July 14, 2026

The Space Race Comes to Latin America (Source: Americas Quarterly)
Why would Ecuador, of all places, be a focus in Latin America’s new space race? A new private spaceport is planned there for vertical launches and horizontal vehicle recovery at one of three potential sites. The Guayaquil area is strategic because it sits just two degrees south of the equator, meaning rockets launched there can carry more payload at a lower cost.

Compared to many other countries that sit directly on the equator—a list that includes Congo, Somalia, Uganda and Indonesia, as well as Colombia and Brazil—Ecuador, with its dollarized economy and business-friendly government, looks attractive despite its security challenges.

Space is an important theater in the strategic rivalry between China and the United States, with both superpowers vying in Latin America for allies and key geography such as the Southern Cone region, whose clear skies are ideal for tracking satellites. Meanwhile, Latin American governments are determined to be not just a battleground in a new Cold War, but key protagonists in the space industry’s growth and governance. (7/14)

Pentagon Wants Space-Based Solar Power, Potential Investors Want a Committed Customer (Source: Breaking Defense)
The military sees major potential for Silicon Valley and venture capital to help deploy space-based solar power. However, while VCs are funding lighter, more efficient power technologies, they hesitate to back massive orbital energy projects without DoD first committing to be an anchor customer. The DoD wants to beam solar energy wirelessly from space to remote, austere locations on Earth, or directly to other orbital assets. (7/14)

NASA SunRISE Smallsat Shifts From Vulcan to Falcon Heavy for Rideshare (Source: NASA)
A NASA smallsat mission is shifting launch vehicles. NASA announced Monday that the SunRISE mission, previously set to launch as a rideshare payload on a U.S. Space Force flight of a Vulcan Centaur, will instead fly on a Falcon Heavy as a rideshare on another Space Force mission. NASA did not disclose a new launch date for the mission, which was previously planned to launch this summer. NASA did not give a reason for the shift, but the Vulcan has not flown since a February mission that encountered an anomaly with one of its solid rocket boosters. SunRISE, or Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment, features six smallsats flying just above geosynchronous orbit that will monitor radio bursts from the sun's corona. (7/14)

Scolese Retires From NRO (Source: NRO)
Chris Scolese has formally retired as NRO director. The agency said Monday that Scolese's last day as director was last Friday, concluding a nearly seven-year tenure as the NRO's first Senate-confirmed leader. The White House has nominated Roger Mason to be his successor, with a confirmation hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee scheduled for today. Principal Deputy Director Bill Adkins will serve as acting director until Mason is confirmed. (7/14)

Sugar Cloud Found in Space (Source: New York Times)
Astronomers have discovered the galaxy has a sweet tooth. Observations of a cloud of gas and dust near the Milky Way's center turned up evidence of erythrulose, a sugar molecule found in raspberries. It's the first time a sugar molecule has been seen in interstellar space, and adds to evidence that sugar molecules were delivered to the early Earth from asteroid and comet impacts, providing key compounds for life to form. (7/14)

ESA Plans Poland Space Center (Source: Space News)
ESA will develop a new space center in Poland focused on civil security and resilience. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and ESA's director general Josef Aschbacher announced the new facility during a press conference Monday in Warsaw. The center will contribute to the implementation of ESA's growing activities in security and resilience. Poland has sharply increased its contributions to ESA and is boosting its expenditure on space-related programs while supporting a growing space industry in the country. (7/14)

UK Space Strategy Update Will Provided Whole-of-Government Attention to Space (Source: Space News)
The British government is preparing to release a new space strategy that will provide a whole-of-government approach to space. At a conference last week, Rebecca Evernden, director of the U.K. Space Agency, said the strategy, set for release "in the coming weeks," would provide guidance for civil, commercial and national security space activities, grounding them on the goals of economic growth and national security. The strategy will have four key focus areas: satellite communications, launch, space domain awareness and space sustainability, and in-space servicing and manufacturing. A new defense investment plan released last month pledged more than £3 billion ($4 billion) in additional spending on satellite communications and space-based ISR through 2030. (7/14)

Defense Spending Raises Europe's Space Economy (Source: Space News)
Increased defense spending is helping Europe's space economy. A study released Monday by ESA found that European government space spending jumped 12% to 13.5 billion euros ($15.4 billion) in 2025 even as government spending worldwide slumped. The United States represented 58% of global government space budgets in 2025, with China ranked second at 15% followed by Europe at 11%. The report also noted that European space companies are at a disadvantage in capturing the increased defense spending, as many governments there do not give preferences to domestic industry even as the United States and China lock out foreign suppliers. (7/14)

