July 11, 2026

FCC Approves Giant Mirror Satellite Designed To Beam Sunlight to Earth After Dark (Source: TechSpot)
Remember the California startup that was developing a constellation of satellites with giant Mylar mirrors to beam sunlight back to Earth after dark? Despite the plan generating a slew of controversy, those satellites have passed another hurdle toward becoming a reality after the FCC approved them.

Back in July 2025, Reflect Orbital submitted an application to launch Eärendil-1, a demonstration satellite designed to test whether sunlight can be redirected from orbit onto specific locations on Earth. The FCC has now granted the satellite permission to operate its radio equipment. The regulator also rejected calls to block the project over its enormous reflective surface, arguing that the mirror itself falls outside the FCC's authority because the agency primarily regulates communications spectrum. (7/10)

Taffing the Moon Base: How Many Astronauts Should Live in NASA’s Lunar Outpost? (Source: Space.com)
The success of NASA's future moon base depends in large part on mission design, which should allow astronauts to work together well in a way independent from psychological training, a new study asserts. The goal of the study was to identify "specific conditions" for mission success and to look for any "red flags" that may stand in the way, said lead investigator Anamaria Berea. The study team considered scenarios for how many astronauts would be on the moon base and how often resupply missions would occur.

In an "initial case," for example, the assumed mission duration was three months, with a single resupply run at Month 2 with food, water, air and a fresh group of astronauts. Using a complex probability analysis known as a Monte Carlo simulation, the model astronauts in this scenario showed a productivity rate of about 20% against their expected tasks, "which is acceptable for a typical manufacturing process," the authors noted. "The worst-case scenario consists of four astronauts on the moon at one time, only one month resupply window between Earth and moon, and moderate to high adverse environmental probabilities."

NASA tracks productivity a little differently on the International Space Station (ISS). The agency uses a metric called "utilization," which largely refers to the amount of crew time and number of scientific investigations that are performed on the space station during an increment or expedition. As of 2014, the ISS program suggested that ideal utilization should be 35 hours per crew per week when there are three people working on the U.S. part of the space station, and 68.5 hours if there are four or more. (The Russian side of the ISS works largely independently in this respect.) (7/8)

Huge Galactic Structure Is 23 Million Light-Years Long, And We Can't Comprehend It (Source: Science Alert)
There are plenty of mind-bendingly large structures in our Universe. But when it comes to galaxies, two discoveries over the past five years have given the word 'massive' a whole new meaning. Case in point, one of the biggest structures of galactic origin detected by humans in radio waves: Porphyrion.

Named after the king of giants in Greek mythology, Porphyrion is 7.5 billion light-years away, so it's not exactly in our galactic neighborhood. It was first detected in 2024, when researchers picked up radio signals from a pair of jets being blasted out by the black hole presumably at the galaxy's center. (7/11)

US’ New Weapon Can Blast Enemy Satellites with Beams of Electromagnetic Radiation (Source: Interesting Engineering)
The U.S. Space Force has got a new capability to make enemy satellites almost inactive and disrupt their signals without physically damaging them. Meadowlands is a critical upgrade to the Counter Communications System (CCS) 10.2 and it can detect, deny, disrupt, and degrade adversary’s use of the electromagnetic spectrum  — such as radio waves. The electromagnetic warfare’s system reversible and non-reversible capabilities further secures the invisible frontline on the electromagnetic spectrum. (7/9)

The EU Wants to Control Your Speed Via Satellite (Source: The Drive)
It has been a wild couple of weeks for the Big Brother news beat—wild enough that a particularly alarming item managed to slip beneath just about everybody‘s radar. According to the Daily Mail, the European Commission wants the power to force cars to obey speed limits with help from GPS.

European cars already leave the factory with speed monitoring systems installed, and no, I don’t just mean speedometers. Starting in 2024, the EU mandated that all new cars come equipped with a GPS-based system that tracks the current speed limit and alerts the driver audibly if it is exceeded. These “Intelligent Speed Assist” systems are often installed on cars sold outside the EU as well, though the warning component is often optional or disabled. (7/9)

We Should Establish an Inland Spaceport in the American West (Source: Christian Keil)
All US spaceports today are coastal — meaning they're within ~12 nautical miles of international waters, or <60 seconds downrange for a ship/sub-based missile. In peacetime, this allows for easy surveillance, both of national security rocket launches and the sites themselves. But in wartime our launch sites might not survive the first minute of a major conflict.

