October 13, 2025

Faraday Factory and Zenno Join Forces to Boost Superconducting Magnets for Orbital Systems (Source: Space Daily)
Faraday Factory Japan LLC has partnered with New Zealand-based Zenno Astronautics to advance the development of next-generation high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets designed specifically for space use. Faraday Factory is tailoring superconducting materials to meet the extreme demands of orbital environments. Faraday Factory will supply Zenno with advanced HTS tapes-including the new Mirai superconducting tape unveiled in July 2025-for integration into Zenno's superconducting magnet coils. (10/10)

Small Satellite Contracted to Probe Climate Effects of Space Radiation (Source: Space Daily)
The University of Alberta has contracted SFL Missions Inc. to develop the RADICALS small satellite, a mission designed to study how energetic particles from space interact with Earth's atmosphere and influence the climate system. The project is supported by the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Government of Alberta, and the Canadian Space Agency.

Built on SFL's proven DEFIANT bus, RADICALS will employ an unusual end-over-end spin as it travels in near-polar orbit. This maneuver allows its instruments to capture continuous 360-degree measurements of incoming space radiation, offering unprecedented accuracy in quantifying atmospheric energy input. The collaboration aims to enhance superconductor performance to improve operational margins, reduce mass, increase energy efficiency, and shorten system activation times. (10/13)

ULA Names Maverick Aerospace, LLC, as 2025 Supplier of the Year (Source: ULA)
United Launch Alliance (ULA) recently honored seven suppliers with 2025 Supplier of the Year Awards for their dedicated support across ULA’s product lines. Strategic supplier partnerships remain paramount as ULA continues to increase its launch rate for the innovative new Vulcan rocket to support Amazon’s Kuiper missions as well as our critical missions for the Space Force, NRO and NASA. 

Maverick Aerospace, LLC is a small business recognized for its tremendous impact and technical excellence in support of complex launch site upgrades including the fabrication of components used in the transportation, integration and launch of Vulcan from Space Launch Complex-41 (SLC-41) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, and Space Launch Complex-3 (SLC-3) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. (10/9)

Thales Alenia Space inaugurates state-of-the-art Space Smart Factory (Source: Thales Alenia)
Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), has today inaugurated its Space Smart Factory at the Tecnopolo Tiburtino high-tech innovation hub in Rome. The factory — one of Europe’s largest intelligent, digital, reconfigurable manufacturing facilities — is the concrete result of an investment of over €100 million, partly financed through PNRR funds managed by the Italian Space Agency and by substantial investments from Thales and Leonardo.

It is a smart factory that can be reconfigured to produce all types of satellites and constellations using the principle of serialization of activities. The site is capable of producing over 100 satellites a year in the class up to 300 kilograms in an environment integrated with the most advanced digital, robotic and interconnection technologies. (10/7)

Senate Confirms New NOAA Administrator (Source: SIA)
The Satellite Industry Association (SIA) today congratulated Neil Jacobs following his confirmation by the United States Senate as Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Dr. Jacobs previously served as the Acting U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and the head of NOAA during President Trump’s first Administration. Prior to this, he was the Chief Atmospheric Scientist at Panasonic Avionics Corporation, where he directed the research and development of both the aviation weather observing program, as well as the numerical forecast models. (10/8)

GomSpace Signs 2.1 MEUR (SEK 23 Million) Contract Extensions with European Tech Firm (Source: GomSpace)
Following the June 25, 2025 announcement of a contract for 18 satellites with a confidential European customer, GomSpace has signed two amendments to the agreement, addressing new strategic needs identified by the customer — including the accelerated delivery of two satellites. (10/8)

Astronomers Image Two Black Holes Orbiting Each Other (Source: Space.com)
Astronomers have captured the first image of two black holes orbiting each other. The image, taken from a network of ground-based radio telescopes along with a Russian spacecraft, confirm that a quasar designated OJ287 contains two black holes orbiting one another. Astronomers had speculated that the object, five billion light-years away, contained a pair of black holes because of periodic changes in its brightness. (10/13)

Planet Plans Next Generation of Imaging Satellites (Source: Space News)
Planet announced plans to develop a new line of imaging satellites to replace its Dove cubesats. The company said last week it is developing Owl, a satellite capable of providing one-meter imagery, sharper than the three- to four-meter imagery from current SuperDove satellites. The Owl satellites will also have Nvidia processors for AI applications, such as onboard processing of images. The Owl satellite is larger than the 3U cubesat form factor of SuperDoves, but the company did not disclose specifics. The first Owl satellite will launch in late 2026 with a full constellation to provide daily Earth imaging deployed in the coming years. (10/13)

Blue Origin Plans Rocket Refurb Facility at Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: Florida Today)
Blue Origin plans to add to infrastructure at its Florida launch site. Local government filings show that the company plans to build a refurbishment facility for New Glenn boosters near its Launch Complex 36 pad at Cape Canaveral. The company said the facility would support refurbishment of first stages needed "to support a higher launch cadence and meet customer needs." The company now employs nearly 4,000 people in the Space Coast region spread across 11 sites. (10/13)

Winds on Mars are Faster Than We Thought (Source: Cosmos)
Mars is home to a very thin atmosphere, with a volume less than 1% of Earth’s. Despite this, scientists have observed intense Martian winds and dust storms. A new study photographed dust collected by the winds into ‘dust devils’ – rotating columns of dust and air that move across the planet’s surface. The new research offers a clearer understanding of Mars’s climate and dust cycle, which will play an important role in planning future missions to the Red Planet.

