May 13, 2026

Firefly Aerospace Subsidiary SciTec Awarded AFRL Contract for Advanced Algorithm R&D and Verification Architecture (Source: Firefly)
SciTec, a Firefly Aerospace (Nasdaq: FLY) company, has been awarded a contract by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to support development of the Advanced Algorithm R&D and Verification Architecture. The effort focuses on advancing state-of-the-art sensor system research and development across the electromagnetic spectrum to enhance future capabilities in global persistent awareness. (5/11)

CBO Ups Golden Dome Cost Estimate to $1.2 Trillion (Source: Space News)
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the Golden Dome missile defense system will cost $1.2 trillion, far higher than the Pentagon's estimates. The CBO said Tuesday its 20-year cost estimate is driven by plans for Golden Dome to have space-based interceptors, which alone would account for about $743 billion. CBO emphasized that the study was not based on a detailed administration blueprint because the Defense Department has not publicly released the architecture it intends to build.

Instead, the CBO used a notional missile defense system derived from the language of Trump's January 2025 executive order directing the Pentagon to pursue what became known as Golden Dome. The Pentagon has offered a cost estimate of $185 billion for Golden Dome. Separately, SpaceNews will host an event about the role software could play in such initiatives this afternoon. (5/13)

FCC Approves EchoStar Spectrum Sale to SpaceX (Source: Space News)
The FCC approved the sale of EchoStar spectrum to SpaceX for direct-to-device services. The commission said Tuesday it would allow the geostationary satellite operator to sell around 115 megahertz of spectrum in separate deals that were announced last year with SpaceX and AT&T. Collectively, the pacts were worth more than $40 billion. However, EchoStar must set up a $2.4 billion escrow account for claims from infrastructure partners involved in the 5G network its Dish subsidiary abandoned following the spectrum sales. SpaceX's deal with EchoStar, valued at $22 billion, covers around 65 megahertz of nationwide spectrum that the FCC says promises "generational upgrades" for direct-to-device services. (5/13)

SES Cancels Two Satellites Ordered From Thales Alenia (Source: Space News)
SES has canceled orders for two GEO satellites being built by Thales Alenia Space. SES said Tuesday it canceled the satellites, ordered by Intelsat before its acquisition by SES, as part of post-merger fleet rationalization efforts. SES will instead extend the lives of existing satellites using on-orbit services ordered from SpaceLogistics, Starfish Space and Infinite Orbits. The IS-41 and IS-44 satellites were ordered by Intelsat in 2022 and planned for launch in 2027 to provide broadband across Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The change comes after Eutelsat canceled its Flexsat Americas GEO satellite, also being built by Thales Alenia. (5/13)

SpaceX Sets May 19 for Next Starship Launch From Texas (Source: Space News)
SpaceX is planning a first launch of the latest version of Starship next week. The company said Tuesday it set a May 19 date for the Flight 12 mission from its Starbase facility in South Texas. Flight 12 will be the first launch of version 3 of Starship, with various upgrades to the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage to improve performance. The company has called Starship version 3 the "production" version of the vehicle that will be used for deploying larger Starlink satellites and for Artemis lunar landings. (5/13)

Varda and United Therapeutics Agree on Microgravity Pharma R&D (Source: Space News)
Varda Space Industries has signed a deal with a pharmaceutical company. Varda announced Wednesday it will collaborate with United Therapeutics to develop improved drugs in microgravity, starting with treatments for rare pulmonary disease. Those tests will be performed on Varda's spacecraft, which host pharmaceutical payloads and return the results in reentry capsules. Varda has identified the pharmaceutical industry as a key customer of its vehicles, citing interest in using microgravity to create novel drugs that can't be produced on Earth. (5/13)

China Launches Broadband Constellation Satellites on Long March 6 (Source: CGTN)
China launched a set of broadband constellation satellites Tuesday. A Long March 6 rocket lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center at 7:59 a.m. Eastern and placed into orbit 18 satellites for the Qianfan or Spacesail Constellation. The satellites join 126 others already in orbit for a constellation intended to ultimately have more than 10,000 spacecraft. (5/13)

Google Considers Launching Orbital Data Centers (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Google is in talks with SpaceX and other companies about launching orbital data center satellites. The discussions Google is having are focused with SpaceX, sources said, but also include other, unnamed launch providers. Google is working to demonstrate orbital data center technology with Planet on an effort called Project Suncatcher. Unlike other companies, including SpaceX as well as Blue Origin and Starcloud, Google has not yet publicly filed plans to deploy its own data center constellation. (5/13)

Blue Origin Considers External Fundraising (Source: Financial Times)
Blue Origin is considering for the first time raising outside capital. The company's CEO, Dave Limp, told employees in an all-hands meeting that it would need to bring in outside funding to significantly increase its launch rate. The company has been funded to date solely by founder Jeff Bezos and revenue from contracts. Limp did not state how much money Blue Origin would need beyond "a lot of capital," and added that while it was unlikely Bezos would sell Blue Origin, the company could go public at some point. (5/13)

