract to build two satellites for the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared Polar program. According to new budget documents released April 27, the service wants to cancel NGP and instead rely on new proliferated constellations it is building in other orbits, which it says will provide needed coverage of northern hemisphere missile threats. (4/28)

NASA Fires Up Powerful Lithium-Fed Thruster for Trips to Mars (Source: NASA)
A technology that could propel crewed missions to Mars and robotic spacecraft throughout the solar system was recently put to the test at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. On Feb. 24, for the first time in years and at power levels exceeding any previous test in the United States, a team fired up an electromagnetic thruster that runs on lithium metal vapor. This prototype achieved power levels beyond the highest-power electric thrusters on any of the agency’s current spacecraft. Valuable data from the first firing of this thruster will help inform an upcoming series of tests. (4/28)

What is Quantum Gravity? Scientists Think it Could Explain the Beginning of Our Universe (Source: Space.com)
Scientists have redefined gravity to explain the Big Bang and perhaps change our picture of the earliest moments of the cosmos. This new framework of "quantum gravity" may explain aspects of the theory of general relativity fails to account for — maybe even doing away with the challenging concept of a singularity existing prior to the dawn of the universe.

General relativity doesn't just fail at small scales; the theory also collapses when trying to explain the extreme high-energy conditions that existed during the universe's first moments. To get around this issue, a team of researchers explored a theory called Quadratic Quantum Gravity. As it turns out, this theory seems to work even when explaining the high-density, high-temperature birth of the cosmos. (4/29)

Light-Propelled ‘Metajets’ Could Enable 20-Year Journey to Alpha Centauri (Source: Gizmodo)
Using conventional rocket propulsion, traveling to our nearest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri, would take thousands of years. Instead, researchers are looking to light as a faster, cheaper, and more sustainable form of propulsion that could enable deep space travel. A team of researchers demonstrated the use of laser beams to lift and steer tiny engineered devices without physical contact. The scientists behind the study developed micron-scale devices called metajets—ultrathin materials smaller than the width of a human hair. The devices are etched with tiny patterns that act like a lens, helping scientists control how light behaves as it bounces off them. (4/28)

T-Mobile CEO: Cellular Starlink Usage Lower Than Expected (Source: PC Mag)
T-Mobile has been offering SpaceX’s satellite-to-phone service since last year, but usage hasn’t been as high as the carrier originally expected, CEO Srini Gopalan said. “Our partnership with SpaceX is very strong. We worked closely with them to really invent an entire category. That’s been putting an end to dead zones. We’re pleased with that,” Gopalan said. (4/28)

Only Elon Musk Can Fire Elon Musk From SpaceX, Filing Shows (Source: Reuters)
SpaceX is telling investors that no one can fire Elon Musk from his ‌role as chief executive and chairman of the board without the billionaire founder's consent, according to an excerpt of its IPO filing. The filing states that Musk "can only be removed from our board or these positions by the vote of Class B holders" - super-voting shares with ten ​votes apiece that he will control after the IPO, making his removal effectively a self-vote. (4/29)

Gravitational Waves May Have Created Dark Matter in the Early Universe (Source: Johannes Gutenberg University)
In the chaotic first moments after the Big Bang, ripples in spacetime may have done more than just echo through the cosmos—they could have helped create dark matter itself. New research suggests that faint, ancient gravitational waves might have transformed into particles that eventually became the invisible substance shaping galaxies today. (4/25)

Starlink to Drop Tech That Helps Beat GPS Spoofing. Maritime Users Are Alarmed (Source: PC Mag)
Starlink is best known for supplying high-speed satellite internet, but it turns out SpaceX’s technology can also counter a persistent problem in the Middle East: GPS spoofing and jamming. “Those [Starlink] satellites are so much closer than the GPS satellites, and so their signal is maybe 100 to 1,000 times stronger,” says Bruce Toal, a Starlink subscriber from Texas who’s been sailing the world. “They can overcome all kinds of jamming.”

