August 2, 2026

Space Force Awards K2 Space $22.9 Million for Laser Communications Demonstration (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Space Force will use K2 Space-built satellites to evaluate a key, previously unresolved element for future missile-defense systems: moving large volumes of data quickly between spacecraft and down to Earth via laser communications. Separately, the Space Force’s Laser Crosslink program has cleared independent verification and entered Phase 3 development toward flight hardware production. (8/1)

Poland Plans to Establish a Space Command (Source: Defence 24)
As part of a major reform of the Polish Armed Forces’ command structure, the Ministry of National Defence intends to establish a dedicated space command responsible for coordinating operations in the space domain. The planned changes were outlined by Lieutenant General Krzysztof Król, the Chief of the General Staff’s representative for the development of Poland’s wartime command system, in an interview with Defence24.pl Editor-in-Chief Jędrzej Graf. As he stressed, the development of space capabilities is essential for conducting modern multidomain operations. (8/1)

Elon Musk’s Fortune Slumps to Pre-SpaceX IPO Levels After Rout (Source: Bloomberg)
SpaceX pulled off a successful launch last Friday evening at its Starbase facility in South Texas, sending its Starship rocket into orbit. It hasn’t stopped Elon Musk’s fortune from falling back to Earth. The world’s first trillionaire is now poorer than he was before SpaceX’s initial public offering priced last month, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. (7/31)

Byron Donalds Launches ‘Space Race’ Policy Rocket (Source: Florida Politics)
Trump-backed Republican gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds has a plan to “make Florida the world’s headquarters for space exploration” and ensure “every Floridian” can be a part of the mission. Donalds wants to “permit at warp speed” starting in his first year as Governor, identifying 10 areas in Florida as “strategic development sites” for space manufacturing, and ensure companies get a “yes” when submitting plans.

Workforce readiness is also key, he said, with “zero-tuition training programs in conjunction with commercial companies.” Welders, machinists and construction crews are as needed as scientists, he said. To that end, Donalds will house an Office for Space Industry within the Governor’s Office in his first year. A Space Race Summit will also be an early priority as a recruitment tool, to make it clear that “Florida is the center of the space economy.”

He will also facilitate collaboration between the state and its dedicated agency, Space Florida, with commercial and academic partners. By his second year in office, the Space Florida Academy will play a central role in this initiative. Additionally, he seeks to have Space Force training in the state, and to relocate NASA headquarters to the state. (7/31)

ISRO Calls for Stronger Academia-Industry Partnership to Power Future Space Missions (Source: The Hindu)
ISRO Chairman and Secretary, Department of Space, V. Narayanan, on Friday called for closer collaboration between academia, industry and research institutions to help realize India’s ambitious space program, including plans to establish an indigenous space station by 2035 and land Indians on the Moon by 2040. Narayanan said the century-old Andhra University had made significant contributions to the nation by producing scientists, academicians and administrators, making it an ideal partner for advancing research and innovation. (8/1)

Scientists Use Moonquakes to Locate Lunar Ice (Source: University of Maryland)
By studying how seismic waves travel through frozen soil on Earth, a University of Maryland geophysicist helped develop a better way to detect water ice on the moon—a critical resource for future astronauts and extended lunar missions. “We can use seismic waves to not just see whether ice is present but also roughly how much of it there is.” (7/31)

NASA Langley Research Center Opens First Wind Tunnel in More Than 40 Years (Source: Virginian-Pilot)
NASA officials and state leadership cut the ribbon Friday on the agency’s first new wind tunnel in more than 40 years as the agency undergoes a wave of consolidation. The Flight Dynamics Research Facility at Langley Research Center is a 25,000-square-foot facility that aims to play a major role in providing research for flight vehicles and drones, as well as support the development of technology for missions like returning from the moon and Mars, exploration of Venus and Saturn’s moon Titan.

One of the building’s main features is a 20-foot-wide, 24-foot-tall vertical wind tunnel that operates similar to an indoor skydiving park. The facility will be used to advance space exploration and aeronautics through free flight and oscillation testing, along with other simulations.