Part 1 of the solution is to do what China has done: establish inland launch sites that are further from international borders and therefore easier to defend. Part 2 of the solution is to do the *opposite* of what China has done: America should not fly experimental missions over land, or drop rockets full of hypergolic fuel onto rural villages. Inland launch sites should only be used for reusable rockets that have a track record of success.

America needs a launch pad in Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, or Montana, and landing pads ~500 km north and/or east. We already have similar infrastructure that exists today (White Sands, UTTR, NTTR, Spaceport America). Adding one more such site would secure our access to space even on a very bad day. (7/9)

Blue Origin Files Plans for New Construction on Space Coast (Source: Orlando Business Journal)
Blue Origin plans new storage and manufacturing structures on 11 acres in Brevard County as part of continued expansion, despite recent setbacks. The aerospace company is working with the Titusville-Cocoa Airport Authority to establish outdoor storage and manufacturing, eyeing the former Space Perspective location at the Space Coast Regional Airport. (7/9)

NASA Small Satellite Could Make Global Positioning More Precise (Source: NASA)
A NASA satellite the size of a suitcase, which aims to merge different observing systems and lead to more accurate mapping of Earth, launched July 7 from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California aboard SpaceX’s Transport-17 mission.

This novel CubeSat, known as the Geodetic Reference Instrument Transponder for Small Satellites, or GRITSS, will demonstrate the feasibility of a new technique for connecting three independent observing systems: the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) stations, which use radio telescopes; GPS receivers, which use navigation satellites; and Satellite Laser Ranging, which relies on lasers to measure a distance from the ground to a retroreflector in space. (7/9)

Scientists Say Some Black Holes Are Born From Other Black Holes (Source: Gizmodo)
Since LIGO’s Nobel-winning discovery of gravitational waves—ripples in spacetime—the U.S.-based detector has been picking up on hundreds of signals from black hole mergers. And, after a decade of studying gravitational waves, researchers believe a significant fraction of black holes may come from cosmic chain reactions.

A recent paper describes an analysis of 155 pairs of binary black holes, identified by LIGO and its sisters, Virgo and KAGRA, in Italy and Japan, respectively. According to the study, about 14% of merging black holes may be what’s called “second-generation black holes,” or black holes that form from previous mergers of two smaller black holes. This “hierarchical” backstory is vastly different from the textbook version of how black holes emerge from the explosive death of a star. (7/9)

Democratic Texas AG Candidate Claims $110m in Gants for Elon Musk’s Starlink ‘sure Looks’ Like Corruption (Source: The Guardian)
The Texas Democrat nominee to become the state’s attorney general has said he will investigate SpaceX if elected, saying it “sure looks like” corruption was involved in a deal he said handed the world’s richest person $110 million of taxpayers’ money dedicated to providing internet access in remote areas. Nathan Johnson called for greater legislative scrutiny of state grants funneled to SpaceX for its Starlink satellite program. He said the award by Texas Republicans of 99% of the available grant funds to a company led by billionaire Musk, a Donald Trump ally, was lopsided.

“I am not declaring that corruption was at work in this instance. I am saying that it sure looks like it,” Johnson, a state senator, told the Dallas News. “Public confidence in the bidding process has been undermined.” During his primary campaign, Johnson promised to overhaul the office of the Texas attorney general, a position currently held by Ken Paxton, the scandal-ridden hardline Republican recently nominated by his party to run for the US Senate in November’s midterms.