But in recent months, the maritime community has found a solution in their Starlink dishes, which can connect to SpaceX’s fleet of over 8,000 active satellites to receive fairly accurate positioning coordinates. The only problem? The company is preparing to shut down the positioning data on May 20, which is alarming boat owners, including Toal, who recently sailed up the Red Sea. (4/28)

Could the Moon Ever Be Blockaded? Experts Predict Cislunar Space Could Be the Next Strait of Hormuz (Source: Space.com)
The ongoing military conflict regarding Iran and the Strait of Hormuz may well mirror a future situation off-Earth — the use of cislunar space, the region between the moon and our planet. Think blockades, seizing of ships, impacts on the global economy, repercussions in terms of needed resources and markets, from fuel to high-tech semiconductors and production processes. Now turn your attention skyward and note that the U.S. Space Force is establishing a dedicated acquisition office to appraise the importance of the cislunar region for warfighting and national security. (4/28)

The FCC Just Said ‘No’ to SpaceX for Now (Source: Teslarati)
SpaceX was dealt a new setback on April 23, 2006 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) after the U.S. government agency dismissed the company’s petition to access a Mobile Satellite Service spectrum that would allow direct-to-device (D2D) capabilities. The FCC regulates communications by radio, television, wire, and cable, which also includes regulating D2D technology that lets your existing smartphone connect directly to a satellite orbiting Earth, the same way it would connect to a cell tower. (4/26)

FAA and NASA Sign Annex on Commercial Space Activities at Kennedy Space Center (Source: FAA)
The FAA and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida signed an annex that implements and clarifies safety authorities, responsibilities, and roles for commercial launch and reentry activities at NASA Kennedy. It streamlines the FAA launch license approval process, improves the efficiency of the FAA technical review, reduces duplicative safety reviews, and lessens the amount of launch application material the operator must submit.

This is an annex to a 2025 FAA / NASA agreement that clarifies safety roles and responsibilities, eliminates any duplicative requirements, and resolves any inconsistent requirements between the agencies. A similar annex for FAA-licensed launch operations from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia is also being coordinated. (4/30)

FAA and Sweden Sign Commercial Space Licensing Agreement (Source: FAA)
The FAA and the Swedish National Space Agency signed a Memorandum of Cooperation to establish and maintain a shared understanding of the U.S. commercial space transportation regulations and provide a basis for Sweden's recognition of FAA-issued commercial space launch and reentry licenses.

The agreement enables the global growth of the U.S. commercial space industry by increasing regulatory interoperability and eliminating duplicative safety assessments and approvals for U.S. operators. The FAA has signed similar licensing recognition agreements with The Bahamas and New Zealand, and other agreements supporting consistent safety approaches with Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. (4/30)

FAA Collaborates with U.S. Space Force and NASA on LOX/Methane Testing (Source: FAA)
The launch vehicle industry is interested in expanding the use of Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Methane (LOX/Methane) as a mixture for rocket propulsion due to its potential for greater efficiency, storability, and cleaner combustion in reusable rocket engines and deep space missions. Several launch vehicles currently use this new propellant formulation, and others are in advanced stages of development. 

The FAA is coordinating with the U.S. Space Force and NASA to conduct a set of explosive tests to explore the after-effects of LOX/Methane-propelled launch vehicles failing shortly after leaving the launch pad and falling back to impact. The test results will provide critical data on the hazards and risk assessments of LOX/Methane rocket propellants to support specific analyses for licensing launch vehicles for public safety. (4/30)

FAA Posts Commercial Human Space Flight Recommendations Report (Source: FAA)
The FAA posted the final recommendations report from the Commercial Human Space Flight Occupant Safety Rulemaking Committee. The FAA will consider the recommendations for possible future revision of the Part 460 regulations. Under federal law, the FAA cannot currently promulgate regulations regarding the safety of space flight participants on board a space launch or reentry vehicle. Congress established a legislative moratorium in 2004 as a learning period for industry and extended it multiple times. It is set to expire Jan. 1, 2028. 

