March 19, 2026

NASA Pinpoints Where Meteorites May Have Fallen After Northeast Ohio Fireball (Source: Cleveland.com)
If meteorites from Tuesday morning’s fireball reached the ground, scientists say they’re most likely to be found in a narrow band across mostly Medina County. A new analysis from NASA’s Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science office maps out that potential “strewn field” — the area where fragments from the exploding space rock were expected to land — stretching roughly from northern Medina County between Hinckley and Richfield south-southwest toward Rittman and parts of Wayne County. (3/18)

Firefly Aerospace Looks Ahead to Moon Missions, More Launches After Alpha Rocket’s Return to Flight (Source: Austin American Statesman)
Prior to last week's launch, only Alpha's third and fifth missions had been unqualified successes. Firefly has a growing portfolio of contracts with government and commercial entities, including NASA, the U.S. Space Force, Lockheed Martin Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp., and others.

The company still has not set a launch date for its next Moon mission, but it is expected sometime next year. This new mission will take the U.S. to the far side of the Moon, where the country has never gone before. The lander will also be different from its successful mission a year ago. Instead of a roughly six-foot-tall lander, the mission will take not only the lander but also two orbital vehicles, one of which will be for the European Space Agency, making the lander more than 22 feet tall. (3/17)

ESA Seeks Scalable VLEO Platforms for Satellite Video (Source: ESA)
Today's Earth observation satellites deliver snapshots – precise and valuable, but static. Many of the most consequential events on Earth, from wildfires to floods to urban crises, unfold over minutes and hours. A new SysNova campaign is looking for ideas that could change that.

The Scalable VLEO Platform for Satellite Video campaign invites industry and academia to develop disruptive mission concepts for continuous, high-fidelity video monitoring from Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO). Satellites operating at VLEO altitudes – typically 250 to 350 km – are significantly closer to Earth's surface than conventional Earth observation spacecraft, offering sharper resolution, lower latency, and improved revisit and persistence characteristics. (3/17)

Starlink service launches in UAE (Source: The National)
Elon Musk's satellite internet service can now be accessed in the UAE. Packages for Starlink, owned and operated by Mr Musk's SpaceX, are advertised on the site as starting from Dh230 a month. It offers a residential service with the standard kit costing Dh1,545, including shipping, estimated at between one week and two weeks. In the Middle East, Starlink is also available in Qatar, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Jordan and Israel. (3/18)

SES Sells ‘Space Bonds’ Ranked Lower Than Hybrids (Source: Luxembourg Times)
European satellite operator SES SA, a rival to Elon Musk’s Starlink network, has launched the sale of unusually structured hybrid bonds, which it hopes will help it reclaim an investment-grade credit rating. The company aims to raise an expected €500 million by issuing so-called Space bonds — subordinated perpetual with automatic conversion events — for which investors have placed more than €3 billion of bids so far, said a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified. (3/17)

Where Are All the Aliens? Maybe They Just Don't Want to Talk to Us (Source: Space.com)
"Advanced extraterrestrials may not be shy, they may simply be prudent," Erik Geslin said. "If extraterrestrial civilizations are biocentric or ecocentric, humanity may not yet appear to them as a safe partner for contact. Such civilizations might simply be cautious."

Other starfolk may understand very well the potential risks involved in interacting with humanity, a species that is still strongly anthropocentric, heavily resource-driven and often conflict-prone, according to Geslin. "What we interpret as silence might therefore not reflect fear, but prudence! Perhaps even a kind of ethical restraint. In that sense, their behavior could resemble a principle of non-interference," he said. (3/17)

Pentagon Developing Space-Centric National Defense Strategy (Source: Aviation Week)
The Defense Department and its partner agencies are crafting a new national defense strategy dedicated to space security, a senior department official said March 17. One key area of focus will be the department’s future space-based position, navigation and timing (PNT) capability, “and assuring that that is not only robust, but resilient,” Marc Berkowitz said. The top two priorities in the unclassified version of the 2026 strategy—homeland defense and deterring China—are “fundamentally enabled by our space capabilities,” he said. (3/17)

Iran War Drives DoD Budget Spike (Source: Washington Post)
The Pentagon has asked the White House to approve a more than $200 billion request to Congress to fund the war in Iran. Even before the war in Iran, President Trump had called for a $1.5 trillion defense budget, a more than 50 percent increase from the previous year. The enormous new ask that is almost certain to run into resistance from lawmakers opposed to the conflict. (3/18)