July 7, 2026

Canadian Artemis II Crew Member Jeremy Hansen Stepping Down From Astronaut Role (Source: CNN)
Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, who captivated the world when he flew around the moon alongside three American crewmates during the Artemis II mission in April, said Monday that he would step back from a full-time astronaut role in September. Hansen said the move was “far from a departure,” as he would transition to serve as a reservist member of the Royal Canadian Air Force in a deliberate move “to leave the door open for creative, ongoing ways to support and enable the vital work happening in Canada with respect to space.” (7/6)

Voyager Closes $250 Million Credit Facility (Source: Voyager)
Voyager Technologies (NYSE: VOYG) closed a $250 million credit facility led by J.P. Morgan. The upsized facility expands Voyager’s financial flexibility, providing liquidity at scale to support accelerating customer demand across the company’s space, defense and national security portfolio. “We are building a generational defense and space company, and this capital position reflects the confidence our financial partners have in where we’re headed.” (7/6)

DoD SpaceX Awards Call Into Question Pentagon's Commitment to Competition (Source: Space News)
Recent multibillion-dollar awards to SpaceX have raised questions about the Pentagon's commitment to competition. The awards, worth nearly $6.5 billion, put SpaceX at the forefront of efforts to build a global military surveillance network and a space-based communications backbone for missile defense. The Pentagon is seeking to expand military space capabilities while simultaneously urging industry to invest in manufacturing capacity and scale production.

However, its efforts to create a competitive market for proliferated military satellites is running into rising operational urgency, resulting in an increased reliance on one company — SpaceX — that has mastered industrial-scale production. Some in Congress have raised concerns about that strategy, pushing the Defense Department to increase competition in major procurements as a way to reduce costs, encourage innovation and preserve industrial capacity. (7/7)

Iridium Completes Aireon Acquisition Ahead of Rocket Lab Acquisition (Source: Space News)
Iridium Communications has completed its takeover of Aireon, bringing the aircraft-tracking venture fully in-house. Iridium said Monday that it bought the remaining 61% of Aireon it did not already own from air navigation service providers in several countries, completing a $367 million deal announced in May. Aireon, which has provided an aviation safety service since 2019 using Iridium satellites and the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) signals aircraft broadcast, will continue to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary. The Aireon purchase closed a week after Iridium agreed to be acquired by Rocket Lab for $8 billion. Rocket Lab has not discussed specific plans for Aireon but said it wants to enhance Iridium services in general. (7/7)

BAE Microprocessor Passes Radiation Testing for Military Space Use (Source: Space News)
BAE Systems says a microprocessor intended for use in military space applications has passed key tests. The company said the Endura processor performed reliably in testing designed to simulate both the natural radiation environment of space and the more severe strategic radiation conditions required for certain defense missions. Endura integrates multiple onboard computing functions into a single device used to power satellites operating in the harsh environment of space. BAE Systems says it is discussing use of the chip with multiple prime contractors for missile defense applications. (7/7)

Belgium's Simera to Provide Multispectral Imagers for Spanish Wildfire Constellation (Source: Space News)
Simera Space will provide multispectral imagers for a Spanish wildfire-tracking satellite system. The Belgian company said it is building eight MultiScape100 sensors for Telespazio's Spanish subsidiary, which recently won 21.3 million euros ($24.4 million) from the local Canary Islands government to be prime contractor for the Earth observation constellation.  The imagers will be placed on three satellites slated to launch in the second half of 2028. The constellation, using satellites from Spanish company AVS, would be optimized specifically for the environmental and operational challenges facing the islands. (7/7)

NASA Redirects Post-ISS Plans, Seeks Fixed-Price Vendors for Commercial Station Development (Source: NASA)
NASA issued a draft request for proposals for the next phase of its commercial space station program. The draft RFP for the next phase of the Commercial LEO Destinations program comes after NASA said last month it would not pursue an alternative approach involving a government-procured core module for the ISS that commercial modules would attach to. Instead, NASA says it is following the desire of industry to issue fixed-price contracts to advance development of commercial stations, with the agency planning to make at least two awards for early station development, and then one or more for final design and certification. Feedback on the draft RFP is due to NASA late this month. (7/7)