While safety remains the priority, FAA regulations require that crew and space flight participants be made aware of the hazards of space travel and space flight participants must provide written informed consent before they launch. Click here. (4/30) 

April 30, 2026

Projects on the Chopping Block at NASA Under the White House's Drastic Proposed Cuts (Source: NBC)
Weeks after NASA’s first crewed mission around the moon in more than 50 years ended to great fanfare, one might expect its leader to be enjoying something of a victory lap. Instead, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman spent much of the past week in hearings on Capitol Hill defending the Trump administration’s proposal to cut the space agency’s budget by 23% for fiscal year 2027. (4/29)

Russia Debuts New Rocket with Maiden Soyuz-5 Launch (Source: NSF)
Russia’s brand new Soyuz-5 rocket made its first flight on Saturday, lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Thursday on a suborbital demonstration mission with a dummy payload that will pave the way for its entry into service. This launch is something the Baikonur Cosmodrome has not witnessed for many decades – the debut of a new rocket rather than a modification of an existing launch vehicle. (4/30)

What Does it Take to Call Home From the Moon? (Source: Universe Today)
Bolted to the exterior of the Orion spacecraft, the Orion Artemis II Optical Communications System that was developed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory, became the first laser communications terminal ever to support a crewed mission at lunar distance. Rather than radio waves, the device used invisible infrared light to carry data between the spacecraft and receivers on Earth, exploiting the fact that the shorter the wavelength, the more information you can squeeze into a single beam.

Over the course of the roughly ten day journey, the system transferred 484 gigabytes of data between Orion and the ground in total. Those figures weren't just impressive on paper, they translated directly into the images that stopped the world. The striking photographs of Earthset, Earthrise, and the solar eclipse captured from the Moon's far side, images that circulated across front pages and social media feeds within hours of being taken. It all came home via that laser link. (4/30)

China Accelerates Commercial Space Race with Completion of Massive Lijian-2 Liquid-Propellant Rocket “Super Factory” (Source: Aviation News Daily)
China has reached a pivotal milestone in its commercial aerospace ambitions with the full completion of a state-of-the-art “super factory” in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province. This expansive facility is specifically designed for the Lijian-2, a large liquid-propellant carrier rocket, signaling a major transition toward the mass production of advanced launch vehicles.

The factory stands as a comprehensive industrial hub, integrating final assembly testing with the high-precision processing of core components. Production lines are now established for critical hardware, including rocket tanks, pipeline valves, interstage sections, and conduits. Once the site reaches full operational status, it will possess the industrial capacity to manufacture 12 Lijian-2 rockets annually, according to reports from China Media Group. (4/29)

NASA’s Artemis II Moonship Returns Home to its Launch Site After Historic Voyage (Source: AP)
The spacecraft that flew four astronauts around the moon is back where its record-breaking journey began. NASA’s Artemis II capsule returned to Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, almost a month after blasting off on humanity’s first lunar trip in more than a half-century. (4/29)

NASA Chief Jared Isaacman Fighting for Pluto (Source: Space.com)
NASA chief Jared Isaacman wants to restore Pluto to its former glory. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) stripped Pluto of its planethood, reclassifying the icy world as a "dwarf planet." The decision was controversial, and not just because it forced schoolchildren around the world to learn a new mnemonic for our solar system's major denizens. (4/29)

ST Engineering Signs Singapore Public Safety Deal with HTX (Source: Via Satellite)
ST Engineering and HTX (Home Team Science and Technology Agency) will establish a new space technology program, and co-develop space-based science and technology capabilities to strengthen Singapore’s public safety operations. The two organizations have signed a five-year MoU, which ST Engineering announced on April 28. (4/29)

Federal Employment Candidates Must Provide Trump "Loyalty" Statements (Source: FNN)
New essay questions on many federal job applications, asking candidates how they would advance the Trump administration’s policies, are optional, according to the Office of Personnel Management. But new documents submitted in a lawsuit seeking the removal of these essays show that job candidates, in some cases, can’t submit their online job applications if they leave the fields for essay responses blank.

One of several essay questions, outlined under the Trump administration’s Merit Hiring Plan, asks candidates how they would “advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities,” to name “one or two executive orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you,” and how they would help implement them if hired. Federal employee unions who filed the lawsuit last fall claim the inclusion of a “loyalty question” on federal job applications runs counter to the nonpartisan nature of the civil service. (4/28)

Ariane 64 Lofts 32 Amazon Leo Satellites on Second Arianespace Mission for Amazon (Source: Mach 33)
Arianespace flew its second Ariane 64 in the four-booster configuration from French Guiana, deploying 32 Amazon Leo satellites on the LE-02 mission. The flight is the second of an 18-launch contract Amazon procured from Arianespace.