TrustPoint to Demo GPS-Independent Navigation (Source: Space News)
TrustPoint won a Space Force contract to demonstrate a GPS-independent positioning, navigation and timing system. The $4 million award announced Tuesday is a Tactical Funding Increase, or TACFI, issued through SpaceWERX, the organization that manages the Space Force's Small Business Innovation Research contracts. Within the next 12 months, TrustPoint plans to manufacture and deploy a four-satellite system supported by four ground stations to test positioning, navigation and timing services independent of GPS. (5/13)

Quantum Space to Build Satellite Factory in Oklahoma (Source: Space News)
Quantum Space announced plans to build its highly maneuverable satellites in Oklahoma. The company said Tuesday it will establish a manufacturing facility in Tulsa for its Ranger spacecraft, creating at least 50 jobs there. The Tulsa facility will be in addition to its headquarters in Maryland and a propulsion integration and test facility in California. The announcement came a week after Quantum Space hired former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who lives in Tulsa, as its new CEO.

Editor's Note: Although not specified here, it would be unusual if this project did not include financial incentives from Oklahoma's manufacturing incentive programs. Oklahoma already offers programs commonly used for aerospace and advanced manufacturing projects, including payroll rebates, aerospace/manufacturing tax credits, sales tax exemptions for manufacturers, and property tax abatements. Because it involves redevelopment of a former Spartan Aircraft manufacturing complex, maybe a Space Park tax exempt bond financing is possible. (5/13)

Who Owns the Most Satellites? (Source: Visual Capitalist)
Satellites are becoming the backbone of the modern space economy. From broadband internet to Earth observation, orbital infrastructure now supports industries far beyond aerospace. SpaceX dominates the global satellite count with 10,262 operational satellites. That’s more than 16 times OneWeb’s 632 satellites, the next-largest named operator. The ranking shows how quickly private networks have scaled since the beginning of the space race. Public organizations like NASA and national militaries now operate a minor portion with just 894 satellites among the named owners in the dataset. (5/12)

Russia is Building Engines for Interstellar Travel While Nearly Two-Thirds of Rural Households Still Have No Indoor Plumbing (Source: Space Daily)
In February 2026, Rosatom announced a prototype plasma rocket engine that its scientists claim could reduce the travel time to Mars from eight months to thirty days. The announcement was widely covered as a propulsion breakthrough.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service says nearly two-thirds of rural Russian households have no access to indoor toilets. Of those, 48.1 percent use outhouses and 18.4 percent have no sewage system at all. Nationally, roughly 22.6 percent of Russian households lack indoor plumbing. Russia holds the distinction, noted by the WaterAid NGO, of leading the developed world in this measure.

At the same time, Russia’s draft federal budget for 2025 to 2027 allocates 942.3 billion rubles to space activities — an 18 percent increase over the previous budgetary period. In 2025 alone, planned space expenditure stands at approximately 317 billion rubles. These two facts are not presented here as a indictment. They are presented as a structural question worth taking seriously: what does it mean for a state to fund interstellar propulsion research while a significant portion of its rural population uses outhouses? And is this gap unusual, or is it, in fact, how space programs have always worked? (5/12)

Space Force to Overhaul Key Early Warning, Surveillance Radars Around the World (Source: Air and Space Forces)
The Space Force plans to overhaul eight legacy missile warning and space surveillance radars located around the world, taking them from analog to digital operations, according to a May 7 notice. Under the Ground Based Radar Digitization project, or GBRD, the service will install new hardware and software on the radars, upgrading everything from front-end antennas to back-end data processors. Editor's Note: Among them is the huge C-6 radar at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. (5/11)

US, Close Allies Creating Joint ‘Orbital Warfare’ Plan (Source: Breaking Defense)
US Space Command (SPACECOM) and its six closest space-savvy allies expect to complete a joint plan for conducting future “orbital warfare” by the end of the year, SPACECOM Commander Gen. Stephen Whiting said. Like the US military, the allied militaries participating in SPACECOM’s Multinational Force Operation Olympic Defender (MF-OOD) have been internally discussing “the need for protect and defend capabilities, orbital warfare capabilities.” Thus, the group decided the time has come to figure out how to work together via a collective concept of operations (CONOPS). (5/12)

Pentagon Tells Satellite Builders: Good Enough Now Beats Perfect Later (Source: Space Daily)
he U.S. military space business is being pushed toward a blunt new standard: deliver useful capability faster, then improve it later. That message is coming most clearly from the Space Force, where senior leaders have been describing speed not as a procurement preference, but as an operational requirement. In a fast-moving threat environment, the old bargain of waiting years for a more complete system is losing ground to a different one: put something workable in orbit, learn from it, and upgrade in increments. (5/7)

Evidence the Universe Isn't Uniform (Source: Live Science)
Astronomers have developed a new way to test one of the central assumptions of modern cosmology — that the universe behaves uniformly on the largest scales. When applying the method to real observational data, the researchers found tentative signs that this assumption may not fully hold, potentially pointing to new physics beyond the standard cosmological model. (5/12)

Companies Are Racing to Put Satellites in Low-Earth Orbit (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Low-Earth orbit (LEO) is often defined as nearly 100 miles above Earth, but no more than roughly 1,200 miles up. It’s home to well-known spacecraft like the ISS and the Hubble Space Telescope. It’s also increasingly lucrative real estate for tech companies that want to cover the Earth in broadband internet. Investors expect the market for low Earth orbit satellites to grow to about $108 billion by 2035. There's a lot at stake in the corporate fight over LEO, and Amazon and others hope to put a dent in SpaceX's dominance there.