The U.S. General Services Administration awarded the design-build construction contract for the facility to developer BL Harbert in 2021, and construction began in 2022. The total cost of the facility was roughly $57 million. That price tag awarded Langley a tunnel six to eight feet wider than most others in the world, more than double the wind speed and five times the forced power of existing wind tunnels. The larger capacity means some NASA projects will move to Langley, , including a device headed for Venus and research on the X-59 supersonic aircraft. Another one of those projects is RAVEN, a 1,000-pound unmanned aircraft. (7/31)

CEZA Backs Philippines Spaceport Effort (Source: Manila Times)
The Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA) said the announcement of a planned spaceport in Cagayan and the country’s first sounding rocket launch with South Korea is the result of years of coordinated work among government agencies and private partners. In a statement issued after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. cited the project in his 2026 State of the Nation Address (SONA), CEZA Chief Executive Officer Katrina Ponce Enrile described the development as a milestone for the agency and its partners. (8/1)

Oman Achieves Landmark Rocket Motor Test at Etlaq Spaceport (Source: Oman Observer)
British-Omani aerospace startup Advanced Rocket Technologies (ART) has conducted the first static fire test of what is described as Oman's first commercially built solid rocket motor, marking a milestone in the Sultanate of Oman's drive to establish indigenous space launch capabilities and a sovereign aerospace industry. The test was conducted at Duqm's Etlaq Spaceport in collaboration with Omani propulsion specialist Aqtar Space Technologies. (7/30)

The High-Stakes Battle for Invisible Real Estate in Space (Source: New York Times)
As radio spectrum becomes more scarce and strategically valuable, private operators including SpaceX are competing with governments for greater control of the frequencies that enable satellite communications. The contest is turning access to invisible orbital real estate into a critical commercial and policy battleground. (7/31)

Engineers Develop Plan to Rescue Satellite Supporting NASA’s Swift Mission (Source: Ars Technica)
The spacecraft, named Link, was rotating on multiple axes, rendering it unable to maintain a reliable communications link with the ground and complicating efforts to arrest the spin. Two of the satellite’s three reaction wheels, used for pointing, also stopped working. Through sporadic radio contact, engineers discovered a problem with some of the spacecraft’s cold gas thrusters used for finer attitude control.

The Link satellite is built, owned, and operated by Katalyst Space Technologies, a satellite servicing startup that won a $30 million contract from NASA to fly up to the Swift observatory, grab onto it, and boost its orbit before succumbing to aerodynamic drag and burning up int he atmosphere. The clock is ticking. In a few months, Swift will be too low for Katalyst to complete the rescue.

The company’s ground team is working to stabilize the spacecraft. The first step involves using the satellite’s plasma engines to gradually slow the spin. The engines are primarily designed for orbit-raising, but they’re also suitable for attitude control because they can vector their thrust with a two-axis gimbal. As of Friday, the spacecraft had cut its spin rate in half, from about 9 degrees per second to approximately 4 degrees per second. Officials hope to further reduce the spin rate, allowing Katalyst to improve communications with the spacecraft. (7/31)

China Launches Secretive TJS-27 Pair, Orbits Next-Gen Tianlian Relay Sat (Source: Space News)
China sent a new pair of secretive satellites into a programmatically new orbit Wednesday, while also upgrading its on-orbit communications relay capabilities. A Long March 6A rocket lifted off at 9:00 p.m. Eastern July 29 (0100 UTC, July 30) from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) announced launch success, revealing the payloads to be the communication technology test satellites 27A and 27B (TJS-27A and 27B.

CASC stated that the satellites are mainly to be used for satellite communication, broadcasting and television, data transmission and other services, and to carry out related technology experiments and verifications, providing no further details. CASC’s China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) and Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST) respectively developed TJS-27A and TJS-27B. (8/1)

Contractors File Liens, Complaining SpaceXAI Not Paying for Data Center Construction (Source: Action News 5)
A mechanical contractor who helped build Elon Musk’s Memphis-area data centers at breakneck speed says SpaceXAI is dragging its feet on paying his company for work performed since 2024. Darrell Cuttell, owner of Ohio-based Darana Hybrid, said SpaceXAI owes his company more than $136 million.

Dima Amro, the real estate and economic development reporter for the Memphis Business Journal, broke the story Friday. Cuttell’s company is one of several with liens filed against SpaceXAI for failing to pay for services rendered. “The contractors are alleging they haven’t been paid for years of construction work,” she told Action News 5. (7/31)

India's Space Law Vacuum (Source: LiveLaw)
With Skyroot Aerospace's successful Vikram-1 rocket launch, India has become the third nation where a private entity has independently developed and successfully launched an orbital rocket into the outer space. An equally significant story lies behind the launch, which is the legal framework that allows private participation in India's space sector. At present, in absence of a comprehensive statutory enactment, the India's Space sector is only regulated by a collection of executive policies, norms and guidelines. (8/2)
 
Details Emerge on a Potential SpaceX Spaceport in Coastal Louisiana (Source: NOLA.com)
Louisiana is in the final stages of a deal to bring Elon Musk’s SpaceX to coastal Vermilion Parish, where the aerospace giant is planning to build a new spaceport that will launch rockets into orbit from an 18-mile stretch of marshland about 45 miles southwest of Lafayette. The prospective deal, which has been rumored for months, would forever transform the remote area by bringing potentially thousands of jobs and a massive influx of aerospace and other commercial activity to the remote coastal community. The site for the planned facility, known as Pecan Island, is at the center of a complex settlement agreement resolving dozens of coastal lawsuits that blame ExxonMobil for pollution and land loss.