The launch matters more for Amazon than Arianespace. With the FCC requiring Amazon to deploy half of Amazon Leo by July 2026 and New Glenn grounded indefinitely, Amazon is leaning on every alternative manifest, including Ariane 6, ULA Atlas V, and Falcon 9. Ariane 64 cadence sits near six flights per year, well below Falcon-class, but it is the only non-U.S. heavy-lift option on the Amazon Leo manifest. Amazon is paying a strategic premium to spread deployment rather than buy more Falcon 9. (4/28)

SpaceX and 11 Others Win $3.2B Golden Dome Space-Based Interceptor Prototypes Contract (Source: Mach 33)
The U.S. Space Force awarded up to $3.2 billion across 12 companies for space-based interceptor prototypes under Golden Dome. Awardees include SpaceX, Anduril, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Booz Allen, General Dynamics, GITAI USA, Quindar, Sci-Tec, True Anomaly, and Turion Space. Contracts are Other Transaction Authority agreements, and awardees must demonstrate a working interceptor capability by 2028.

This is the first time SpaceX has been publicly contracted on the interceptor itself, not just the launch or constellation layer. The 12 names will compress to two or three production winners and convert into multi-billion follow-ons if Golden Dome stays funded. The cost-skepticism Gen. Guetlein flagged at HASC on Apr 16 has not killed the space layer. The Pentagon is paying to find out whether the unit economics work, which is a different posture than cancellation. (4/24)

Pentagon Modernizes SBIR, STTR to Spur Small Business Innovation (Source: Defense Scoop)
The Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs are being updated as part of an effort spearheaded by senior defense and small business officials. The revamp aims to remove regulatory barriers, streamline processes, and ensure that innovative small businesses can swiftly develop and deliver advanced technologies to the military. "There's sort of specific modifications we're going to make to make it easier ... for small businesses by removing some of the barriers -- regulatory and otherwise -- that they currently face," says Emil Michael, Pentagon CTO. (4/29)

Space Force to Welcome Nearly 250 Part-Time Guardians (Source: Stars and Stripes)
The Space Force has selected nearly 250 Air Force reservists to transfer this summer as the first part-time guardians. This initiative, enabled by the Space Force Personnel Management Act, seeks to create a unified service of full- and part-time guardians, eliminating the need for separate active-duty and reserve components. Part-time guardians must serve at least 36 days a year, with officers committing to a minimum of three years and enlisted personnel serving up to six years. (4/27)

York to Acquire All.Space for $355 Million (Source: Space News)
York Space Systems will acquire satellite terminal manufacturer All.Space in a $355 million deal. The companies announced the deal Thursday, set to close in the third quarter. York will pay $155 million in cash and up to 5.9 million shares of York stock to acquire All.Space. Founded in 2019 and headquartered in the United Kingdom, All.Space makes multi-orbit, multi-band communications terminals designed to connect across multiple Earth orbits. The planned acquisition is York's second since it went public earlier this year. In March, the company acquired Orbion Space Technology, a supplier of satellite propulsion systems. It is part of a strategy of expanding across the satellite communications value chain. (4/30)

China's Cosmoleap Raises $73 Million for Starship-Like Rocket (Source: Space News)
Chinese launch startup Cosmoleap raised $73 million for work on a Starship-like rocket. Cosmoleap, whose full name is Beijing Dahang Yueqian Technology Co., Ltd., said it raised the funding from several investors to support development of the Yueqian-1 rocket and what it describes as China's first "tower catch and landing recovery" rocket system. The tower recovery system resembles the SpaceX Mechzilla tower system with "chopstick" arms. Cosmoleap says final assembly and testing of the Yueqian-1 rocket, capable of placing up to 18,000 kilograms into low Earth orbit, will begin in the second half of 2026, with the debut flight planned for 2027. (4/30)

Cause of Russian Segment ISS Cracks Unresolved (Source: Space News)
While air leaks in a Russian space station module have stopped, the cause of the cracks in that module remains unresolved. At a meeting Wednesday of the International Space Station Advisory Council, the committee said engineers at NASA and Roscosmos have yet to find the root cause of the small cracks seen in PrK, a vestibule of the Zvezda module. Those cracks had been linked to a small but persistent air leak there over several years, although that leak stopped in recent months after cosmonauts applied sealant to the cracks. While the leaks have stopped, crews take precautions such as limiting the time the vestibule, which links a docking port to the rest of the station, is pressurized. The committee said NASA and Roscosmos still don't agree on the severity of the cracking. (4/30)