SpaceX Conducts Bi-Coastal Starlink Launches on Monday and Tuesday (Source: Spaceflight Now)
SpaceX conducted a pair of Starlink launches overnight. One Falcon 9 lifted off Monday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, putting 27 Starlink satellites into orbit. A second Falcon 9 lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport in Florida Tuesday, putting 29 Starlink satellites into orbit. The Florida launch was the 600th flight of a Falcon 9 to use a previously flown booster. (7/14)

NASA’s Hubble Discovers First of Star Cluster’s Missing Black Holes (Source: NASA)
The massive globular star cluster Omega Centauri has puzzled astronomers for decades. It should be filled with black holes left behind by exploding stars, yet evidence for them is scarce. Now, astronomers using archival data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and supportive observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have finally located their first stellar-mass black hole in this cluster.  (7/13)

Jackal, Puma Spacecraft to Chase Each Other Victus Haze Demo (Source: Breaking Defense)
With the first, threshold-setting missions for the Space Force’s Victus Haze demonstration now complete, space firms Rocket Lab and True Anomaly will undertake several sets of maneuvers over the next six months in a celestial game of tag — trading roles as chaser and chased, according to executives from both companies.

The point of the game is to demonstrate rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO), which involve close maneuvers around a target satellite to either surveil it, as is the primary goal of Victus Haze; help it, for exampling by refueling; or, in the case of on-orbit combat, hurt it. Victus Haze is the second of several Victus demos planned under the service’s Tactically Responsive Space (TacRS) program. (7/13)

China's Rocket Recovery Validates New Approach with Net-Capture System (Source: Aerospace Global News)
China has successfully recovered the first stage of its Long March-10B rocket using a sea-based net capture system, demonstrating a different approach to reusable launch vehicles as countries race to reduce the cost of access to space. The maiden flight of the Long March-10B lifted off from the Hainan Commercial Space Launch Site on 10 July, placing its payload into orbit before the rocket’s first stage returned under powered flight and was captured by a purpose-built recovery vessel in the South China Sea.

Chinese state media described it as the world’s first successful net-based recovery of an orbital-class launch vehicle. The recovery makes China one of only a handful of nations to demonstrate controlled recovery of an orbital-class rocket booster. More significantly, it introduces an engineering approach that differs from the landing-leg systems pioneered by SpaceX and later adopted by Blue Origin. (7/14)

Reditus Readies First Launch of its Re-Entry Vehicle/Hypersonic Target (Source: Breaking Defense)
Atlanta-bases startup Reditus Space has completed construction of its reusable re-entry vehicle for microgravity research, which also is being developed for DoD use as a hypersonics test bed — and, potentially, target vehicle. The spacecraft, called ENOS, can carry payloads for military testers wanting to evaluate how a specific system or technology functions in a hypersonic environment — or instead serve as a Mach 25+ target vehicle for interceptors both above and within the atmosphere. (7/13)

Northrop Grumman Sets Launch Date For Robotic Servicing Spacecraft (Source: Aviation Week)
Northrop Grumman expects to launch its in-space robotic servicer no earlier than July 21. The Mission Robotic Vehicle (MRV), a spacecraft built by Northrop Grumman subsidiary SpaceLogistics that is about the size of a minivan, will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. (7/14)

Sejba Named to Advisory Role at Florida Tech (Source: Florida Tech)
Retired U.S. Space Force Maj. Gen. Timothy Sejba, a past STARCOM commander and former Special Assistant to the Vice Chief of Space Operations, will bring his extensive military and space leadership experience to Florida Tech in the new role of Military Affairs Advisor to the President. (7/6)

The Implications of Dual-Use for Protecting Space Assets (Source: Via Satellite)
For many years Europe organized space around clear distinctions. Civil programs were separated from defense. Commercial companies served institutional customers. Governments developed sovereign capabilities while industry provided technology and services. The concept of dual-use existed, but it remained politically uncomfortable. The separation itself was often seen as a strength. Today, that separation is becoming increasingly artificial. Not because governments deliberately decided to abandon it, but because reality has moved faster than policy.

Satellites are only one element within a much broader system that includes launch services, sensors, ground stations, communications networks, cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence, software, user terminals and the people operating them. Modern space architectures are assembled rather than owned. A government may operate sovereign satellites while relying on commercial launch services. It may own sensors but use commercial cloud infrastructure. It may develop sovereign command-and-control capabilities while purchasing commercial imagery or communications. (7/13)

Saudi Arabia Strengthens China Partnership in Space (Source: Saudi Gazette)
The Minister of Communications and Information Technology met with government leaders and major technology companies in China to strengthen partnerships in artificial intelligence and the space sector. The two sides discussed expanding cooperation in artificial intelligence, the digital economy, technology transfer, and talent exchange programs. They also explored opportunities to expand the presence of major Chinese technology companies in Saudi Arabia. (7/14)