“Dust devils make the normally invisible wind visible,” says Valentin Bickel, the first author of the study from the University of Bern, Switzerland. “By measuring their speed and direction of travel we have started mapping the wind all over Mars’s surface. This was impossible before because we didn’t have enough data to make this kind of measurement on a global scale.” (10/13)

Uranus and Neptune May Not Be 'Ice Giants' After All (Source: Space.com)
Astronomers have long called Uranus and Neptune the "ice giants" because models suggested that these outer planets' interiors are largely made of mixtures of water, ammonia and other ices — compounds that freeze easily in deep space. But new research reveals that we actually know very little about what's going on inside these planets, causing researchers to propose that Uranus and Neptune be called "rocky giants" instead.

New models have yielded a few expected results. Each planet is less than a quarter hydrogen and helium, which matches predictions from solar system formation models and the observed densities of the planets. The models also created layers of electrically conductive material, which can explain the magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune. But this agnostic approach did yield one major surprise: We may not have any idea what the interiors of Uranus and Neptune are really like.

For example, the rock-to-water ratio for Uranus varies widely, anywhere from a low of 0.04, meaning the planet is almost entirely water, to as much as 3.92, which is the complete opposite. Neptune is slightly better understood, but it could still have anywhere from as much as five times as much water as rock up to twice as much rock as water. (10/13)

Government Criticized for Rushed Approval of Starlink Korea Agreement (Source: Korea JoongAng Daily)
The government is facing criticism for allegedly rushing its approval of a cross-border service agreement for Starlink Korea, the Korean subsidiary of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications company SpaceX.
The Ministry of Science and ICT is accused of skipping essential steps to evaluate the broader market impact of such services, despite satellite communications being considered critical infrastructure. (10/13)

Senior Barrister: Space Industry a Trillion-Dollar Market for Hong Kong (Source: China Daily)
The space economy has the potential to be Hong Kong’s next trillion-dollar frontier, with a Chinese “SpaceX-like” commercial space company likely to emerge within the next two to three years to develop reusable orbital rockets, said Anthony Neoh, former chairman of the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong.

Neoh summarizes the city’s edge as being its unique combination of global reach, legal reliability, and financial sophistication. As one of the world’s most open and accessible markets, supported by a mature and diversified financial infrastructure, Hong Kong serves as a vital bridge between international capital and frontier industries. Its common law system — the legal foundation for most financing practices worldwide — provides the rule-of-law certainty that investors rely on. (10/12)

Race for Space Law: Inside the Sino-American Cosmic Rivalry (Source: China Talk)
The United States and China have both attempted to pass legislation and establish norms around outer space exploration and use within the United Nations. When this has failed, though, the United States has continued its law-based approach, pursuing norm-building agreements and legal partnerships outside the UN system.

In contrast, China’s approach, when faced with UN setbacks, has shifted to pursuing project-based initiatives, including activities at the International Lunar Research Station. By virtue of China’s state-centered economic model, space innovation and commerce are highly regulated or outright owned by the state. Experts argue that China is not likely to promulgate domestic space legislation due to the risk of inadvertently restricting state ownership of valuable space resources and scientific data. (10/12)

ESA’s Fourth Deep Space Antenna Unveiled in New Norcia, Western Australia (Source: Thales Alenia)
The European Deep Space Antenna Alliance (E-DSA²) celebrated the inauguration of the European Space Agency’s NNO-3 deep space antenna masterpiece for the New Norcia ground station near Perth, Australia, on October 4. NNO-3 is part of ESA’s ESTRACK global network of ground stations. This new-generation 35-meter antenna will enable ESA to increase its communication capabilities in X, K and Ka frequency bands. (10/6)

ispace to Serve as Core Partner in Japan’s Space Strategy Fund Project for Satellite Development (Source: ispace)
ispace has reached a  contract with the Institute of Science Tokyo after being selected to serve as a core partner for a lunar water sensing satellite project funded by Japan’s Space Strategy Fund. The satellite development project was selected under the “Development and Demonstration of Lunar Water Resource Exploration Technology (sensing technology) theme, one of the first publicly solicited themes of the Space Strategy Fund. The project was selected on April 25, 2025, with a funding grant of approximately 6.4 billion yen. (10/6)

ispace Selected for Taiwan Space Agency’s Lunar Mission Payloads (Source: ispace)
ispace was selected by the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) to deliver scientific payloads to the lunar surface. Based on the award, ispace is expected to enter into a contract with TASA to transport the “Vector Magnetometer and Ultraviolet Telescope” to the Moon on the company’s Mission 4, currently scheduled to launch in 2028. The total contract value is $8 million USD. (10/6)

ispace and Magna Petra Corp. Sign Payload Service Agreement to Deliver NASA’s MSOLO Instrument to the Moon (Source: ispace)
ispace announced the execution of a Payload Services Agreement with Magna Petra Corp. – a lunar resources company engaged in the commercialization of helium-3 isotopes from the lunar surface. ispace will integrate a NASA-developed Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations (MSOLO) instrument into its upcoming Mission 3 lunar micro-rover platform as part of Magna Petra’s Helium Availability of Lunar Origin (HALO) reconnaissance mission. (10/6)

ispace and UEL Sign Interim Payload Service Agreement (iPSA) to Transport Rovers to the Moon (Source: ispace)
ispace and Unmanned Exploration Laboratory (UEL), a space robotics and exploration company in Korea, have signed an interim payload service agreement (iPSA) to transport up to two 2-wheeled rovers to the surface of the Moon. The rovers to be deployed on future ispace lunar lander missions are two-wheeled rovers with a rear-mounted tail that aims to explore hard-to-reach geological features on the moon. ispace will be responsible for transporting the rovers to the lunar surface and supporting communications relay to the rover via the lander. (10/1)