Planet Developing Upgraded Methane-Tracking Spacecraft (Source: Space News)
Planet is developing a new version of its Tanager spacecraft with enhanced capability to detect and monitor methane and trace-gas emissions. The company announced Thursday a version of Tanager that will fly a shortwave infrared instrument rather than a hyperspectral imager. Planet will produce SWIR Tanager with the nonprofit environmental-monitoring organization Carbon Mapper and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which designs and builds Tanager imaging spectrometers. SWIR Tanager will gather 30-meter-resolution imagery in 100-kilometer swaths, optimized for the spectral bands for atmospheric gas detection. (4/30)

DoD Rapid Capabilities Office Picks Three Companies for Counter-Surveillance Sensors (Source: Space News)
The Space Rapid Capabilities Office selected three companies to develop counter-surveillance sensors. The office, a specialized acquisition arm within the United States Space Force focused on rapidly fielding space systems, said Wednesday it awarded contracts worth $3 million each to Assurance Technology Corp., Raptor Dynamix and Innovative Signal Analysis. The contracts will cover development of payloads that can be installed on satellites in geosynchronous orbit to detect and characterize emissions from ground-based radars. That would allow the satellites to know when they are being tracked and targeted. (4/30)

Canadian Space Agency Terminates Spire Wildfire Monitoring Contract (Source: Space News)
The Canadian Space Agency has terminated a contract it awarded last year to Spire for a series of wildfire-monitoring satellites. Spire said in a regulatory filing last week that CSA terminated for convenience a contract worth 72 million Canadian dollars ($52.7 million) for WildFireSat, a set of 10 cubesats equipped with sensors to detect wildfires. Neither Spire nor CSA disclosed why the contract was canceled, although Spire executives said in an earnings call in March that work on the contract was paused while it discussed timing and requirements with the agency. CSA said it planned to continue work on WildFireSat with other Canadian government agencies and would soon engage with industry on revised plans. (4/30)

Falcon Heavy Deploys ViaSat-3 From Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: Space News)
The first Falcon Heavy mission in 18 months successfully launched the third and final ViaSat-3 satellite Wednesday. The Falcon Heavy lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport, deploying the ViaSat-3 F3 spacecraft into a geostationary transfer orbit nearly five hours later. Viasat expects F3 to enter commercial service late this summer over the Asia Pacific, following extensive health checks on the operator's payload and spacecraft bus from Boeing.

This satellite uses a different large deployable antenna than the one used on the first two ViaSat-3 spacecraft. The antenna on the first failed to deploy properly, depriving it of more than 90% of its capacity, while the antenna on the second satellite is in the process of deployment. This was the first Falcon Heavy mission since October 2024, when it launched NASA's Europa Clipper mission, although additional Falcon Heavy launches are planned for this year. (4/30)

SpaceX Launches Starlink Mission From California on Wednesday (Source: Spaceflight Now)
SpaceX also launched more Starlink satellites from California. A Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, putting 24 Starlink satellites into orbit. This was the 52nd launch this year by SpaceX, 42 of which carried Starlink satellites. (4/30)

Falcon 9 Upper Stage to Crash on Moon in August (Source: Space News)
A Falcon 9 upper stage that launched a pair of lunar landers last year will make its own crash landing on the moon in August. Astronomers tracking the upper stage, which launched Firefly's Blue Ghost 1 and ispace's Hakuto-R Resilience landers in January 2025, said the upper stage is on a trajectory to collide with the moon Aug. 5. The stage is expected to hit near Einstein crater on the western limb of the moon, but the impact is unlikely to be visible from the Earth as it will take place while the region is in sunlight. (4/30)

Morocco Signs Artemis Accords (Source: Space News)
Morocco is the latest country to join the Artemis Accords. Nasser Bourita, Morocco’s foreign minister, signed the Accords in a ceremony in the capital of Rabat attended by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and the U.S. ambassador to Morocco. Morocco is the 64th country to sign the Accords and the third to do so in the last 10 days. One former agency official attributed the surge in signings to the recent Artemis 2 mission. (4/30)