He has said he will work closely with the state comptroller to audit how government contracts are awarded. The Starlink grants, signed off by the Republican Texas governor, Greg Abbott, after his office reportedly revised rules to favor low-Earth-orbit satellite providers in bids to provide rural internet access, have become a particular source of controversy. (7/10)

ICEYE Establishes National Headquarters in Portugal and Germany (Source: Spacewatch Global)
ICEYE has established two new European offices in Portugal and Germany, appointing Rui Costa and Philipp Herkelmann as the respective CEOs of ICEYE Portugal and ICEYE Germany. This comes just weeks after the company's expansion of its wildfire intelligence capabilities to Canada, aiming to cement its position as a global wildfire intelligence provider, following its EUR 450 million Series F funding round raise. (7/10)

NASA Sure Seems to be Asking an Awful Lot of Private Space Stations (Source: Ars Technica)
So what do the private companies—the key players are Axiom Space, Vast Space, Voyager, Blue Origin, and possibly SpaceX—think about the new document? There are two main feelings: relief and concern. The relief is easy to explain. A government-sponsored core module was widely disliked and seen as an effort by NASA JSC, which operates the ISS, to remain in the business of operating a space station. Now that worry is gone.

But there are multiple reasons for concern. One is lost time. The private companies expected phase two to begin at least a year or two ago, and they are struggling to raise funding and support growing workforces in the interim. NASA rules for human safety in orbit will drive the designs the private companies ultimately build. So companies really need to know exactly what NASA wants, and how much it is willing to pay to move forward. (7/10)

China Unveils Members of State-Backed Commercial Space Consortium (Source: Space News)
A Chinese government body has published a national commercial space consortium membership list. The published roster gives investors, prime contractors, and suppliers a clearer read on which firms China’s state apparatus is formally positioning as “established players” in commercial space. Consortium membership can signal near-term access to government-backed coordination, partnership pathways, and priority engagement across program opportunities. (7/10)

FCC Approves Reflect Orbital Demo Satellite to Test Redirecting Sunlight (Source: Via Satellite)
The FCC issued approval for startup Reflect Orbital to launch a demonstration satellite that will test a solar reflector in orbit that’s designed to reflect sunlight back to Earth. The company is preparing to launch a Earendil-1 satellite with “deployable, highly specular thin-film reflector” designed to redirect sunlight from orbit to specific locations on Earth. Reflect Orbital said it expects the mission to launch later this year, and it will be the first of several test missions. (7/10)

Japan's ElevationSpace Looks to Europe Space Cargo Unlimited for Reentry (Source: Space News)
Japanese startup ElevationSpace signed an agreement with a European company for its reentry vehicle. ElevationSpace said Thursday it will work with Space Cargo Unlimited to study how to fly that company's microgravity experiment platforms on its spacecraft. ElevationSpace is developing ELS-R, a free-flyer spacecraft with a reentry capsule to conduct microgravity research and manufacturing, as well as a version intended to return experiments from space stations. ElevationSpace recently raised $40 million ahead of a test flight of ELS-R in 2027. A company executive said at a conference Thursday that he believes there is room for his company's vehicle alongside SpaceX's much larger Starfall reentry vehicle. (7/10)

Limited Public Shares Make SpaceX Stock Volatile (Source: Space News)
Volatility is the name of the game when it comes to SpaceX stock. Only a small amount of SpaceX stock is available for public trading, making the shares susceptible to big swings as insiders remain subject to lockups. Some expect volatility to remain part of the company's stock market story in the short term, particularly because of an unusually large retail allocation that brings in buyers more likely to chase the IPO's momentum, or retreat quickly on negative headlines. (7/10)

Pulse Space Wins $40 Million Space Force Contract for Laser Tech (Source: Space News)
Pulse Space, a startup developing laser technology designed to transmit power and data between spacecraft, won a $40 million Space Force contract. The award will support development of its laser-based technology but the company did not specify what military applications will be demonstrated under this agreement. Pulse Space is developing laser systems that can wirelessly transmit electrical power and data between spacecraft, technology that could support space networks by allowing satellites to share power and communicate through optical links. (7/10)

Xona Partners to Prep LEO Constellation (Source: Space News)
Navigation satellite startup Xona Space Systems has announced partnerships with companies developing equipment compatible with its planned constellation. Xona unveiled the Pulsar Verified program Thursday, giving companies a technical path to validate the compatibility of receivers and simulation equipment with Xona's Pulsar constellation. Xona has been working for years with industry partners including the largest commercial manufacturers of Global Navigation Satellite System chipsets to ensure their equipment can work with the Pulsar low Earth orbit system. Xona plans to begin in-space beta testing later this year after the launch of six satellites. (7/10)