Musk No Longer A Trillionaire: What Went Wrong With SpaceX IPO (Source: NDTV)
Three weeks. That's all it took for Elon Musk to go from becoming the world's first trillionaire to slipping below the 13-digit mark. When SpaceX made its blockbuster Nasdaq debut on June 12, shares were priced at $135, opened at $150, and surged sharply in the following sessions. At one point, the company was worth nearly $2.8 trillion, briefly overtaking Amazon in market capitalization. Musk's personal fortune climbed past $1.4 trillion, rewriting financial history. But the euphoria didn't last.

By early July, SpaceX shares had fallen more than 30 per cent from their peak, erasing hundreds of billions of dollars in market value. Musk's fortune dropped below the trillion-dollar mark once again, fluctuating around $992-$997 billion depending on the wealth tracker. He remains the richest person in the world, but no longer a trillionaire. Most insider-held shares remain locked up, with phased releases expected after the company's August earnings. Until then, the stock's relatively limited float could continue to exaggerate price movements. (7/6)

SpaceX Cautioned Against Buying T-Mobile (Source: Phone Arena)
The telecom industry is going through... something. While traditional carriers have stopped innovating, space companies are getting creative. Cellular growth is cooling off, but SpaceX wants in anyway. While President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell has floated the idea of building a terrestrial network, the cost and time constraints make that a long shot. A quicker entry point would be scooping up T-Mobile, but that might just be inviting more problems.

SpaceX and T-Mobile already collaborate on direct-to-device (D2D) and broadband, so the synergy is there. Stepping into cellular territory could muddy the company's focus. And SpaceX would have to fork over upward of $180 billion for T-Mobile, straining its finances just to limit its own reach.

That's because buying T-Mobile closes the door on potential partnerships with AT&T and Verizon. Sure, those two have inked deals with AST SpaceMobile, but with AST stumbling, they will likely look to team up with SpaceX when its exclusivity with T-Mobile expires. By outright owning T-Mobile, SpaceX locks itself out of two-thirds of the mobile market. (7/6)

NASA’s Curiosity Rover is Investigating Unusual Polygon Structures That Look Like a “Giant Martian Honeycomb” (Source: The Debrief)
An unusual discovery on the Red Planet has revealed an odd-looking series of polygon-shaped structures, documented in new images obtained by NASA’s Curiosity Rover. The curious features were discovered after Curiosity was dispatched to an area of interest on the Martian terrain initially identified from orbital imagery obtained by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

Senior Research Scientist William Farrand of the Space Science Institute described the area in question as being “covered with polygonal structures like the top of a giant Martian honeycomb.” Similar polygon-shaped features are often seen in geology, such as the famous Giant’s Causeway on Northern Ireland’s Antrim Coast. (7/6)

NASA Leading Whole-of-Government Mandate for Space Nuclear Power/Propulsion (Source: Aviation Week)
Driven by an urgent U.S. government mandate to develop space nuclear power and propulsion, NASA is leading a whole-of-government charge to accelerate the deployment of reactors on the Moon and in orbit. But after six decades of stop-start development since the experimental SNAP-10 reactor launched to space in 1965, can U.S. space nuclear ambitions finally get off the launchpad? National security requirements, combined with the White House’s strategic vision for U.S. space superiority, have elevated space nuclear capability to a national priority, says Kristin Houston.

After decades of stalled progress, the stakes for U.S. space nuclear power have risen sharply. China and Russia are developing a joint nuclear powerplant to support a future lunar research station, with operations targeted for 2036. At the same time, growing competition in space is driving the Pentagon to pursue highly maneuverable spacecraft that will require new propulsion systems capable of operating farther from Earth and moving more dynamically in orbit.

The U.S. military is not rushing to field nuclear propulsion, however. Senior officials want to determine whether the technology can deliver the high thrust and high delta-v needed for future satellite missions. (6/30)

NASA Employs Psychological Stressors During Astronaut Selection Process (Source: Space Daily)
The specific function of identifying worrisome psychological factors, at NASA, falls to a group called Behavioral Health and Performance, or BHP, an operational team within the medical sciences directorate at Johnson Space Center in Houston. The BHP team consists of operational psychologists and research psychologists who work together on astronaut selection, psychological training, in-flight behavioral support, and family support programs.