L-3Harris Plans IPO for Missile Unit (Source: Reuters)
L3Harris has confidentially filed plans to take its missile unit public. The confidential filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission allows the company to work with regulators before making the registration statement public. L3Harris said earlier this year it would spin off the missile unit into a standalone publicly traded company, part of a deal that included a $1 billion investment from the Pentagon. (4/30)

April 29, 2026

The GPS III Rollout Is Almost Complete, But What Is It? (Source: Hackaday)
Just last week, the tenth GPS III satellite was placed in orbit by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Once it’s properly configured and operational, it will join its peers to form the first complete “block” of third-generation GPS satellites. Over the next decade, as many as 22 revised GPS III satellites are slated to take their position over the Earth, eventually replacing all of the aging satellites that billions of people currently rely on.

So what new capabilities do these third-generation GPS satellites offer, and why has it taken so long to implement needed upgrades in such a critical system? The new signals being transmitted by GPS III satellites won’t just be louder than their predecessors, they’ll gain some new features as well. For one thing, GPS III satellites will transmit a standardized signal known as L1C which offers interoperability with other global navigation systems such as Europe’s Galileo, China’s BeiDou, the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), and Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System.

In theory a compatible receiver will be able to process signals from any combination of these systems simultaneously, improving overall performance. To make GPS III transmissions even more secure, the military is also getting their own signal known as M-code. As you might expect, little is publicly known about M-code currently, but it’s a safe bet that it utilizes encryption and other features to make it more difficult for adversaries to create spoofed transmissions. (4/28)

Artemis III Will Launch No Earlier Than Late 2027 (Source: Ars Technica)
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told lawmakers on Monday that SpaceX and Blue Origin, the agency’s two lunar lander contractors, say they could have their spacecraft ready for the next Artemis mission in Earth orbit in late 2027, somewhat later than NASA’s previous schedule.

This mission, Artemis III, will not fly to the Moon. Instead, NASA will launch an Orion capsule with a team of astronauts to rendezvous and potentially dock with one or both landers in Earth orbit. The details of the Artemis III flight plan remain under review, with key questions about the orbit’s altitude and the configuration of the Space Launch System rocket still unanswered. (4/27)

SpaceX Ties Musk Compensation to Mars Colonization Goal (Source: Reuters)
SpaceX's board has approved a compensation plan for founder Elon Musk with goals as futuristic and celestial as the company's ambitions: colonizing Mars and ​running data centers in outer space. The details of Musk's sweeping pay package, which have not been widely reported, were revealed in the company's confidential registration statement ‌filed in recent weeks with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The lofty rewards dangled for Musk by SpaceX show the challenge of holding the attention of the serial entrepreneur as he prepares to take the rocket maker public. They also potentially set up SpaceX investors for tensions with shareholders of Tesla, where Musk is CEO, say corporate governance experts. Connecting science-fiction visions with accounting commitments, the SpaceX board in January approved a ​pay package for the world's richest man that will award 200 million in super-voting restricted shares if the company hits a market value of $7.5 trillion and establishes a ​permanent human colony on Mars with at least 1 million people. (4/28)

European Rocket Developer is Retooling an Abandoned Russian Launch Facility in South America (Source: Extreme Tech)
European rocket developer MaiaSpace has been rebuilding and retooling an old Soyuz rocket launch facility at Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana. The plan is to have it ready for the maiden flight of MaiaSpace's own reusable launch vehicle design by next year, with pad tests scheduled for this year.

MaiaSpace has been working to beat back the encroaching jungle and update the site for use in its future launch efforts. This isn't just a case of burning off some vegetation and rewriting signage, though. The facility also needed heavier construction efforts, and has already required cutting through major structural supports. (4/27)

Did Decaying Dark Matter Help Create the Universe's First Supermassive Black Holes? (Source: Space.com)
New research suggests that supermassive black holes that existed before the cosmos was 1 billion years old may have formed with a helping hand from dark matter, the universe's most mysterious stuff. Researchers think that it would only take energy equivalent to a billion trillionth of the energy of a single AA battery to "supercharge" primordial gas clouds, with the decay of dark matter capable of providing this. (4/27)

DoD Budget Proposes Space Operations Centers in Alabama, Colorado, New Mexico, and North Dakota (Source: Gazette)
The expansive $1.5 trillion DoD budget proposal for next year features $250 million for a new space operations center on Schriever Space Force Base. The center is one of four in the budget, which also proposes a building at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., a building at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M., and a building at Grand Forks Air Force Base in N.D., budget documents said. Each building is slated to receive the same construction allocation, bringing the total investment to $1 billion.