Amazon faces a strict FCC deadline to have half its constellation in orbit by July 2026. Amazon is securing deals with telecommunications firms like Vodafone and Verizon, and has partnered for in-flight Wi-Fi with airlines. The industry is moving from proprietary, expensive technology toward mass-market commercial offerings, with Deloitte predicting global LEO subscribers will surpass 15 million by the end of 2026. (5/11)

Starship V3 Sports Various Upgrades (Source: Ars Technica)
For the third time in three years, SpaceX has stacked a new version of its enormous Starship rocket on a launch pad in South Texas, just a few miles north of the US-Mexico border. The newest-generation Starship, known as Starship Version 3, is taller and more powerful than the ones that came before it.

The upgrades on Starship are numerous. Perhaps the most notable changes are higher-thrust, more efficient Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage, a new reusable lattice-like structure at the top of the booster for hot staging, and three—not four—modified grid fins to help bring the first stage back to Earth for recovery and reuse. (5/12)

Space Force Awards TrustPoint $4 Million for LEO Navigation Demonstration (Source: Space News)
TrustPoint, a Virginia startup developing a low-Earth-orbit navigation system intended to complement or back up GPS, said May 12 it received a $4 million contract from the U.S. Space Force to demonstrate a GPS-independent positioning, navigation and timing system. The startup is developing C-band system as alternative to GPS. (5/12)

Fenix Space Flies Tow-Launch Prototype (Source: Payload)
California-based Fenix Space completed a week-long testing campaign of its Fenix alpha prototype launch vehicle, validating the launcher’s ability to take off and land—without the use of a launch pad. Fenix Space is hoping to offer customers an alternative to vertical launch at a time when the nation’s spaceports are becoming increasingly congested. Its launch system is designed to reach orbit by first gliding behind a tow aircraft, then detaching and propelling itself the rest of the way.

Over four flight tests, Fenix demonstrated its ability to separate from its ride in the sky and perform autonomous flight maneuvers using a proprietary GNC software and avionics package that will one-day fly on the full-sized Fenix 1.0 vehicle. The company’s horizontal-lift approach means it can take off and land from standard runways, and the DoD is actively supporting the development and testing effort. (5/12)

NASA Space Act Agreement to Advance Space Based Data Storage for Resilient Space Infrastructure (Source: Spacewatch Global)
Tampa-based Lonestar Data Holdings has signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA through Ames Research Center in California. The agreement establishes a framework for collaboration focused on advancing technologies and operational concepts supporting lunar data storage, resilient off-world compute infrastructure, and next-generation space communications architectures.

The collaboration is intended to help accelerate development of secure, independent, and disaster-resilient data capabilities beyond Earth. The initial activities under the agreement are expected to focus on technical collaboration and evaluation of lunar-edge data infrastructure concepts designed to support future commercial, civil, and scientific space missions. (5/12)

SpaceX Expanding at Texas Port (Source: Jorge Gutierrez)
SpaceX is expanding at the Port of Brownsville. They’ve already secured a small site called “Fish Camp” and are negotiating a 50-year lease for an 83-acre terminal to move and assemble Starship components before shipping them to Florida. The big terminal deal is still under review. Port officials want a clear plan with specific construction milestones before giving the final approval. Meanwhile, SpaceX is officially a tenant, and activity at the port is ramping up fast.

Beyond SpaceX, there’s massive investment and thousands of jobs coming. A $3.2 billion high-tech shipyard focused on autonomous defense and commercial vessels, plus the $4 billion America First Refinery, the first new Gulf Coast refinery in 50 years. Brownsville is quickly becoming a key hub for technology, energy, and trade in the years ahead. (5/8)

Akers and Tanner Inducted Into Astronaut Hall of Fame (Source: KSCVC)
The 2026 U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame induction ceremony will take place on May 16. This year, the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation is inducting astronauts Tom Akers and Joe Tanner. Both demonstrated outstanding accomplishments in furthering NASA’s mission of exploration and discovery. (5/12)

Cocoa Beach Plans Festival of Spaceflight in May 2027 (Source: City of Cocoa Beach)
The Festival of Spaceflight is scheduled for the weekend of March 19-21, 2027. There are many opportunities to help put it all together. It will be a commitment for several months, but the rewards will be priceless. There will be a lot of moving parts and mostly organization skills are needed. Planned are a parade, a 5K race, a community picnic, and other events. Volunteers are needed. (5/12)