According to a source with firsthand knowledge, a settlement will involve SpaceX receiving control of the land, some 130,000 acres in all, whether through a sale, long-term lease or other type of arrangement. Gov. Landry has declined to comment on the SpaceX deal, though he previously confirmed a settlement in the coastal suits. Earlier this spring, the Louisiana Legislature passed a package of incentives designed to attract aerospace companies to the state. The far-reaching bills, since signed into law by Landry, would shield aerospace companies from liability and would block local governments and individuals from suing for damages.

Landry and his economic development officials have said the incentives are necessary to make Louisiana competitive for aerospace companies that create good-paying jobs. Experts say Pecan Island, with a permanent population of about 100, would be attractive to SpaceX because it is sparsely populated, is close to the Gulf and the Intracoastal Waterway with deep-water access that could accommodate heavy rockets on barges, and is midway between SpaceX facilities in Texas and Florida. It also has an abundance of natural gas, a needed fuel source. (8/2)

China's Observatory Discovers Powerful Cosmic Particle Accelerator (Source: Xinhua)
Scientists using China's Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) recently found that a remarkable binary system in the constellation Cygnus, Cygnus X-3, is the most powerful particle accelerator discovered to date, according to the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Cygnus X-3 is a binary system composed of a compact object (either a black hole or a neutron star) and a massive companion star. As the compact object voraciously accretes material from the intense stellar wind of its companion, it accelerates particles to extremely high energies. However, previous mainstream theories held that charged particles within the Milky Way could reach energies of about 1 PeV (peta-electron volt), scientists said. (8/2)

Air Force Expands Blue Origin Point-to-Point Rocket Cargo Contract (Source: Space News)
The Air Force Research Laboratory has added $11.7 million to a Blue Origin contract aimed at exploring how commercial rockets could be used to transport military supplies around the world, expanding the agreement to about $13 million. Blue Origin will assess how its space vehicles could be adapted for “point-to-point” transport. The effort is part of AFRL’s broader rocket cargo initiative, which envisions using commercial launch systems like airlines are used today — on-demand, service-based contracts that could deliver military cargo anywhere on Earth in under an hour. (8/2)

NASA's New KSC Chief Tackles Artemis Deadlines, Aging Infrastructure (Source: Florida Today)
Calling his job "a dream come true," Brian Hughes is settling into his role as director of NASA's Kennedy Space Center with praise for the workforce as preparations continue for Artemis III, critical infrastructure upgrades and ever-escalating commercial launches. (8/2)

Redwire Opens Indiana Facility for Space-Enabled Biomedical R&D and Manufacturing (Source: RedWire)
Jacksonville-based Redwire Corp. has opened its new 30,000 square foot state-of-the-art, vertically-integrated research and microgravity payload development facility in Georgetown, Indiana. The facility will serve as a global hub supporting accelerated demand as the company continues to expand its leadership in space-enabled research, development, and manufacturing with a focus on pharmaceutical/biotech innovation. (7/21)

Mars on Earth Reactivated: 2026 Advance Team Returns from Devon Island (Source: Mars Society)
The Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) sits at 75°N on Devon Island, Nunavut, The Mars Society analog habitat on the world's largest uninhabited island. I spent July 6–13 there as crew engineer along with Terry Trevino, Laura Thomas, PsychD, and Raleigh Swick.  Our job: assess, repair, and reactivate the station after another harsh Arctic winter. We left it in better shape than we found it, but the battle was real at times. Here's a quick summary of what we did. (7/21)

UCF to Review Space Ideation Challenge Concepts (Source: UCF)
The Space Ideation Challenge seeks innovative policy concepts that use market-shaping and “pay-for-success” approaches—such as incentive prizes, milestone payments, and advance market commitments—to accelerate space innovation, strengthen national security, grow the space economy, and advance science and technology. It includes a $125K prize purse, awarded after the review of 3-5-page white papers focusing on market-shaping space policy initiatives. Papers were due on July 31 and judging will be complete by Aug. 15. Click here. (8/2)

Guidance Published for UAP Disclosure (Source: Douglas Messier)
The world could soon learn whether claims that Earth is being visited by aliens (aka, non-human intelligence) from other worlds are true or not. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has issued preliminary guidance for the waiving of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) that have prevented current and former government officials and contractors from disclosing what they know about unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs).

The memorandum said those with information about UAPs will have their NDAs waived when speaking to authorized representatives of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE) Task Force or the Department of War’s (DoW) All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office. (8/2)