The new buildings will support space control, space-based sensing and targeting and data transport, according to Air and Space Magazine, which first reported the story. Schriever is also home to units focused on GPS, satellite communications and missile defense analysis. (4/27)

California Commission Settles SpaceX Launch Lawsuit (Source: Courthouse News Service)
A California commission has apologized to SpaceX as part of a lawsuit settlement. SpaceX sued the California Coastal Commission after it voted in 2024 against an increase in launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base, with the company claiming the commission's move was political discrimination for Musk's views. As part of a settlement filed Tuesday in federal court, the commission issued a letter of apology for that vote and agreed it can't block proposals by the Space Force to allow increased launches from Vandenberg. The commission, though, said it remained concerned about environmental impacts from increased launch activity. (4/29)

SpaceX Wins Purdue Armstrong Space Prize (Source: Purdue U)
A SpaceX team has won the first Neil Armstrong Space Prize from Purdue University. The university announced last week it selected a team of five from SpaceX who led development of landing and reuse of Falcon 9 boosters for the prize, intended to recognize achievements in space discovery and innovation. The SpaceX team will formally receive the prize at an event in Washington in September. (4/29)

Artemis 2 Astronauts Visit White House (Source: Washington Post)
The Artemis 2 astronauts will be visiting the White House today. The astronauts are scheduled to meet with President Trump in the Oval Office this afternoon, according to a White House schedule. Trump invited the crew to the White House when speaking to them during the mission earlier this month. The visit comes as the White House budget proposal for NASA would emphasize exploration, including an accelerated pace of future Artemis missions, while cutting other parts of the agency. (4/29)

Appropriators Criticize NASA Budget Proposal (Source: Space News)
House and Senate appropriators criticized NASA's budget proposal, saying it does not give the agency the resources it needs to carry out its missions. At hearings Monday by the House Appropriations Committee's commerce, justice and science (CJS) subcommittee and Tuesday by its Senate counterpart, members from both parties said the $18.8 billion budget proposal was insufficient, calling it "disappointing" and "abysmal."

They reiterated concerns about cuts in areas ranging from science to NASA's education office. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman defended the request, saying it provided sufficient funding for priorities such as exploration. The House CJS appropriations subcommittee is scheduled to mark up its spending bill Thursday, while Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KN), chairman of the Senate CJS appropriations subcommittee, said his committee would use last year's spending bill, rather than the administration's proposal, as a guide for its 2027 spending bill. (4/29)

Pentagon Budget Request Moves Space Force Toward Space Tracking Role (Source: Space News)
The Pentagon's fiscal 2027 budget request is the clearest signal yet that the U.S. Space Force is moving into a new role of tracking moving targets from space. The proposal allocates more than $8 billion for so-called moving target indicator, or MTI, systems, which are satellites designed to follow objects on the ground and in the air in near real time. Such tracking has traditionally been done by specialized aircraft, but the Space Force says such aircraft face threats that make them "increasingly unviable."  The MTI mission is split into two parts, one tracking moving targets on the ground and other tracking aircraft and cruise missiles. The latter is more difficult, but Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said earlier this month at the Space Symposium that it is "technically feasible and grounded in demonstrated technologies." (4/29)

BAE Wins Space Force RF Satellite Links Contract for Golden Dome (Source: Space News)
BAE Systems won a Space Force contract to demonstrate an intersatellite communications technology planned for Golden Dome. The $11.8 million contract awarded Tuesday will test Link-182, a radio-frequency data link standard adopted for the Space Force's planned MILNET data relay network supporting the Golden Dome missile defense shield. SpaceX won a $57 million awarded earlier this month for a similar demonstration of intersatellite communications using Link-182. (4/29)