The direct BHP contribution to astronaut selection extends across approximately six to seven months of the total seventeen-month selection process. During that period, candidates who have passed the initial application screening are brought to Johnson Space Center for a sequence of interviews, group exercises, medical evaluations, and psychiatric assessments. The specific tools the BHP team uses have been developed and refined over decades of NASA experience.

The tactic of interrupting a candidate mid-sentence and criticizing their reasoning is not designed to intimidate the candidate. It is designed to observe what the candidate does next. The candidate who apologizes and defers is behaving substantially differently from the candidate who acknowledges the criticism, holds their position, and continues to reason. The tactic of telling a candidate their correct solution is wrong is not designed to embarrass them. It is designed to observe whether they collapse under contradiction from an authority figure or continue to trust their own judgment. (7/6)

NASA Adds Three European Firms to the Commercial Data Program (Source: Space News)
On June 23, NASA’s Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) program announced contract awards covering eight new commercial satellite data providers, including three European firms: Kuva Space (Finland), OroraTech (Germany) and Satlantis (Spain). Their inclusion brings additional European capacity into a US-led procurement framework. For operators and data aggregators, CSDA contract awards signal near-term demand and can influence data product roadmaps, geographies served and technology priorities. (7/6)

ESA and Canadian Space Agency Fund NorthStar Plan to Speed Up Collision Alerts (Source: SpaceQ)
The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) are funding the next phase of NorthStar Earth & Space’s plan to process space surveillance data directly in orbit. The Montreal-based company is developing artificial intelligence software to detect faint objects using onboard satellite computers. This edge computing method processes information in space before sending it to Earth, reducing the time needed to identify potential collision threats.

As low-Earth orbit (LEO) becomes increasingly congested, commercial and defence operators need rapid updates to avoid collisions. Traditional space surveillance requires beaming raw images to ground stations for analysis, creating a data bottleneck. Shifting machine learning algorithms directly to the satellite filters out the noise, reducing bandwidth requirements and increasing the network’s overall observation capacity. (7/6)

NorthStar Earth & Space Weighs Public-Market Debut Via SPAC Merger with Viking Acquisition Corp. (Source: Space Intel Report)
Space situation awareness service provider NorthStar Earth & Space of Canada, which is planning an IPO following a merger with Viking Acquisition Corp. I, a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC), is positioning its future constellation of satellites as a superior alternative to ground-based lasers for monitoring satellite activity. NorthStar, whose initial buildout of in-orbit sensors was curtailed by what it said were performance defects on the sensors launched in 2024 on Spire Global satellites, is planning a 96-sensor fleet on satellites owned by Kepler Communications, a fellow Canadian satellite operator. (7/6)

Revolutionary Superconducting Thruster Harnesses Earth's Magnetic Field in 1st Orbital Test (Source: Space.com)
New Zealand company Zenno Astronautics has tested the first of its kind thruster based on superconducting magnets to maintain the position of a satellite in space. Superconducting magnets can convert solar energy directly into momentum in space and provide a source of acceleration that needs no fuel, but until recently, the technology was too large and complex to fit on a satellite. That's no longer the case. Zenno Astronautics, a spin-off from the University of Auckland, has flown its new "Supertorquer" system on the Mira satellite built by California-based start-up Impulse Space. (7/6)

NASA Faces On-Orbit Servicing Challenge for Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) (Source: SatNews)
NASA astrophysics division director Shawn Domagal-Goldman confirmed that the agency’s upcoming flagship alien-hunting telescope, the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), is being structurally engineered to mandate robotic in-space servicing, assembly, and maintenance (ISAM). The strategic engineering pivot represents a fundamental departure from the fixed, single-lifecycle design philosophies of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), transforming the $11 billion optical instrument into an upgradable orbital asset destined for the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2 (L2). (7/6)