Debris Cloud Discovered in High-Traffic Orbit (Source: Space.com)
Tiny pieces of space junk only 2 inches in size are cluttering a valuable orbital region where some of the costliest satellites reside, a new study has found. Researchers from the University of Warwick in the U.K. found that the geostationary orbit — a region of space at the altitude of 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) — is full of dangerous, previously unseen bits of space junk that could destroy satellites. (7/13)

Spinifex Space Teams With Australian Test Ranges (Source: Payload)
Spinifex Space was established Monday to provide end-to-end suborbital launch campaigns, private range access, and test and evaluation (T&E) infrastructure from facilities in southwestern Queensland, Australia. Spinifex says its team spun out of Black Sky Industries, an Australian developer and supplier of solid rocket propellant and solid rocket motors

Spinifex itself does not build rockets. Instead, its products are the land and the licenses required for flight. Spinifex operates out of two primary facilities: Black Sands Test Range provides multiple T&E facilities for energetics, kinetic effector, and hypersonic vehicle test programs; and Outback Space Port at the MAXQ facility supports suborbital vertical launch and horizontal launch test campaigns, spanning more than 3M acres of southwestern Queensland. (7/14)

SpaceX Stock Falls 4.2% in Back-to-Back Session, Tests $135 IPO Price (Source: StartupHub)
SpaceX (SPCX) fell 4.24% on July 13 to $139.14, its second straight session of losses, on volume of 70.5 million shares. The stock now sits 3% above the $135 IPO price floor. (7/13)

South Korea's Flexell Space Raises $20 Million (Source: Space News)
Flexell Space, a South Korean developer of next-generation highly efficient solar cells, completed a $20 million funding round. Completed approximately two years after the company’s founding, the investment reflects strong confidence from leading Korean investors. The company originated as an in-house venture of Hanwha Systems. (7/13)

L3Harris And Sierra Space Receive $1.75 Billion For SDA Tranche 3, Tracking Layer (Source: Defense Daily)
L3Harris Technologies [LHX] is receiving $955 million and Sierra Space $798 million rapid prototyping contracts for an expedited launch of Tranche 3, Tracking Layer satellites by the end of 2028, the Space Development Agency (SDA) said. Under the Accelerated Missile Defense Tranche 3 (AMDT3) awards, L3Harris is to build 18 "Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS)-like missile defense variant" space vehicles (SVs) across two orbital planes. Sierra Space is under contract for “18 Missile Warning/Missile Tracking variant SVs across two orbital planes.” (7/13)

Netherlands Adopts Mandate for Its New Space Agency (Source: European Spaceflight)
The Netherlands has formalized the mandate of its rebranded space agency, adding the Ministry of Defense to its steering committee for the first time. The formation of the new agency was announced on 3 March, with the Netherlands Space Office becoming the Netherlands Space Agency (NLSA). Following the renaming in March, the governance agreement and mandate for the new agency were officially signed on 12 June and published in the Government Gazette on 6 July. (7/13)

Final NASA Space Shuttle Crew Reflects Under Atlantis 15 Years Later (Source: Florida Today)
The final four shuttle astronauts returned to Kennedy Space Center this past weekend and addressed a crowd underneath their ride, Space Shuttle Atlantis, reflecting on that last flight of the space shuttle era 15 years ago. (7/13)

Rocket Lab Reaches Full Duration Neutron Engine Test Before Maiden Flight (Source: Simply Wall Street)
For investors watching Rocket Lab, the Neutron program sits at the center of the company's move beyond small satellite launches into heavier payloads and reuse. The successful full duration AVac engine test adds a new data point alongside missions such as the Space Force's VICTUS HAZE, which highlighted the company's role in responsive launch services.

As Neutron moves closer to its first mission, the risk profile for NasdaqGS:RKLB continues to depend on execution in larger, reusable rockets and on how quickly this capability can be brought to market. Readers may want to track further test milestones, customer announcements, and any updates on Neutron's launch timeline as indicators of how the broader story is progressing. (7/14)

Extant Aerospace Expands on Space Coast (Source: EDC of Florida's Space Coast)
Founded in 1962 as Symetrics Engineering, Extant Aerospace has built a legacy of more than six decades of innovation, advanced manufacturing, and workforce excellence, manufacturing, repairing, and supporting more than 5,000 part numbers and assemblies across a wide range of commercial aerospace and defense platforms.

The company's new Melbourne facility represents an investment of more than $75 million and will include over 376,000 square feet of operational space, with an additional 120,000 square feet planned for future expansion. Once fully operational, the facility is expected to support the company's growth from more than 250 employees today to more than 450 high-quality jobs. (7/14)