EraDrive Developing AI for Spacecraft Autonomy (Source: Space News)
Silicon Valley startup EraDrive is working with Northrop Grumman to enhance spacecraft autonomy with artificial intelligence. The companies announced a teaming agreement to collaborate on using AI in robotic missions, including in-orbit operations and supporting activities on the ground. One example of that work would be incorporating AI into inspection and servicing of spacecraft, assisting the Mission Robotic Vehicle spacecraft by Northrop subsidiary SpaceLogistics. (4/29)

SpacePort Australia and Aexa Aerospace Launch Joint Venture to Build Medical AI for Space Crews (Source: Business News Australia)
Moree-based SpacePort Australia (SPA) and Houston-based Aexa Aerospace have formalized a joint venture to develop what they describe as the world's first deductive medical AI designed to assist, support and treat spacecraft and station crew. The partnership, dubbed The Hamilton Project, is named after NASA flight surgeon Dr Douglas Hamilton, who served across 50 missions. The project aims to build an AI model capable of functioning as a medical resource for crew operating in environments where real-time access to physicians on Earth is limited or impossible, such as deep-space missions or orbital stations. (4/27)

UCF Focuses on Space Hospitality (Source: Central Florida Public Media)
The Rosen College of Hospitality Management has its sights set outside our planet with its pursuits of space hospitality and tourism. As humans inch closer to an off-planet settlement, there must be a space to put every worker and tourist. This involves not only shelter, but relaxation. Amy Gregory, the University of Central Florida’s Endowed Chair of Space Tourism Programming & Initiatives, focuses on food and lodging. She likened the space tourism industry to the cruise ship industry. (4/28)

NASA Needs Your Help Spotting Meteors Hitting the Moon (Source: Popular Science)
Establishing a long-term human presence on the moon is a daunting challenge. Daunting—but not impossible. One way to help prepare for our imminent arrival is to gain a better understanding of the frequency and effects of meteorite strikes on the lunar surface.

NASA isn’t only relying on its brave squadron of astronauts like the recently returned Artemis II crew to do the work, however. They need help from anyone willing to spend some time gazing up at the moon from here on Earth. For those ready and willing citizen scientists, it’s time to contribute to the ongoing Impact Flash endeavor. (4/27)

Machine Learning Drives High-Resolution Daily Soil Moisture Mapping Across China (Source: Space Daily)
A research team from Nanjing University has developed a high-precision, 1 km resolution soil moisture dataset for China covering the period 2000 to 2025, using machine learning techniques to overcome longstanding limitations in conventional data sources.

Soil moisture governs surface water evaporation, runoff, and the energy exchange between land and atmosphere. During drought conditions, soil moisture levels remain persistently low, while prior to heavy rainfall events, the initial soil water content directly influences flood formation. Despite the importance of this variable, traditional observation methods carry significant drawbacks: ground-based monitoring stations are sparse and unevenly distributed, satellite remote sensing is susceptible to cloud interference, and numerical weather models carry substantial computational costs as well as systematic biases. (4/29)

Amentum Hiring About 100 Workers in Florida for NASA Artemis Missions (Source: Florida Today)
Amentum is hiring about 100 workers to bolster staffing for NASA's Artemis III, IV and V missions at Kennedy Space Center, and a hiring event for job seekers is scheduled in Orlando. All job positions support Amentum's $3.2 billion COMET contract, which covers Artemis operations through 2033. COMET is an acronym for Consolidated Operations, Management, Engineering and Test. (4/28)

RTX's Raytheon Delivers Second Missile-Warning Sensor to U.S. Space Force (Source: RTX)
Raytheon has delivered its second sensor to Lockheed Martin for the U.S. Space Force's Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) Block 0 satellite program. The satellites, commonly referred to as NGG, will provide enhanced missile warning and tracking to address evolving space-based threats. Raytheon's sensor payloads use advanced optical designs and algorithms to detect the heat signatures of missile launches, including hypersonic weapon systems and other advanced threats. (4/28)

South Korea Nears Completion of Five-Satellite Network to Monitor North Korea (Source: Korea Herald)
South Korea is set to complete the deployment of its five-satellite military reconnaissance constellation this month, marking a major step toward strengthening its independent capabilities in the surveillance of North Korea. (4/28)