Isar Aerospace Signs Agreement for Canadian Launch Site (Source: Space News)
Isar Aerospace has signed an agreement to develop a Canadian launch site for Spectrum, the company's two-stage orbital launch vehicle. The agreement is linked to a broader deal involving the sale of submarines to the Canadian military. The arrangement connects small-launch infrastructure work with defense-driven procurement and industrial cooperation. (7/6)

Cyber in Space Signs Partnership Deal with ExeQuantum (Source: Via Satellite)
Cyber in Space hopes a partnership with ExeQuantum will enable it to deliver better advanced cyber resilience and quantum-readiness services to organizations across the global aerospace and space ecosystem. The partnership will enable Cyber in Space to incorporate ExeQuantum’s cryptographic discovery capabilities within its advisory services. This will allow clients to identify cryptographic vulnerabilities, understand their exposure to ‘harvest now, decrypt later’ threats and develop practical roadmaps towards quantum-safe operations. (7/6)

Astropolitics and the Post-Earth Economy (Source: Space Review)
A growing human presence in space means expanding beyond the realm of instantaneous communications we have become accustomed to on Earth. David Rogers says that will mean fundamentally rethinking governance. Click here. (7/6)
 
Rededicating a Space Museum (Source: Space Review)
The National Air and Space Museum marked its 50th anniversary last week with a rededication. Jeff Foust reports on the nearly complete overhaul of the museum that now features several new space-related exhibits. Click here. (7/6)
 
“Vastly, Hugely, Mind-Bogglingly Big”: The Galaxy Garden as a Milky Way Analog (Source: Space Review)
The Milky Way galaxy is such a huge structure that it is almost impossible for the human mind to comprehend how vast it is. Deana Weibel visits one effort to do so, in the form of a garden in Hawaii. Click here. (7/6)
 
Transforming Domains: Space, Military Justice, and the Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corps in 2050 (Source: Space Review)
While the US Space Force is a separate military branch, it still relies on the Air Force for some capabilities, including lawyers. Todd Pennington discusses why evolutions in both the Space Force and the military justice system mean that arrangement will likely change. Click here. (7/6)
 
The Mars Tax: Starship’s Toll on American Lunar Ambitions (Source: Space Review)
SpaceX’s Starship is one of the two lunar landers being developed for landing NASA astronauts on the Moon. Ethan Hicks argues that Starship’s origins as a Mars vehicle create a “tax” on its use as a lunar lander that jeopardizes the schedule for Artemis. Click here. (7/6)

Failed Rocket Firm Took Slice Out of Pizza Maker and Dry Cleaners (Source: The Times)
The collapse of Moray-based rocket manufacturer Orbex left behind £73.3 million in cumulative losses. Its creditors included a pizza maker, a dry cleaner, and a local café, among scores of other small and medium-sized enterprises. The firm, which planned the Sutherland Spaceport, ultimately went into administration and triggered liquidation for its subsidiaries. (7/7)

Italy Brings IRIDE Earth Observation Service Online (Source: European Spaceflight)
Italy’s IRIDE Earth observation service went live on 1 July, opening initial access to imagery and analytics from one of the program’s planned six satellite constellations for government users. While ASI did not share details about the initial imagery acquisitions, it did state that they “represent some of the application areas in which IRIDE will gradually be used, from civil protection and environmental monitoring to security, cultural heritage protection and international cooperation.” (7/6)

"Dual Use" is a Misleading Term (Source: Space News)
There is only technology. How it is employed is a question of intent, context and political will, not of the technology itself. A precision optical payload captures imagery whether the target is a forest fire or a forward operating base. Autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations software closes distance on a piece of debris or an adversary asset according to instruction, not category. The knife cuts bread or threatens a neighbour; the capability is the same. The term “dual-use” has always obscured this, but in the present strategic environment it has become worse than imprecise. It has become a distraction. (7/6)

Blue Origin Insulates Lunar Landers from Launch Pad Recovery Fallout (Source: SatNews)
Blue Origin Senior Vice President of Lunar Permanence John Couluris confirmed that engineering, assembly, and integration work on its Blue Moon lunar lander lines remains insulated from the launch infrastructure recovery underway in Florida. Blue Origin is actively assembling seven distinct Blue Moon lunar landers at its manufacturing facilities, moving forward with its long-term cislunar delivery manifest for both NASA and commercial clients.

The manufacturing pipeline for the Blue Moon lander portfolio consists of two separate vehicle blocks engineered to establish an active logistical pipeline to the lunar surface. The initial operational variant, the Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1), is a single-stage, cargo-only robotic lander designed to deliver up to three metric tons of payload to any location on the lunar surface. The company is currently building three MK1 flight articles, led by the pathfinder vehicle named Endurance.

Concurrently, manufacturing teams are assembling four full-scale Blue Moon Mark 2 (MK2) architectures. The MK2 serves as the primary crewed vehicle for Blue Origin’s Human Landing System (HLS) National Team, which secured a $3.4 billion NASA development contract in 2023. This larger architecture relies on an integrated high-capacity cryogenic fluid management system to keep its liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants sub-cooled over long-duration orbital coast phases. The MK2 is tasked with transporting astronauts from the near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) down to the lunar south pole starting with the Artemis V mission. (7/6)

Center for Space Futures, Novaspace and SpaceTech Gulf Sign Agreement to Develop Global Space Capability Mapping Dashboard (Source: Space News)
The Centre for Space Futures (CSF), in partnership with Novaspace and SpaceTech Gulf, has signed a Memorandum of Cooperation to jointly develop a “Global Space Capability Mapping and Index Dashboard.” The initiative is aimed at consolidating information on global space capabilities into a dashboard format, providing a common reference tool that can influence partnership targeting and investment priorities. (7/6)

AESPP Unveils Africa–Europe New Space EO Initiative for a Scalable Earth Observation Mission (Source: Spacewatch Global)
The Africa–Europe Space Partnership Program (AESPP) announced a new Africa–Europe Earth Observation initiative aimed at developing a scalable EO mission. The program is designed to facilitate EO missions and investments that generate tangible socio-economic benefits across the African continent. (7/6)

Apophis Is Coming. Planetary Defense Is Coming of Age (Source: Spacewatch Global)
Apophis’ 2029 approach puts planetary defense execution into sharper focus, with DART, Hera and RAMSES providing examples for how missions can be structured to take action against asteroid threats. These missions suggest that capability-building is not just technological, but also organizational—centered on global cooperation required to plan, fund, and operate coordinated spacecraft efforts. For space decision-makers, Apophis can drive concepts for future planetary-risk mitigation programs, using lessons learned from science missions. These lessons include science instrumentation, navigation/impact techniques, and end-to-end response planning. (7/6)

ESA and Airbus Move Forward with Aeolus-2, with UK Expertise (Source: UKSA)
The European Space Agency has commissioned Airbus Defense and Space to develop Aeolus-2, a wind-monitoring satellite set for a 2034 launch. The $58.3 million project aims to enhance global wind profile data with an advanced lidar instrument, building on the successes of the original Aeolus and EarthCARE missions. Aeolus-2 will provide comprehensive wind data to improve weather forecasting and climate research.

Airbus teams in the UK will contribute expertise and build on their heritage from the original Aeolus mission, ‘Aeolus-1’, which exceeded its planned lifetime and whose data was adopted by weather services around the world. (7/3)

Proposed Supersonic Rule Would Enable Sonic Boom Mitigations to Allow US Flight Operations (Source: AIAA)
The FAA is proposing a maximum pressure-wave reading at ground level, basically a “noise-based certification standard,” to replace the 53-year-old ban on commercial aircraft flying at speed of Mach 1 or greater over the continental U.S. A new 63-page draft rule states that such flights would only be permitted if “the aircraft be operated such that sonic boom overpressure at the surface does not exceed 0.11 pound per square foot (psf),” among other conditions.

Editor's Note: This would open the door for supersonic aircraft operators, like Boom Supersonic and Starfighters Space, to employ novel noise mitigation approaches to broaden their access to new markets. It might also facilitate the development of a proposed supersonic/hypersonic flight test corridor in the airspace near Midland Air and Space Port in Texas. (7/2)